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Reverb has an DA Excel listed by a shop based in Miami. Letter shows guitar was formerly owned by Johnny Smith. Any comments insights, etc., would be greatly appreciated by this recovering guitar player.
Thanks.
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09-22-2016 10:50 PM
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I took a look at it on Reverb. It looks like the real deal but I don't know if JS actually owned it. The headstock is the older New Yorker type without the broken scroll and finial. It also looks like it has a fractured headstock repair. It was for sale at about $39,000 clamshells. I'm going back for another look.
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I took another look at the site and realized there was a second D'A guitar for sale. I looked at the wrong one. The one I looked at first was a New Yorker. This one is definitely an Excel from 55. It was sold to Hank Riesen (spelling) who dealt in high end vintage guitars in 1988. Along with the guitar is a letter Johnny Smith sent to Hank with his signature on the bottom so it's definitely the real deal. I sure wish I had the Semolians.
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Hank Risan, who lives in Santa Cruz, CA had a superb collection of high end guitars. It is my understanding that he had some legal troubles and many of his guitars were sold at auction. It looks like this one is from that collection and is a Johnny Smith owned DA (It appears that JS sold it to Risan in 1988 for 20K) The 40K asking price seems fair. (Using a CPI inflation calculator, this guitar should sell for a bit over 40K). Any cutaway DA with original finish and no headstock break is probably worth close to that.
How many jazz guitars are more important than that? Wes's L-5, Joe Pass's 175, Django's Selmer, Charlie Christian's 150 all come to mind. It is a lot of coin, but I bet few guitars in the world are as good.Last edited by Stringswinger; 09-23-2016 at 11:07 AM.
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If the serial number inside the guitar matches the serial number in the bill of sale, it could be a scrivenors error on the part of Johnny Smith. It is a bit too late to ask him though.
John D'Angelico stamped the serial number into the back of the guitar. It would be hard to fake this. In any event, 40K for a blonde Excel cutaway seems about right.
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not the iconic Roost Johnny DA, though he might have owned it
Originally Posted by sgcim
See, that's why he's the President; that post was so deep, I'm not sure if I understood it!
Are you saying that the guitar and letter should be sold separately? Why?
In any case, the VP is right, that guitar is the Holy Grail, and the reason for John D's reputation, JS' reputation and the Gibson JS Guitar reputation, if it is indeed the same guitar that JS played on the later Roost recordings.
The description talks about the pick guard, and other cosmetic features, but
there is no mention or sight of the DeArmond pickup that JS used on this guitar. Did JS use either of the RC models on those recordings?
Did he use the DeArmond 'Guitar Mic' model?
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How do you know? Originally Posted by wintermoon
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the Roost DA was a sunburst NYer special w/skyscraper headstock inlay.
this is a blonde regular Excel
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So, what became of the 'Roost' D'A JS played on the 'Foursome LPs? Originally Posted by wintermoon
Did Risan buy that one also?
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yes
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JS owned more than one DA. He may have used different guitars in different recording sessions. That would not have been unusual in the day. It does sound like the letter refers to the sunburst NYer Special, but the serial number is the ultimate test. If I was a 40K cash buyer for that guitar, I would want a face to face transaction and would check the number.
Any DA owned by JS will have special appeal, regardless of which recordings it was used on. Then again, any DA has special appeal, simply because it is a real DA! From where I stand, a blonde cutaway excel is quite special.
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I'm pretty sure Smith used another DA on the very first Roost recordings, a sunburst Excel.
that guitar is pictured on the Mosaic box set. I'm guessing that was the one he lost when his home burned down.
but the vast majority of the records was on the NYer specialLast edited by wintermoon; 09-23-2016 at 07:02 PM.
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To all.
My heartfelt thanks for all the insights and wisdom provided to me in this matter.
I have asked for a photo of the serial number, and will post the response.
Having made a decision to become a custodian of a DA, I realize the responsibility that comes along with that. It's more than money. I have a lot to learn and I am grateful to you all for steering me along. There is a 1961 NY at Garys that is possibly a "safer" alternative. Would be interested in hearing any opinions the community might wish to.share..
Thanks again.
Bob Sheldon
Maui
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No affiliation w/ Larry Wexler......have only spoken w / him several times, but always found him to be polite. Knows his stuff. If you have not as yet contacted him, maybe not a bad idea. Originally Posted by mauibob
https://www.gbase.com/powered/gearli...earchbar=False
Of course, MHO.
Good luck !
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Hi Dennis!
