Bob, are you sure it was a Forumite who bought the guitar because he saw your post? It certainly could be possible, but it's certainly possible it was just another eBay surfer who came upon the same guitar and acted.
To quote a famous man, "He who hesitates, is lost." As you stated, you were "fooling around," but now realize the other buyer was serious enough to commit the bucks. He won.
Only marginally related to your case, I get lots of contacts from steel players who, due to their relative inexperience or perhaps some other hesitancy, ask me all sorts of questions about guitars they're thinking of buying, usually ending with "Should I get this, is it a good deal?"
I always reply that I can't comment on a guitar I haven't seen or played, though by photos I can tell if a guitar may or may not have been mangled. But I do tell them that if they want the guitar, they should get it. They're buying a guitar, not setting fire to a bundle of cash or shredding it and flushing it down the commode. If later they decide they don't like it, they can sell it to someone else. They might even MAKE some bucks on the deal, but if the lose a little, at least they got a bit of an education about the instrument in general. No one ever got a free education, regardless of what endeavor we're discussing.
The lesson here is that if you see something you think is a good deal, and there's a time widnow involved or a good chance someone else will snap it up, you should act immediately.
What we're dealing with is some sort of fear. Fear of making a mistake, fear of ridicule, fear of spending money foolishly, whatever. Fear paralyzes, fear hinders, fear keeps us from living life fully and to the extent we would really like. No one is immune from this, incidentally.
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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association
bob
