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Originally Posted by Lousyatit
My experience with Derrig's guitars was different from yours. I have a friend who knew Chris and owned two different Derrig's at different times. They weren't all that special. If Chris sold one for 25 grand in '82, then there's only one reason that could have possibly accounted for that price.
Soldano, one of the reasons that you haven't seen one come up for sale is because he simply didn't produce that many. I'm not sure how old he was when he died, but he wasn't very old.
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You're actually very right on all those observations because during the time I knew him he was building each one as a stepping stone to the next project until he got it right and there were very few. I actually bought one of his seconds that had a one piece flame top that was very close to being vintage correct but even Chris showed me the errors in construction (inlay placement was off, some body contours weren't quite right, and other minor issues) that lead to it being a second. Of course for me as a teenager it didn't really matter because the woods were right and it sounded really correct. I fell into the trap of always never being satisfied and wanting next weeks hot ticket item and let it go which was a mistake! What I did watch happen with him was a continual refining of the process until the last few he made were pretty much dead on. Even the Sunburst he made for Charlie Daniels wasn't exactly perfect but it sounded great and CD was very happy with it. The real problem for me with Chris was he was trying to make total counterfeit pieces and sell them as originals which bothered me alot. I respected his talent but couldn't deal with his blatantly lying to customers about these guitars being originals! He was a shady character who definitely died too young but maybe Kharma caught up with him.
