The Story of My Telluride Guitar - Collings D1

There are many things I love about my job, but every time someone tells me "I've always wanted to buy a guitar from Telluride Music. A "Telluride Guitar'," I'm reminded how special this shop is to people all over the world. Like many of you, I drooled over the gear Dave Lamb curated, and dreamed of maybe owning one. Dreams come true, you guys! Here is the story of my "Telluride Guitar"...

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I don’t deserve this 2015 Collings D1 with Adirondack Braces and No Tongue Brace, but either way, it’s mine. Here’s a fun story I’ve told a million times. . My love for @telluridemusicco started LONG before I started working there. When my family would visit, my brother, Wyatt and I would spend hours in the guitar shop. Obviously, we weren’t in the market for a guitar, but that didn’t stop us from looking at some killer vintage pieces hanging in the shop. Maybe one day we would get to play one. Well. The last time we came here as a family was 2005, and of course Wyatt and I were hanging in the guitar shop, and that same white haired dude was running the place. He heard me playing and said “you play pretty well. Have you ever played a vintage Martin?” Oh my God! Is a guitar shop owner going to let me play an old Martin? For those of you that don’t know, most guitar shop owners aren’t excited about you playing a guitar you will never buy. The gentleman handed me a ‘50s D-18, and I reached for a pick in my pocket (“this guy hasn’t even heard me PLAY! I’ll show him” I thought in my head). I literally played the guitar for 15-seconds, before the gentleman spun on his heels, put his hand over the strings and yanked it out of my hand. Stunned, my brother motioned us to get out of the shop. It was dark on Colorado Avenue and I’ll never forget Wyatt slapping me on the back of the head. “What was that? That man handed you a piece of history and you just shit all over it!” I learned how not to act in a guitar shop, and that day has stuck with me ever since. Fast forward about a decade. I just moved to Telluride and my first stop... Telluride Music Co. my favorite guitar shop in the world, and there’s that old guy! I had saved some money over the years, and my goal was to buy a nice acoustic from that old guy. Well, that old guy was David Lamb (an absolute gentleman and wealth of knowledge) and this is that guitar! I waited until I got the job at TMC and asked Dave if he remembered that night. He waited until I finished the story, smiled real big and said “son, I’ve pulled more guitars out of kids hands than I have put in them. You will too.” Thanks, Dave! @kmklamb

A post shared by warren g (@loftyrocket) on Mar 23, 2020 at 8:52am PDT