Intrigue, romance, murder: that’s Dallas. Okay, maybe that’s just Dallas the TV show, but how about two jet-lagged guitar nerds, 200,000+ square feet of possibility, and one bone white Camaro? That’s our Dallas. 

We fitted up our vintage buyers with some new cowboy boots and flew them deep into the heart of Texas to show off their two-step and lasso up the best in show at the Dallas International Guitar Festival, one of the biggest vintage and resale shows of the year.

After a quick Lone Star and a porterhouse or two at the Dallas Market Hall chuck wagon, they set to filling their hands with 105 vintage and NOS beauties, rustling up a real bounty like a  ‘44 banner Gibson J-45 that could tell you whut, a ‘68 Fender Custom Maverick Sunburst made from leftover Electric XII parts and converted to six strings, double the doublenecks with a special-order ‘74 Cherry Gibson EDS-1275 and ‘66 Mosrite Joe Maphis in an extremely rare blue finish, and the rest of a Texas-sized haul of wild yellow roses. 

These golden gets won’t last long. As a matter of fact, we’ve sold a few already, so if you want to make away with your share of the loot you’d better be quick on the draw. Call, click, or stop in today for finds as rare as Texas tea! And keep on the lookout for the next run of CME Exclusive Les Pauls. They’re only available right here–at Chicago Music Exchange, partner.

PICKIN' PLYSWhen they weren’t picking the show clean, our buyers were in the Gibson Custom Shop booth with Matt Hallam, Gibson’s Director of Relations and Support, hand-selecting and framing stunning custom tops for our next batch of CME Exclusive Les Pauls. 

We were lucky enough to get the first picks of the litter when it came to these tops, so you know we secured only the best of the best!

GET YOUR HEAD (NECK STRAIGHT!)


Not all vintage guitars are players' dream machines. After all, these are old, (in some cases VERY old) wooden instruments that have been used and/or abused for decades. While we try our best to only select the finest vintage instruments to bring back home to Chicago, sometimes we find some incredible deals that need just a little bit of TLC.

Lucky for us, we have a world-class repair shop in our basement, with many extremely-talented repairmen ready to tackle any repair job we can throw at them. In order to provide you with the absolute best vintage buying experience possible, we thoroughly inspect every piece we buy before it hits the floor to make sure that you can still play the guitar you buy from us.

Sometimes all a guitar needs is a new set of strings and a tune up and it's ready to go...other times it takes a little elbow grease to get it back in playing condition. Take a peek at the pictures below to watch our technicians reset some necks and get that vintage mojo flowing once again, as well as some other highlights from our time in Dallas!