So...I'm sitting at my pc last Monday and the phone rings.
Me: Hello.
Voice: Is this Hank Mauel?
Me: Yes.
Voice: My name is Elvin Rainwater and I have one of your guitars.
Me: (Knowing he's not an original customer) Which one?
Elvin: #499.
Me: That's the 4th guitar completed in 1999. How did you come upon it?
The story unfolds. Elvin bought it at a (cringe) Guitar Center in St Louis, MO in 2002. It was traded in by a young man for an electric. Elvin says it was the best sounding guitar in the place (against Martin, Taylors, et al...but what would you expect???
)
Elvin continues...he's visiting/wintering in Phoenix AZ and wants to drive up to meet me, see my shop and reunite me with one of my instruments. He says how about Thursday. Fine by me.
Fast forward to 3 hours ago. Elvin arrives and sure enough has the nearly mint Dreadnought from 1999. Digging in my records I find the original owner bought it from Klein's Music in Sonoma. I had retrofitted it with the snowflake inlays and sent it on to St. Louis in 1999. Said buyer likes it so much he commissions me to build him a custom Grand OM (now called my McCloud model). After he receives that guitar in 2000, he gives the dred to his son, who plays in a band. So...guess who traded it in for an electric???
Anyway, Elvin is close behind looking for a guitar to add to his collection. Horror of horror's, he has a 1944 D-18 he wants to trade. Does the trade for 2 other instruments (not mine), goes home, can't sleep that night, returns to invoke the 30 day satisfaction clause at Guitar Center, reclaims his D-18 (thank God!) and buys my dred outright.
So, we talk for a couple hours and he has just departed.
The guitar looks and SOUNDS great. The are only a couple little dings on the binding and the usual scratches on the clear pickguard.
Here are a couple pics of the sweetheart.
The snowflake inlay
This also responds to the old posting about showing your label.
Proud owner!
