This blog about our cherished instruments started in January 2022 and will be updated in each new post, until we cover all of our significant instruments. (We send the updates out through our monthly newsletter, so if you aren’t a member of our mailing list, you can join us through the link on this page below.)

JULY 2022

 

Larry's Guitar Collection

 

You’ve read about my first guitar and my 12-string, but I have a collection of guitars. I’m going to tell you about them in this post, and coming posts, continuing in chronological order as I got them.

 

🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸

 

Hand-made small-sized guitar

 

In 1981, I was less than a year out of the army and studying to be a Hotel Reception Clerk in the Tadmor Herzliah Hotel School. During one of the breaks between classes, a few friends and I took a short walk over to a small shopping center nearby. There was a second-hand shop there, mostly carrying clothing. The girls wanted to go in, so we did. One of them said to me, “Larry, look, there’s a guitar behind the clothing there.” I took it out, looked it over a bit and asked the shop owner how much she wanted for it. She told me it was 600 liras. (The lira changed to the shekel in February 1980 – this was a year later, but no one was used to the new currency yet and still spoke in lira terms.) I bought the guitar (600 liras wasn’t a lot of money) and took it home.

 

A few weeks later, we were back in the shop, and the owner told me that she didn’t want to see me! It turned out that the guitar was handmade in Russia and brought to Israel by a Russian diplomat’s son. The guitar was on consignment, and his asking price had been 600 shekels, not liras, making the price ten times what I had paid for it! I quickly left the shop.

 

Truthfully, it’s a useless guitar. Too small to play, awful sound, can’t be properly tuned – but it has a place in my heart, so it’s hung on the wall over the door to our office.

 

These are pictures of my daughter Danielle with this guitar – Danielle is now 35!

 

🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸

 

Kiso-Suzuki W-65HA, or “Red Bird” Guitar

 

In the reception course in the Tadmor School, one of my teachers  - Ron - was an American guy. Like me, he was a huge James Taylor fan. I bought this beautiful guitar from Ron.

 

It’s quite a nice guitar, hung right over my desk at arms-length away from me as I write these words. It’s actually a Suzuki make of a Gibson design, and I understand there were copyright/patent related lawsuits involved. It’s a fine guitar, although not quite up to today’s technological performing standards. Still, it's fun to play at home, or in informal settings. It has quite good sound, too. It’s my only guitar to which I added a pick-up so it can be amplified – though it’s not the best pick-up, so the sound isn’t great when played through a sound system.

 

 

🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸

 

I got another guitar while studying at the Tadmor – not worth mentioning too much about. It was given to me by my cooking teacher, all battered and broken up. I took it to a friend’s father who was a carpenter and guitar fixer – he made this cheap old guitar playable to some degree, but I wouldn’t play it anywhere except at bonfires on the beach. Oh, and one evening, MANY years later, I played it when Mindy and I performed at the Tel Aviv Folk Club at a Purim comedic evening! Eventually, it fell apart while it was with Mindy’s son at his army base, and we got rid of it.

 

 

🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸

 

More guitars in coming posts.

 

Contact Us
054-6446396 / 050-5921628
larry@larryandmindy.co.il
or
mindy@larryandmindy.co.il