Topic: My journey to ChicagoMusicExchange
I was presenting at a conference last week, and I made it a point to stop at CME. Three times.
Oh, you've never been there? Here is their website...
http://www.chicagomusicexchange.com/
They sell a lot on Reverb.com, and put ads in all the major guitar mags.
It's a big place, like a Guitar Center, but here's the difference... no budget guitars: no Squiers, no Johnsons, no Schecters, and only the nicer Epiphones. LOTS and LOTS of vintage guitars, and nothing is behind a "may I help you?" desk. There's little closets full of amps (that are reasonably soundproofed) that you can plug any guitar in to test. The main sales floor has nice couches and seats where you can take down 3 or 4 guitars and play them all on a couch. Very comfy.
They have a WALL of Les Pauls. A few new, the rest are used ranging from the 50's-90's. Plenty of vintage ones. That's where I concentrated my efforts.
I walked in hoping that I could find a guitar for $2,000 or less. I played some very nice guitars including some Les Paul Junior double cuts from 1959... but those were $3,400. I played a $4k '59 Reissue LesPaul, and was completely unimpressed.
They had BOTH '72 Telecaster Deluxes, and '72 Deluxe Reissues. That was fun. I got to play the original next to the reissue. I can say there is a pretty big difference in the way the neck feels. I know the pickups in the reissue are pretty much modern humbuckers and not close to the original '72s. There's about a $2,000 difference there... even though I wouldn't pay that much more, I could feel a difference.
I played some Nash guitars... the relic teles. Those were very nice playing guitars. $1800 for one.
One of the best guitars I played was a Music Man Steve Morse. Everything on it played like butter. I came to tell myself that if I ever buy a 'new guitar' again, it would be a EBMM.
Then... there's the 2015 Gibsons. They had a full line there. I picked up the Les Paul Junior TV yellow w/P90. It had the MinEtune, and the brass nut, so I gave it a whirl. The tuner gadget was what I wanted to figure out first. After some button pushing I got it to tune the guitar... I showed it to my friends (who had never heard of it) and their jaws dropped. It took a little to get it to go to Open D or Open G, but I got there. For alternate tunings, I thought the tuner was a blast. For 440A, it does that too I guess. The brass nut was somewhat ugly, but the guitar was nice an vibrant. I didn't complain too much about the new features.
Some employees at CME were saying they are buying up pre 2015 Gibsons, so people can walk out with a guitar that doesn't need "features" taken off of it. I saw one LesPaul MinEtune model with Grovers in there for sale. I got a chuckle.
SO all in all, I ended up leaving CME unscathed with only two tshirts on my bill. My friend was also looking at Les Pauls and telecasters until his hand got on to an SG. I proceeded to take every similar SG off the racks to have him be sure it was the one he wanted. He narrowed it down between an 04 and 08. I think he bought the 08 SG Standard. Very nice piece.
I got to plug into a Vox AC30 and a very nice Fender Princeton Reverb blackface reissue.
The only guitars I didn't get to play was the SG jrs. They had two racks of old ones, and they were up too high for me to reach... along with the 50's Lespauls. It wouldn't have been any trouble, they had ladders out... but I knew there wouldn't be any under $2k.
The sales people were super laid back. No hounding whatsoever. Once we needed help with purchasing they were super cool. When we first walked in my jokster friend walked up to the desk and said "we're here for the g*ng b*ng" and they got a huge laugh. When we went back the next day, an employee recognized us for saying that and said "dude I can't believe you said that to the owner, I was dying!" 
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping.
