So, this past weekend I had a guitar playing gig. I was a bit apprehensive about it, but I was also pretty excited about it. I got to drag my nice guitar rig out, and got to drag my nice guitars out, and I got to play some rock and roll guitar.
I'm primarily a bass player, but I have a lot of really kickass guitar gear, and I love having people appreciate my gear as much as I do; so when the guitarist in my regular band asked to borrow a guitar for a backup I said "sure." I let him use one of my Custom Shop Les Pauls.
Over the course of the past 3 years he's pretty much been in posession of my MIJ Telecaster I've hot rodded. Whatever, it's not a guitar that cost a lot of money, it's a rocker, and he's needed a decent guitar. He ended up selling his guitar, (a Korean "Epiphone") with the idea of getting a new guitar, but that didn't happen. He's just used the Tele and on occasion he'll ask to borrow a different guitar. I really haven't had too much of a problem with it, he seems to take care of them, and they get played. To be honest, I don't get a lot of chances to play my guitars.
I'm not someone who frets about a ding on a guitar, or a scratch in tolex, and considering most of my instruments are over 20 years old, I'm really laid back about the value of the things. As long as the damage isn't something excessively careless, there's such a thing as "honest wear."
Friday evening, I ask for my Les Paul back, and he says "sure,
I just put new strings on it." So right before we go on I get my main guitar tuned up, and go to get the one he's been borrowing and there's a chunk of wood missing from the headstock. Not a ding, or a scratch or a burn... a frickin' chip of wood, the entire thickness of the headstock and nearly an inch long and probably a quarter cm deep. I felt like Niedermeyer from Animal House spitting invectives and hurtling curses that defy mortal creativity. This is mere moments before headlining a relatively big local event. He honestly tried to convince me that he didn't know it was there.
If I'm in posession of someone else's $2500+ instrument I will know every golly darned thing that is wrong with that instrument, and I'd certainly notice to the frickin' second that a frickin' chunk of wood is missing out of the headstock on the bass side above the D string tuner.
We pulled off the show fine, I didn't need to use the backup- not that the missing chunk is in any way structural, just cosmetic.
I go to clean the guitar up yesterday, polish it up, look for other obvious dings or damage... to top everything else off... old, dead ass strings...
Are you coming out of the closet 
