Obtaining a pedal steel guitar is usually an expensive endeavor. If you’ve taken the time to look for one on ebay or through a steel guitar vendor, you know that most used, working, entry-level models sell between $1,200 and $2,000. They’re rare, few shops sell them, and they aren’t mass produced like entry-level acoustic guitars, which is the reason they carry such a heavy price tag. To give you some perspective, most new, professional models start at $5,000 and climb into five figures for one-of-a-kind pieces.
I’ve been wanting to learn to play pedal steel guitar since my freshman year of college, some 15+ years ago. More recently, I started following online pedal steel forums this summer and started talking incessantly about it four or five months ago. I setup my ebay account to ping me whenever certain models went up for sale, and I was searching freecycle in hopes of someone trying to unload one without any idea as to the worth of the item.
About five weeks ago, PJ found a notice for one through Craigslist. The seller wanted $200 for what he called a Dekley 10-String Student Model. The ad also said that the unit was missing its two back legs. Two hundred dollars seemed worth it, even without the legs. So, PJ called the number, and the seller, Jeff, said that it was ours if we could pick it up that night.
Fifteen minutes later, we were at the ATM withdrawing money (Jeff had been specific about being paid in cash) and then we were on our way to a gas station meet-up point in central Virginia.
When Jeff had setup the exchange location, PJ didn’t think twice about it because he has no sense of direction and little comprehension of geographic relativity. As we drove deeper and deeper into the depths of rural central Virginia, however, PJ started to get nervous about where we were headed. It was extremely dark and we were only seeing house lights off in the distance every few miles. I came up with a plan to call our friends Steve and Krystal to “just let them know where we are and what we’re doing.” PJ eagerly went along with my suggestion and, once we had a cell signal, called our friends.
When we arrived at the gas station, we pulled up next to the only pickup truck on the premises and the man inside the cab of the truck nodded at me and rolled down his window. Jeff asked PJ to come around to the passenger side of his truck to “check out the merchandise” and PJ reluctantly followed. He tossed Jeff the money, grabbed the guitar, and hopped back into our car in under three minutes. It wasn’t until Jeff had driven off that we even had a good look at the instrument. We’re convinced the guy was after drug money, but had the exchange taken place in a bustling suburb by the light of day we may not have had the same opinion. Something was shady about the transaction, have no doubts about that, but since we had a $200 pedal steel at the end of the day, we decided it was worth the risk.
The next step was getting the pedal steel in working condition …
