Ebay! (I Had Forgotten About Them)

     I used to be addicted to buying things on eBay. That was until I found Amazon! You can't really buy used guitars on Amazon, so I hit up Facebook Marketplace instead.  For about a month, I was looking up several vintage black Fender guitars because that's what I wanted. I love the white ones too, and I may end up doing that, but for now, I'm buying a solid black one. I wanted a vintage guitar because I wanted the thing to have a past. I wanted to learn from it, and to listen to it as much as it learned to listen to me.

    I know, that's silly of me. I realize that, but it's my world, my fantasy, my guitar, and therefore, my decision. I went on Marketplace, and while there were plenty of guitars for sale, including vintage ones, I noticed a shortage of black Fender acoustic guitars. There were a few, though, and I wrote to the owners asking questions. Mostly, I looked at where they were living (the owners) and tried to see myself driving that far for a $100 guitar. I had set my price in my head, knowing what they go for on Marketplace and at garage sales.

    Garage sales are NOT the best places to look for a guitar, or even to hope to find one. If you do, it's unlikely to be the black Fender, and if it is, they typically think it is far more valuable than I do. I'm not a master. No, I'm more of what YouTube guitar trainer Tony Polecastro would call a "Dabbler". I don't want to be a dabbler anymore. I want to be a player. I have determined in my head and my heart that I will be a player, and I will start that practice almost immediately. I have to wait until tomorrow because it's getting late; otherwise, it would be immediate.

    So, on Marketplace, I found three (3) good candidates I was very interested in. All of them needed to be restrung, which I expected. All of them were more than 20 miles from my house, with one being 100 miles away. That one was last on my list. The first one was sold almost as soon as I had arranged to meet the woman. She texted to say it had sold. OK, there's always number 2...until nope, it sold too. He mentioned taking less, which made me wonder why I often give people what they ask. I do. I see the price and I pay it if it's a good price. 

    Well, I was about to close Marketplace down when an ad popped up on my other screen for eBay - and you wouldn't believe what was on it! Of course, you would believe it, because the internet speaks to everything and everyone. If I'm looking up guitars on Marketplace, a signal goes out to all the places that sell guitars, I'm sure. Anyway, eBay advertised a black Fender and it's used. I won't buy a new guitar. I looked, and they had a lot of them! They had a multitude of them - so many, I was able to set my price and look at just the ones that fit my budget (plus shipping).

    I tried to sign in, but it had been too long and my password no longer worked. I had to call their customer service to verify my identity since I had changed my phone number. By the time I finished dealing with them, I was ready to get on the thing and buy myself a guitar and be done with it. I was pretty happy that they wanted to verify who I was. I appreciate all the safety regs, but c'mon! They didn't like any of my password choices until I added a special character, along with the obligatory capital letters, lower-case letters, and at least one number! Done!

    I told myself the $33.70 shipping cost was fine since the item comes strung, cleaned, and with a case. I bought it for $109 and it will be brought to my house! The person I bought it from owns a store that sells a wide variety of items. He has sold over 35,000 items and has a 97% positive rating. I'm going to trust him. I don't know him, but he and his wife are in the little picture on the site, and they're smiling. I know...that's not a good reason to trust him. I trust the 97% positive rating for over 35,000 items sold. That's what I trust. Trust but verify! (Ronald Reagan)

    So, now I have a new black Fender guitar coming to me. I've looked it up on the Fender Serial Number site, and it was made in 1994. It was made in China, and has one sizeable scratch on the side, but I'm OK with that. I'll consider it a war scar, and we'll be good. I needed to come up with a good name for him; all of my guitars are male. If you don't agree or like that, you don't have to; you're free to call your guitar whatever you wish. I have decided to call this one "Cash" for Johnny Cash. He played the same type of guitar back then, and I really like that man's music.

    Here's what Cash looks like. He arrives in 2 days. I'm pretty happy about it.