Well do to the guys medical condition I will be careful with my words if he is truly in that state. The pictures look priod correct to me but just what the hell justifies that price-Nothing. It is not a historical guitar owned by a Hendrix, SRV or insert great player of your choice. It has no historical significance to the company besides being a pre CBS guitar that is not even all original. Blackie was the highest guitar sold at auction at a shade under a million and Hendrix Wood Stock Strat which is believed to be owned and been bought by Bill Gates right hand man Paul Allen for 2 million a decade ago, and is on display in Seattle is without a doubt the Holy Grail and who knows what the worth would be today. I just do not get where this guy comes up with that price.

First he sounds nice and says he wants to make his home more handicapped assessable with the money and set up funds for the kids. Then his whole demeanor changes and he rants about not contacting him and telling him what you think it is worth as he does not need the money-very odd.

Out of curiosity, I followed the trail from Ebay through his business to Facebook. Seems like a normal enough guy - has a big family, all into music, a brother, kids, grandkids, business owners, etc., plus there is an older picture of him in a wheel chair.

Very likely legit, but doesn't explain the price...maybe he is covering his $@! and just looking for someone serious to contact him and strike a real deal.

I think "Mr. Simon" is legit...even the pictures of him from, what looks like from the 80s and his kid picts look like the same person. And now he has a valuable guitar and lists it on eBay with no experience doing a guitar of this character, and he was not prepared for what might happen. He has most likely got a ton of emails harassing him about it... or people giving their advice, or.....who knows. Like winning the guitar lottery! jmg257 and straycat113 pointed out, we need to be careful of our criticisms....

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Ceri wrote

"Ah-ha - you must have the same dumbwit DHL delivery guy I do. One time he left a package... in the wheelie bin! D'oh!

Anyway. Pix please! "


Coming up asap

Goddit - thanks! ...And - very nice!

Cheers - C

PS For those who think the photos are OK, take a look at the flash shadow in the second color pic. Why is that violin bass and stand casting no shadow, even though the angle from the flash is even greater than the young gentleman who does have a shadow? (The flash is to the left of the lens from our POV.) Perhaps the bass is a vampire...?

Here is the photo...ummm. Mr. C. I have been working with Photoshop for a long time and I sure do not see what you see. It is the same kid in all the other picts and they are not touched-up as far as I can tell. He has 100% rating on ePay and his FaceBook is generally talking about small town stuff there in Illinois, along with his family. I think the picts are real and he is just uninformed as to the real value of the guitar, or had it back years ago and is pulling a prank. There are no picts of the actual guitar. Maybe I will give him a call tomorrow!

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Okely dokely: well what I'm looking at is the flash shadow the little fella is casting on the curtains behind him, down his left side, to the right of him as we look. From our point of view the flash is situated to the left of the camera lens, so the further to the right of the picture an object is the more its shadow should stick out to the right of it on the surfaces behind.

There's nowhere to look for a shadow from the Strat because of the dark surfaces behind it. But that violin bass and its stand are casting no shadow, although they should have more of one than the boy. Compare all of that with the shadows cast by the furniture on both sides of the picture, for comparison of angles and such. Was there ever really a bass in that scene at all? If not, nothing else is to be believed.

That then makes me question what we're seeing in the other pictures too. Something very cut-out about the boy's right arm across the Strat in the other color photo. Was he really holding a different guitar and the Strat has been dropped in with Photoshop? Here there are indeed cast shadows, though I'm no wiz at Photoshop and even I could add those in, using the shadow cast by the music stand as reference.

Where I'm starting from is that all the photos have a strange look of unreality about them - kinda like Soviet era photos of the Politburo where people have been airbrushed in and out repeatedly. You get that sensation of: "Dunno what it is but there's something not quite right about this picture..."

I could certainly be wrong on all of that.

But what I'm absolutely right about is that someone does not try and sell an item on Ebay for $5m and not even bother to show us a picture of it in its current state - and hope to be taken seriously! Small town or no...

Cheers - C

Well, this whole thing took a interesting turn of events. I emailed Jim Simon (the guy who ran the auction on eBay) and he emailed me back. Here is a more recent picture of him with his son and a few of his grandkids.



Anyhow, he ended up calling me on the phone and we talked for quite a while. He was very friendly and not "crazy" from what I could tell. He lives in an area in Illinois that had a lot of coal mines and his father was a coal miner. When I told him what we were all saying on the Forum he was like "what the #@&?" He is a very kind guy who uses a lot of "programmer language" as he called it—you know, the kind that the Forum replaces with #@%*. Regarding the idea of Phototshop being used on the pictures, he said, "Why would I do that? Those photos are bit washed out because their old. I have some other ones around here somewhere."

He explained that, "If people think I did this to get attention, well hell, if I wanted attention, I sure could do it better than this! I mean, I would go rob a bank or something....if I was just after attention."

He told me back in early 1980s, while working as an electrician, he was driving his MG Midget to work one morning when a tree fell down across the road in front of him. "It was a wet spring and a lot of trees were falling down in the wind because the ground was so soft." It ripped the top off his MG and when he ducked, the tree slammed his head into his lunch box, thus he is a partial quadriplegic, with use of a finger and upper arms. Back in the late 1970 to early 1980s he played in a country rock band, doing Skynard and stuff. He also played fiddle.



