A couple years ago I took my two electric guitars into Long and McQuade to get serviced. One was an Ibanez AS83 hollowbody and the other a Gibson Blueshawk. The guys said it would be about 20 minutes to look them over and see what needed to be done so I looked around the store and came across a used Gretsch Electromatic with the Bigsby vibrato bar, which is something I always wanted to add to my Ibanez. It was listed at $400 down from $700 purely because it had a loonie-sized chip in the finish on the back of the body (who cares?). I took it into a room and played it for about 10 minutes and decided I needed this guitar, but at the time I was a poor student and have 2 electrics was excessive enough. We had a show coming up and now I really wanted to use this guitar, so I asked an employee if there was an option to rent it for a couple weeks to see if I like it. He said they don't really do that, but have a 30-day return policy, so I could buy it right there and return it if I didn't like it. Perfect!
I bought it, took it home, used it for show and loved it. I sold my Ibanez to a father looking to get an electric guitar for his 11 year old son for $400 a few days later. (probably could have got more, but just wanted to break even as quickly as possible). So not only did I essentially get a new guitar for free, I got to pass on the music to a young kid. I'll admit though, watching that guy walk away with what was the first guitar I ever bought for myself when I was 16, and the one I most used, was pretty emotional.
But I turned this...
into this...
and haven't regretted it once. I like things that are unique and Gretsch doesn't make a lot of solid body guitars.