Pilgrimage to Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan

Last weekend I was at the Midwest Banjo Camp in Olivet, Michigan. On the way, I made the pilgrimage to Elderly Instruments in Lansing. I say 'pilgrimage' because the place is well-known to string musicians and has a sort of rosy glow in my mind. I've been a customer for years, and I even have two musician friends, Marcy Marxer and Gerald Ross, who worked there in their youth.  This is sort of a bucket list trip for me.

Here it is from the outside. It's located in Old Town Lansing, where there are many neat old houses and buildings. It's smaller than I expected from seeing it pictured online and in catalogs. But it holds many, many treasures.

The building is super cool. It originally was a lodge for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Remnants of its past can be seen on the front of the building...

...as well as on one of the cornerstones.

Here's the date the building was built.

Aside: I can't think of Odd Fellows without hearing this in my head.

A lot of the interior has been modernized, but the foyer and lobby retain the funky feel of the original building. Note the two elevators on the right with wood doors and frames.

In the lobby there are some really nice displays.

One has a number of old ukuleles. Most of them are plastic 1950s Mastro"TV Pal" soprano models.

I asked one of the staff if it was ok to take pictures and he said "Sure, people do it all the time." So it's not just me making this pilgrimage.

Then he said "Feel free to take anything down and play it." Gulp.

In a case in the lobby is this 1906 Gibson Model U harp guitar. I'm fascinated by harp guitars; I'd love to have one of the Knutsen models. Or frankly, any early 1900s harp guitar.

Elderly has three (!) of these for sale, this particular one, another black 1906 model, and a natural finish one from 1914. 

I would think there is a strong likelihood the two 1906 models were built by Orville Gibson himself in his Kalamazoo workshop.

Through the lobby is the main sales floor. There are accessories, picks, and the like. The sales counter and registers are to the right in this picture.

There are less-expensive acoustic guitars here as well as a rack of Fender guitars near the back.

To the left is a room with many ukuleles. You name it, it's here - Kala, Kamaka, Martin, etc.

On another wall there are more ukuleles, and some beautiful mandolins. I played the blond one in the front of the picture here - it's a killer Collings F model. It's just amazing.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this late 1920s Gibson A-4 mandolin. It's the younger sibling of my 1919 A-4.

Here's another neat prewar Gibson: this is a late 1930's EH-150 lap steel (the 'EH' is for "Electric Hawaiian").

Earlier versions of these had the famous "Charlie Christian" pickup; this one has a later pickup which ultimately morphed into the P90.

The lap steel was offered as a set with its matching amp. Both these pieces are super clean - I bet they weren't played much at all. Really nice.

Rows of banjos!

My head was spinning at this point, and I had just started looking around. Elderly had even more banjos and guitars for sale at Banjo Camp!

And a wall of dobros.

Where else could you find all of this plus autoharps and dulcimers?

Just off the main floor was this rack of Gretsches and D'Aquisto guitars.

That blonde double-cutaway Gretsch on the top row was the first "I want this" guitar I played during the visit. Super, super cool. It's one of their custom shop models I believe. Beautiful flame maple, gold hardware, TV Jones pickups.

That rack of Fenders I mentioned. Played a really nice 1952 Tele reissue that was on the other side of the rack. But I managed to resist the temptation to buy it.

A whole room full of solidbodies - PRS, Gibson, you name it.

And some neat old amps too.

Check out this clean 1964 Fender Bassman piggyback amp.

The amp I most wanted to take home was this 1974 Vibrolux Reverb. Forty watts, 2x10 speakers, and no master volume. One of my favorite Fender amps.

Here's one of the legendary Ampeg 'flip-top' amps. This one is a B-18N. The "18" is for its eighteen inch speaker!

Here's the chassis/head of the Ampeg.

This amp and the Fenders were very reasonably priced. Not inexpensive, but a lot better than what you'll see at 'vintage' dealers. Nice to think that the average musician might be able to afford one of these classics.

I was really curious to try this one, but I resisted. It's a 1950s Gibson ETG-50 tenor guitar ('ETG' = Electric Tenor Guitar). Another rare bird in real nice shape. And note the P-90 pickup with just 4 polepieces. I wonder if it's a regular one with the cover over the outside poles? Hmmmm.

Another cool 1950s Gibby!

This is a 1956 ES-225T. This one still has the unusual long tailpiece/bridge which had gone missing on my natural finish 1958 model.

This is the first time I had seen this new Martin model. This is a D-420, Elderly's site says it features a "Sitka spruce top that has been printed with a custom illustration by fine artist, Robert Goetzl, with a wink and a nod to the American cannabis culture." (Note the model number...that's sure a wink).

Martin has recently been offering some special models with murals like this inked on them, and I hate to say it, but for the most part, I find them quite ugly. It's made of good woods, it's made in Nazareth, it's a fine guitar, why mess it up? It's not the subjects of the art necessarily, it's just that I find this stuff on an acoustic guitar too jarring. But that's just me. You may think it's really cool. Would you pay almost $2400 for this?

Fortunately my Guitar Aquisition Syndrome was in remission while I was in Elderly, which my wallet thanks me for! I did buy some fingerpicks, thumbpicks and other stuff I needed and would have otherwise ordered online from the store.

Maybe next time I'll save up some money and buy an instrument.

After I was one, I hopped back into my rental and took off for Banjo Camp. I'll write about that next.