My Birthday is, April 1st, but prior to my birthday I have been traveling around the Chicago area taking pictures of the Taylor Road Shows.
Thursday night my wife and I headed to the first one. Normally she would not attend a Road Show, but she was chauffering me because I had had a new lens placed in my right eye on Tuesday and I didn't want to drive at night. We were very early and while I headed into the dealer she window shopped up and down the street.
I stopped in guitar the dealer just to look around. The actual Road Show was going to be down the street in a large meeting hall. I wandered into the high end guitar room to see what was hanging on the wall and there was one Yairi-Alvarez. Since I own two already I took it down and played it. It was wonderful; as most Yairi's are. It was also very different. It had a graphite neck. The fret board was fully inlayed and the wood was stunning. I looked at the label and it was a DY-99A. Anything from DY 95 up in Yairi's is usually a limited production guitar and the best wood they have. The date on the label was 1993.
My wife wandered into the store and I showed her the guitar and played it for a minute or so. Now you have to understand that I have held myself in check and not purchased any guitars for several years. I have told my wife that once we retire and move to New Mexico I plan on adding a couple; but as much as I lust for a couple new Taylors I am not going to spend the money.
The guitar has a tag on it with a price that is very good to begin with. Well my wife asks the dealer what would you take for the guitar? Before he told her that he tells us the story of this particular guitar. He has been an Alvarez and Yairi dealer for a long time. At the NAMM show in Nashville in 1994 he purchased all the Yairi display guitars, including the DY-99A I just played. The DY-99A was made specifically for the NAMM show. All the guitars were shipped to the dealer and were subsequentially sold by the dealer. He put this one away and never offered it for sale until reciently. And then he said "you have to see the case for the guitar. It is custom made and is solid wood.
He disappeared down into the basement and retrieved the case which also has a canvas zipper cover to protect the wooden case!
My wife makes an offer to the dealer that is lower than the tag price. At this point I am telling my wife we don't need to spend the money and as nice as it is I really don't need another guitar. But she persists and the dealer says let me think about it. We wander off the the meeting hall site of the Road Show. A few minutes later the dealer comes in and tells my wife OK. I will sell it to you at the offer you made. Thanks to my wonderful wife I am the owner of a very rare and highly collectable Yairi guitar. My April fools day present was not a joke!
The guitar is wonderful. It has the most sustain I have ever heard from a guitar! It is balanced sonically and it responds to everything from finger picking to hard driving strumming. The top is sitka and the back in Indian Rosewood.
It is also very rare. I am going to speak to St. Louis Music on Monday. There is one individual there who is the expert on Yairi. Also our own member Yairiluvr has a lot of knowledge about Yairi's. He has never seen one listed as a DY-99A. I think we have some digging to do.
I am going to have to get documentation from the dealer that this guitar is infact a NOS guitar so that I can register it with St. Louis Music. They are the importer of Yairi guitars into the USA.
Jerry Garcia had one but it's whereabouts are unknown. Jerry never got is mitts on mine; so it doesn't have that provenance. In recient months two have sold on E-Bay for a tidy sum.
Here is mine.
The case is made of laminated Mahogany. It is arched over the body and the interior has pads to hold the guitar firm.
