GUEST: Well, I've owned this guitar since I was 19 years old, and I found it in a pawn shop down in the skid row district of Oklahoma City in March of 1964. He went upstairs and came down with an old cardboard case that looked like it'd been run over by a city bus, and he threw it up on the counter and said, "Take a look." Well, we worked out a deal where I paid $130 cash for it and a little $75 guitar that I already had. And I guess you could say I have $205 and a lifetime invested in it.
APPRAISER: They still make this guitar to this day, but 1950 is a really nice year. They're very lightweight for J-200s. It has a double pickguard. Now, most people consider the double pickguard not a good thing, but there's only a few guitars where the double pickguard is not much of a hit on the value. And that's just because they're lovely pickguards. They were put on originally, and... and they really decorate the guitar properly. It also has what they call a mustache bridge that's open in the center. The later ones had a solid mustache shape, but it was a solid bridge and not near as attractive. This guitar has also been kept in very, very nice condition. Present retail value would be somewhere around $10,000 U.S.
GUEST: That's wonderful. I've used it as a way to make a living, and it's been a wonderful tool and a real good friend over the years.
