HISTORIC HARDWARE
Researching and authenticating guitars is clearly an enjoyable part of the job for Gardiner Houlgate’s guitars and musical instruments auctioneer, Luke Hobbs, and it’s clear that he got his teeth into a certain 1958 Flying V. “The guitar was purchased by the vendor in late 1990,” he tells us, “and it had been imported from America to the UK in 1989 by a collector called Julian Marsh. He used to travel to the US with vintage Vox and Marshall amps and trade them for American guitars. This Flying V had come into a shop called the American Guitar Center in Washington [DC] that was run by a guy called John Sprung, and Julian got the guitar from him, along with some of the guitar’s history.
“It was originally sold by a shop called the Thomas Piano Company in Newport News, Virginia,” he continues. “Washington is sort of the closest big city, so the assumption