Indeed I already have. Larry is sniffing around for me....
Thanks!
Bob
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Bob, as the custodian of two DA's with a third on the way, I can say that you are embarking on a magnificent journey. Soon you will be bonding with an instrument made by the capi du tutu capi, the Stradivarius of the guitar, John D'Angelico.
Please keep us apprised of your journey and may your playing be inspired all along the way!
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Originally Posted by mauibob
Good !
And good luck in your search, Bob.
Dennis
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I'm glad you more experienced guys got involved in this discussion. When you have a guitar like this up for grabs, you really need to know your beans if you don't want to get burned. I'd love to be able to have something like this but I don't have that kind of disposable shekels.
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OK, this '57 Excel pops up from time to time and las pointed out, there are prior threads about it that are worth reading. It may be a superb, wonderful guitar. But it is a 1957 Excel, as the ad clearly states, and it is not the famous 1955 17" New Yorker formerly owned by Johnny Smith (New Yorkers were 18" instruments and Excels were 17", generally speaking, and had different inlays and other appointments; Johnny had D'Angelico build a 17" guitar with the New Yorker appointments). The letter to Hank Risan that is included in the sale does not reference the guitar that is for sale. The seller, BTW, has been informed of this. A look at photographs of the 1955 JS guitar show the differences- the headstock, the inlays, the finish, number of frets, etc., are all different. The serial number in the letter matches that in D'Angelico's ledger as the 1955 guitar delivered to Johnny. I will be, to say the least, very surprised if it matches the serial number of the guitar I saw in the Reverb ad. Frankly if it does I think there may be something fishy.
Johnny's 1955 guitar is on the left:
TheMoMI.org -- The Museum of Musical Instruments -- The Hank Risan Collection
It may be seen and heard here:
Johnny Smith is associated with three D'Angelicos of which I am aware, based on reading the Web over the years and Lin Flanagan's bio of Johnny. The first one was lost when Johnny Smith's house burned down with the guitar and his dog inside; he was out to dinner with guitarist Mary Osborne and her husband at the time. Johnny borrowed a D'Angelico from John Collins and it was that guitar on which he recorded many of his famous sides like Moonlight In Vermont. Johnny did not return that guitar to Collins, as I understand it. When he placed his order for the 1955 guitar, he also ordered one for Collins. Once D'Angelico delivered the 1955 New Yorker, he apparently sold the Collins guitar. Johnny received the 1955 guitar in a sunburst finish. The top was subsequently broken when it was dropped and was sent back to D'Angelico, who put on a new top. Johnny needed the guitar back and played it for a time with just a sealer over the wood rendering a blonde top with sunburst back and sides; it ended up on an album cover like that, but eventually went back to D'Angelico to have the top finished in a sunburst. When checking the photos, one has to be careful to identify the right D'Angelico; the pickguards are different for an immediate clue. The Collins instrument has one zig, the later New Yorker has more.
He still played the '55 D'A for a while even after getting the Gibson Johnny Smith prototype, but felt he should stop gigging with the D'Angelico in favor of the GJS, and eventually decided that the Gibson was actually the better instrument. BTW, he apparently had two GJS guitars of his own- one of the two original prototypes, a sunburst one which was lost when he sent it back to Gibson for repairs, and a replacement for that made from a Citation that was diverted during manufacture to become the natural GJS he was seen with in the final stages of his career.
If Johnny owned the 1957 Excel for sale on Reverb, it's not mentioned anywhere in any of the literature I have been able to find. Given the level of detail in Flanagan's book about Johnny's guitars, I'd be surprised if he overlooked him having another D'Angelico. However, Johnny did own a music store and who knows? One may have been sold to him, come in on trade, etc. Personally at $40K I think it is massively over-valued and is worth half that, but I may simply not have an even remotely accurate grasp of the value of such guitars. Others have opined that the price seems reasonable, even without the Johnny Smith provenance, and they may be right and I may be out to lunch. Wouldn't be the first time.
I would advise a potential buyer to consider the instrument in its own right and to ignore the questionable Johnny Smith provenance. It is a later period D'Angelico Excel cutaway and may be an extremely fine, even exemplary, instrument. Jimmy D'Aquisto would have had a hand in the crafting of this guitar (wasn't DeSerio gone by then?), come to think of it. But I am convinced that it is not the 1955 Johnny Smith New Yorker identified in the letter. $40K would probably undervalue that guitar significantly!
