You are not paying for the wood.
You are paying for the name.
Two guitars come off lines that are closer than anyone admits. One has a name collectors chase. The difference between them is not lumber and it is not labour — and once you can see where it sits, you stop paying it.
Two hundred exact models, every price taken from a documented sold listing, and the honest catch printed next to every single pick. Because a recommendation with no catch is an advert.
What it looks like inside the book.
Every entry names the thing, tells you what it actually sells for, and then does what no buying guide does — it prints the catch underneath.
The sound-hole check
Look at the edge of the cut. Solid wood runs its grain straight through, like the end of a plank. Laminate shows thin sandwich layers, because that is what it is. It settles the most argued spec in the acoustic aisle, in any shop, with no salesman involved.
What the name costs
The same body, the same pickup layout, often the same factory — and a different name on the headstock moves the price by hundreds. The book prints what each name actually adds, so you can decide whether you want to pay it.
The attic goldmine
What is sitting in a relative's cupboard, what it is worth this year, the serial numbers that matter, and the five things people do to a find that destroy its value before anyone values it.
A whole shop's worth, in order.
One wrong guitar, against a book.
Buying the way most people buy
The same money, read first
The book costs less than one set of strings on the guitar it stops you buying.
Pull up a stool. Read eight pages first.
See the actual pages before you decide: the cover, the contents, the promise at the front, the opening of Part One, the solid-top law, the spend table, and a real model table with the honest catch column filled in. Free. It is the same file, just shorter.
Read the free sample →
Come in. I'm Ray.
I have spent a working life on the other side of a repair bench, which is the one place in this trade where the truth turns up. A guitar comes in, the case comes off, and what it cost has almost nothing to do with what is in front of me. I have opened up instruments that cost four figures and found the same parts as the one that cost three.
Nobody in a shop is going to say that out loud. So on the channel I say it every week, and this book is all of it in one place — what each thing actually sells for, what the name adds, and the catch under every pick, written down so you can carry it into a shop.
What people write back, in their own words.
“Any Peavey with Trans Tube Technology is a sleeper tone monster. Ive had people wonder at my tone!!!”
@hedroom01 · on YouTube“Will never sell my 1976 Gibson Les Paul Custom in cherry sunburst. Bought it in 1978 for $610 including hard shell case.. Still gig with it to this day.”
@19thhonda60 · on YouTube“I just bought a pristine Peavey Classic 30 ii Special Edition on Facebook marketplace for $250. Absolutely blown away with the gorgeous tone!!”
@geraldhartley · on YouTube“Honest opinion. You will never go wrong with a Yamaha. Budget end you'll get a good starter guitar ($150ish). For $500 to $700 you'll get a guitar just as good as a $1500 to $3000 big name guitar.”
@robinjacobs106 · on YouTube“I'm a drummer but I have my late brothers 69 strat that my dad got him in 1970. I'd never sell it. It is priceless.”
@Reederjulian420 · on YouTube“I bought my 150w Fender Mustang 5 with the matching 412 speaker cabinet all for $300.00 in my local pawn shop.”
@jedgarren2901 · on YouTubeOne book. Three ways to carry it.
- The complete 58-page second edition
- 200+ exact models, documented sold prices
- The attic goldmine chapter
- 10 printable cards inside the book
- The Guide and the Field Kit, both
- The Attic Goldmine Dossier
- Every vintage pick as a lookup reference
- What it is, what it is worth, and the tell
- Everything in The Guide
- The ten checks rebuilt one full page each
- Big type, real tick boxes, built to be printed
- The negotiation script for the counter
Questions people ask first.
A download. One PDF, 58 pages, on your screen about a minute after you pay. It reads on a phone, a tablet or a computer, and any page prints on ordinary paper — Part 8 is built to be printed and carried.
Every figure is a range taken from documented sold listings, not asking prices, and every range is quoted toward what things actually change hands for. Ranges move slowly. A model that is a bad buy at $900 is still a bad buy at $960.
The tier tables and the attic chapter are the parts experienced players write back about. If you can already spot a laminate top at ten feet, Part 1 will be revision and Parts 6 and 7 will not.
Email and you get your money back, 30 days, no form and no argument. You keep the file.
Every purchase after it, smarter.
Refunds. Thirty days. Email and you get your money back, no form and no argument, and you keep the file.
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Nobody paid to be in this book. No brand was given a chance to review it. No affiliate deal changed a single line.