I met George Wilson, Toolmaker of Williamsburg. He was old when I met him in the 90's and I don't know if he is still around, but I hope so. He was a luthier an

I met George Wilson, Toolmaker of Williamsburg. He was old when I met him in the 90's and I don't know if he is still around, but I hope so. He was a luthier and made some amazing guitars, and I got to play some of them at his house. He also liked to make Gretsch copies. I am not familiar with the models, but one I got to play was a large hollow body, perhaps it was known as a Country Gentleman. Gretsch guitars are highly collectable, and expensive, which belies the fact that the vintage models were often not made well, and play terribly. George's copy was perfect right down to the serial number and stamp on the volume and tone knobs. The only way to know it was a copy is that no Gretsch was ever made so well, and the fact that George's guitar would have 3-4 times the market value than the original vintage guitar he copied. I was naive then and I think George took advantage of me. I had a flawless blonde 1989 ES-335 dot, and he talked me into trading him for it for a Bedrock amp that he wanted to dump, an AC-30 copy. He sold that guitar in less than 2 weeks on consignment and got considerably more than I paid for it new a couple years earlier. I still have that amp, loaned to a studio, and it has gotten work on many records over the years. It always sounded better than any original Vox AC-30, though still faithful to the original sound. But that amp was never worth nearly as much as that 335 I have been missing ever since, I doubt even half as much.