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Great detail in your post Cunamara. Based on what you wrote, I would bet that the serial number would not match the letter. Like I said earlier, this deal requires a face to face transaction. But I have seen blonde cutaway Excels sell for 30-40K. If the seller knows about this not adding up, he/she could face a misrepresentation claim after the sale.
Perhaps the auction house made a mistake here...
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I just checked the DA ledger and the ad. Number 2030 was a 1957 Excel made originally for Tom Ferguson. Number 1930 was an Excel made for Johnny Smith. I am now convinced that the letter and guitar do not belong together. That guitar may well have belonged to Johnny Smith, but it is not the one decribed in the letter. The seller is guilty of misrepresentation.
Caveat Emptor.
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I think it entirely possible that the Reverb seller bought the guitar in good faith, perhaps not reading the letter with enough attention to detail and looking into it further and was even selling it in good faith. However, I had updated him with all of the concerns noted above some time back. I got the impression he did not believe me and I asked him about whether the serial number of the guitar matched that in the letter, but I never heard back on that. He said he had heard from people who remember seeing Johnny play the guitar. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
And, yep, I am probably clueless when it comes to the value of the guitar itself. I should probably stay out of the fine vintage guitar market! The price itself may be fair and just treat the letter as a nice document to have about a different guitar, something of a bit of historical value in its own right (although it really should go with the correct instrument as part of its provenancce).
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" Personally at $40K I think it is massively over-valued and is worth half that, but I may simply not have an even remotely accurate grasp of the value of such guitars. Others have opined that the price seems reasonable, even without the Johnny Smith provenance, and they may be right and I may be out to lunch. Wouldn't be the first time."
it's been for sale for over a year @ 40K w/no takers, probably be gone by now if someone like Wexer or Gruhn had it for sale. it's worth closer to 40K than 20, just not in the hands of the right dealer.
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After reading about this Hank Risan SOB, I think it's safe to say that the 'Roost' D'A will never be available, especially to players (even players with a lot of money), in this lifetime.
JS couldn't have picked a worse person to sell that guitar to if he tried.
Notice that the NYer Special that was linked was described as "inspired by" Johnny Smith, not 'owned by and played on recordings by' JS.
When I read in the JS bio that JS had sold his D'A for only 20K to a businessman named HR. I thought, ' JS must have really needed the bread; that guitar was worth way more than that. I pictured HR as some guy with a cowboy hat who had a successful used car business or something.
After doing some 'research' on HR, I was first presented with a picture of some guy who was a musical/mathematical/scientific genius, who had a 'side interest' in rare guitars.
This turned out to be written by HR, so I looked at other, perhaps more objective sources.
On Wiki, I found the same info, but under 'Career', it just said he was a securities dealer.
They also mentioned the fact that he was sued for a million bucks for trying to sell Beatles' songs on his own itunes company, 'Blue (something)'without any of the rights to the songs.
He presented his closing argument to the judge with the excuse that the Beatles' songs he sold were not the actual tracks, but his own electronic tracks that had different sound waves than the Beatles' songs.
The judge said he never heard bigger baloney and technobabble than this in his court, and fined him the million.
This resulted in one of the worst auction disasters in Guernsey's history; the great guitar auction of 2014; 'The Risan Collection'.
Risan had to raise money to pay off the million he was sued for, so he concocted the 'art of the craft of fine guitar making' auction, where he set reserve prices and starting bids at such astronomical prices, that no one was bidding on anything.
The bulk of what was sold was encompassed in the sale of TWO Martins- one bought by the Martin Co. itself for 300K, and the other one bought for approx. 700K.
Altogether, the auction only made 200K, above the two Martins, and those were in post auction sales.
On the 'Unofficial Martin Guitar Website', several posters described their interactions with HR, and none of them reported anything pleasant.
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I have heard many negative things from folks in Santa Cruz regarding Hank Risan. Based on that, I never made any attempt to contact him (life is too short to be in the company of unpleasant/dishonest folks)
I think 20K was a premium price for a DA back in 1988. It would be interesting to figure out where the 55 is today (probably with Risan). Too bad the bill of sale for it is somewhere else. And Cunemara is probably right, the 55, along with the letter would probably be worth in excess of 40K today.
If the 57 Excel was in the hands of a well respected broker like Gruhn, Vinikow or Wexer the guitar would have sold long ago. Buyers of instruments in this price range more often than not, want a respected broker to vet the instrument beforehand. Trying to sell it yourself to avoid the commission often will result in having no sale at all. Which is exactly what is going on with the instrument in question.
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