He said he still has the old Hoftner Bass too, as seen in one of the pictures, as well as a Travis Bean guitar with an aluminum neck, all of which he has stored at he grandmas house. He said he would send me some pictures in a few days of the Strat.

Here is his story regarding the eBay auction. He said he was watching the news and saw how a Picasso painting was going for 100 million and told his wife, "That is crazy people would pay that much for something like that! My old Strat is worth a whole lot more that that piece of #$#$% art. I am going to list my guitar on eBay for $5,000,000!" And he did. It was, in a way, a statement. He did not care. He said he got a ton of emails and some were less than nice and he finally got tired of some of them and put in the auction the comments, "Please do not contact me unless you want to buy her. I do not need your opinion on what she’s worth. I don’t need the money and don’t give a #$@& if I ever sell her." He means that too. He has everything paid for, owns a couple houses, and frankly, if sold would use the money for his grandkids.

He told me that he did not care if it sells or what people think it is worth, or what is appraises at. "Too me," he said, "it is worth 5 million and I don't give a $#$@% what other people think about it." And then followed up the comment with a healthy bit of laughter.

My take on the matter. The guy is genuine. The pictures are genuine. Now we wait for pictures of the guitar.

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You have to wonder why the guitar would be posted with a price like that. Assuming it is legit (serial number is in the right range), the color would be refinish or a special order, that guitar with the modifications to the nut and tuners would be lucky to fetch $20K. That assumes everything else it original. Well, I wish him luck.

I kind of explained that above...I thought. did you see the post right above yours? In 57, as you most likely know, the common stock color was Sunburst. from 1956 through 1959, Fender offered custom colors in DuPont Ducco finish. Black, Dakota Red, Desert Sand, Fiesta Red, Lake Placid Blue, Olympic White and Shoreline Gold finishes became an option.

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In the Fender Stratocaster book, they have a pic of a very nice Green '56 also.

Hi Xhefri: always a little difficult conveying tone through posts on a forum, but I get the sensation you feel this gentleman has been unfairly maligned and needs defending.

I'm not sure that's the case. Even if he really is just as he's told you on the phone, all the world knows of him is what he's put on his Ebay sale page. He chose to put it there: we're allowed to make a judgement on it.

Even if he'd priced the guitar at $15,000 folks would still be debating whether that was the right price, commenting on the doubtful benefit of decades old, fuzzy photographs and asking why there were no pictures of the guitar in it's present state? And they'd be right to do so.

$5 million? That's at best absurd and is inevitably going to be treated as such.

Even after reading your post carefully I'm not quite sure if you're saying the whole thing is a waggish joke, or that the fella is a Forest Gump type innocent and so it is unkind to judge his Ebay sale critically. Either way...

You say he was inspired to put up his sale because of his presumably astounded response to a multi-million sale of a Picasso painting. Well now. It so happens my dad is an art world professional who finds himself these days working in the very most rarefied circles of the people who really do buy and sell works of art for tens of millions. Most stuff about that is not for public consumption, though I'll tell you a little bit more if you want to contact me by email.

However, I happen to know for certain that when people put up paintings with multi-million price tags the tidal wave of scepticism and contempt that hits them makes the doubt expressed on this thread look not even like a storm in a teacup. A light breeze in a teaspoon, perhaps.

The gentleman wanted to dip his toe in the brutal waters of high-millions selling? Well that was his choice and now he's done so.

Honestly. Even by the standards of threads on this Forum he's got away with hardly a scratch. No need to be offended on his behalf.

Cheers - C

First I want to mention that I appreciate your tactfulness in what you wrote to me. I want to let you know that I am not thinking the guy has been maligned and that I need to defend him. Really this is quite simply curiosity. I wanted to know why someone would do something so crazy, as it smacks of a scam. Is it or not? Touched up photos? a Hacked eBay account by a Nigerian scammer? LOL! Does he really even have a 57 Strat? So I dug into it. I like doing this kind of stuff and wanted to know “the rest of the story....” as the famous Paul Harvey use to say.

You have to admit, this does have a ring to it like one of those emails, like, "my father is the late....and I want to deposit 5,000,000 into your bank account...."

After all the speculation we were making on this thread, I thought it was only fair and honorable to just ask the guy why he did it. When it was all said and done, I actually think he thought that if someone was dumb enough to pay 10 million for a Picasso, then someone might be dumb enough to pay 5 million for his old guitar. I think he really believes that. Do I agree. No.

So now that I said all this, is his guitar worth a big faction of a Picasso? Do we really even toss that into the equation? No... I think the whole thing was a statement on his part. What was he saying? I am still not quite sure myself!

Anyhow, one thing I learned again from this was, it is east to make assumptions and say things about a person one does not know. But then after you meet the person and get to know them more personally and understand a little more of where there coming from, it makes one be a little more careful what one says.

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With a mint early 54 Strat worth around $60,000 and a 56-58 Mary Kaye going for around 72 the guy must be in his own little world to think anyone would spend 5 mill for that guitar.Anyone dropping big bucks on a guitar would have to be knowledgeable about guitars and surely wouldn't spend that kind of money for a custom colour 57 when others of the same vintage can be had for a fraction of the price.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Also like Ceri mentioned, there is no picture of the guitar in today's condition.