While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Owner of Allans Billy Hyde, AMI and so much more, it was from simple beginnings that legendary music-retailer-turned-collector Con Gallin formed his reputation. “The opportunities I’ve had in this industry have come from my first job,” Gallin begins. “When I was 16, I was having music lessons at [Allans Billy Hyde], and I asked them for a job on Saturdays. The first 14 times they said no, and then they said, ‘You’re driving us crazy. Come in Saturday, clean the floor, clean the instruments, don’t talk to the customers and don’t answer the phones’.”

It was during his part-time Saturday stint that he began analysing everything from violins to trumpets, eventually forming a strong passion for the guitar. Collecting interesting and limited edition guitars as they came onto the market as years went on, such as signed and numbered pieces from Jimmy Page, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and more, Gallin slowly built up what would become one of the countries biggest guitar collections, some hosting classic guitar history and personal stories to go along with them, including outings with Paul McCartney in his 20s when he lived in England playing in bands. “He was the nicest guy, and he doesn’t endorse anything, but he endorsed this one guitar. And the reason he did was when he was married to Heather Mills, she was doing her Adopt-A-Minefield, and Gibson wanted to do the Epiphone, but he didn’t want to endorse it because he didn’t need the money and didn’t advertise anything.

“And they said, ‘Well, we’ll donate a million dollars to the charity, Adopt-A-Minefield’, so he did it. What’s important about that guitar is, there are only 40 for the world and he signed them.”

Paul McCartney 1964 Aged Texan Epiphone

The four Jimmy Page guitars in the collection speak volumes to the quality of music produced during the era they were made. “Led Zeppelin were the greatest guitar rock band, and to have the four Jimmy Page [guitars], is priceless. Rock music is classical music today; there isn’t going to be another rock band like Led Zeppelin or The Beatles – never. Those bands are like Mozart and Beethoven now. That era is gone; electronics and technology and has taken over.”

Jimmy Page Signature EDS-1275 Aged Double Neck Gibson

And perhaps one of the most epic designs in the collection is the Gibson SJ-20 Pirate acoustic.

“What happened there was, Disney commissioned Gibson to make a guitar for Johnny Depp worth $100,000. The guy that made the guitar, Ren Ferguson, could do anything, and he showed me these pictures one day and said, ‘Look, I made this guitar for Johnny Depp’, and I was like, ‘That’s amazing. Make me one’. And he said, ‘I can’t make you one, it was for Pirates Of The Caribbean’.

“When Disney gave Jonny Depp the guitar, for a half an hour, he wouldn’t speak; he just sat there looking at it. I said, ‘Why can’t you make me one like it?’. And he said, ‘Alright, I’ll make you a different one; better than his’.” 

Gibson SJ-20 Pirate Acoustic

When the powerhouse of the Australian musical instrument industry offers up a guitar collection worth $1.5M, it’s going to get a lot of people talking. Once guitarists wiped the drool from the chin and non-guitar folk were finished admiring the pretty shapes and colours, a series of questions came to mind; mainly, why sell such an impressive collection? “It’s not for someone who asks for lay-by,” he laughs. “No one in Australia has a collection or anything like it, so we thought why we don’t do something extravagant. I’d like to sort of flaunt it around and show the Americans that down in Australia we have a lot going on. Don’t underestimate Australia.

“No one has ever done anything like this in our country, and I’m talking about people that are wholesalers and distributors, they’ve never gone that extra distance, and I have, and I’m saying here’s the proof. Hopefully it’ll put a bit more excitement in the industry.”

You can find a detailed list of all items in the collection on Allans Billy Hyde’s website, and if you’ve got a spare $1.5M lying around, you can express interest via vault@allansbillyhyde.com.au.