“Call me last.”Songbirds_Fender Sparkle

For decades, that phrase has been the calling card of vintage guitar buyer David Davidson.

“It takes years sometimes to buy a guitar,” he explains. “When someone’s not ready to sell for whatever reason — it’s emotional, it’s sentimental, or the money’s not right — ‘call me last’ is a way of saying, ‘I find your instrument so special, I want to own it because of what it is, I want to own it because of the story that’s behind it. If I really love the guitar, when the time comes to sell it and you’re shopping it around, I’ll name a price tag that will make you want to sell it to us.’”
 
Davidson’s patient, long-term strategy has obviously worked. Visitors can take in the results at the new Songbirds Guitar Museum, which opened in Chattanooga, Tenn., in March. The museum’s collection belongs to an investment group of five anonymous collectors who claim it is the most extensive and comprehensive display of vintage guitars in the world, estimated to be worth more than $200 million.
 
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Published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 30, 2017: Written by Andrew Alexander