Brazilian Larrivee Superparlor ala rmmga/fqms/13fret

[Randy_R]

Its been a long chase, in more ways than one. But I have been able to add one of the rmmga/fqms/13fret Superparlors to my collection.



Thanks to bleumax who alerted me that it had been offered for sale on the rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic news forum.  http://www.larriveeforum.com/smf/index.php?topic=9874.msg88131#msg88131 I try to check rmmga everyday and post there occasionally, but I hadn't been there yet on the day the guitar was offered for sale. The origonal owner of this guitar had offered it for sale last year on rmmga, and I had offered to buy it at that time, but I was too late, someone else already had it.  http://www.larriveeforum.com/smf/index.php?topic=8236.0 The rmmga member who did buy the guitar last year has decided to buy a new mandolin and put the parlor up for sale. It just so happens I was able to get his tele number, so I called him and said I would buy it.

The guitar finally arrived Friday, Feb-10. The UPS tracking indicated that the guitar was on schedule for a Thursday delivery, and showed out for delivery at 8am. I work out of a home office so sat here Thursday anxiously looking out the window for the BigBrownTruck. Finally after dark at about 7pm the BBT pulls in my driveway. I'm actually posting a congrats to RonK who just received his new brazilian parlor. I finish my post and run to the door, just to see the BBT pull back out of my driveway and head up the hill???? what the hey?  I close the door, and come back inside, and the BBT zooms down the street the other direction (at twice the speedlimit). I call UPS Customer dis-Service and get a very pleasant lady who talks to me for 15-20 minutes. She has the tracking number, I give her my street address (which btw doesn't show on the web tracking screen) and try to convince her to somehow get the driver on the radio or cell-phone. While I'm talking to her, the BBT zooms by the other direction, obviously not paying much attention to my name in big glow-in-the-dark reflective letters on the mailbox next to the street (right where he turned around). The UPS customer service lady said she'd have local UPS call me the next morning and I hung up, and went into my bedroom to watch a DVD movie and eat some popcorn.

The next morning the UPS website says "package not put on the truck, rescheduled for delivery the following day". Uh-huh, bull sh*t. The new-age morality of: its more fun to tell a lie and point the finger, than it is to take responsibility for your own actions... And no tele call from the local UPS office either.

At about 5pm friday the BBT again zooms up the street, past my house. My worst nightmare is recurring... 

BUT.... 2 minutes later here he comes again and stops in the street at the end of my driveway, and pops out with a guitar box  :GRN> ^_^

I jump out of the house quickly. He asks me my name, and hands me the box. I start to question him about the above activity, and he points to the label which has a street address of 550, not my address of 530. There is no 550, I'm the (pick one - first, last) house on the street. I mumble something about my name being on the mailbox, and the conversation goes nowhere... He's off to return to the Big Brown Barn and I head inside with my prize.  btw. the box looked in good shape, it was the origonal fqms box.

So. Its about 40F degrees outside. I decide to be conservative and just leave the guitar in the box for 2 hours, and then pull the case out and let the guitar sit in the closed case overnight as I head up to town to hear a couple of folkie acts at the local coffeehouse and get rid of my angst.. http://www.myspace.com/larapolangco an old friend was playing.



Saturday morning I open the case, and am wowed by the beauty of this guitar. The koa fretboard and body binding and fretboard inlay are a nice touch.
The only negative is that the second owner (mandolin player) left a couple of heavy pick marks on the face of the guitar, which he had told me about. No pickguard on this model. It looks like it had the origonal 3 year old Elixirs on it, and they sounded that way. Took off the old strings, cleaned and wiped the fretboard with boiled linseed oil, wiped everything  down with polishing cloth (couldn't find my bottle of Final Touch polish) and decided to go with a set of Martin 80/20 SP mediums for new strings.




The tone of this parlor is to die for !!! The brazilian just rings forever. The medium gauge strings likely help the tone as others have suggested on this forum.

I play it some more today, and am all smiles. neat.

And there's a bit of rmmga history thats associated with this guitar, like the Larrivee Forum guitars are special for members here.

Oh yes. and Larrivee forum member Drmlabs has serial #0 of this run of guitars. So i'm not sure if there were actually 11 made, or if the numbering went from 0 to 9 ? I need to find out.

I need to go play this some more.. nice.

[ronmac]

Great story. Somehow I would have thought you would be on a first name basis with most of the Courier companies...

What a beautiful looking instrument! Congratulations.

[didymus21]

 ^_^

[Randy_R]

Great story. Somehow I would have though tyou would be on a first name basis with most of the Courier companies...

I thought so too.

the regular driver must have been on vacation last week    :WNK>

[Acoustickler]

WOWOWOWOW!  That is one hot parlor guitar.  Like a tribute to the old Larsen Brothers parlors w/ Brazilian and all.  Nice!

Cheers,
Blair

[bleumax]

sweet! i love the braz rw. congrats.

[parsky1]

That is some really good looking brazillian

[Daysailer]

She  is bee U T full  !!   

I  had a similar delivery issue the  the Fed Ex folks,  last week, when my Parlor came home..       

Put my first on the list for this one if you must part with it       :GRN>

phill      :mellow:

[drmlabs]

Randy

Nice story on acquiring that beauty, thank you.  Yes, I have #0 of 10 from this series.  I did confirm with Larrivee that its the correct number.  According to them on my #0 - "that was the first one made"  That would make yours the second one made.
Pictures don't do these justice.  They are on a whole 'nother level from the standard parlors.
I'll get it together and post some pics of mine one of these days, along with my FQMS parlor in KOA.

D

[Randy_R]

Randy

Nice story on acquiring that beauty, thank you.  Yes, I have #0 of 10 from this series.  I did confirm with Larrivee that its the correct number.  According to them on my #0 - "that was the first one made"  That would make yours the second one made.
Pictures don't do these justice.  They are on a whole 'nother level from the standard parlors.
I'll get it together and post some pics of mine one of these days, along with my FQMS parlor in KOA.

D

The origonal owner of #1 seemed to think that 1-10 went to the first 10 RMMGA members who sent an order to Tony at fqms, and that he got #1 because he ordered within a few minutes of the announcement being posted.  And a few others may have been made and distributed.

I've had the parlor out on a stand next to my desk, and pick it to play when not at work.

[HangFire]

Very cool Randy;-)

[guitaradoptions]

Great score Randy! Congrats!