Guitars R Us Strat 1995 Ocean Turquoise - lefty - built for and signed by CoCo Montoya

Okay folks this is an interesting and unique piece.

Anyone who lived in LA during the late '80's and through the '90's would have known about Guitars R Us. It was on Sunset Blvd, across from the Hollywood Guitar Center, at a time when there were a host of shops and things hadn't yet gone completely corporate. Despite having become ubiquitous today, Guitars R Us was truly one of the first vintage shops that had a great mix of the premier collectible brands and a great mix of new and used.

It was owned by a highly respected musician and merchant named Albert Molinaro. He literally lived in the scene through his daily interactions at his shop as well as an active professional bass player. A who's who of music stars, including "A" list, superstars to come, and lesser known giants would frequent his shop.

Surrounded by classic guitar models, Albert had a side hobby of building guitars. This practice would take place at some of the best So-Cal shops - such as Valley Arts Guitars - where the merchant would build guitars for the artists that frequented their shops. Such was the case with this guitar that Albert built for Coco Montoya in 1995.

Coco Montoya is an epic player. He cut his teeth with blues legend Albert Collins in the 1970's and spent 10 years with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers from the mid '80's to the mid '90's. Coco and Albert were - and are - close friends and this was one of several guitars that Albert built for Coco during the 1990's.

These guitars are very hard to find. Most of the Guitars R Us guitars that Albert built were either specifically built for artists or would be shipped to a dealer in Japan who loved them. They almost never circulated within the US however. I reached out to Albert recently and he remembered building this guitar and that they would retail in the neighborhood of $2,500 back in the day. This makes sense as these guitars are all USA boutique builds and have a real Fender Custom Shop feel to them.

Now Coco Montoya is  but plays a left-handed guitar with a right-handed neck (i.e. strings upside down). This is such a particular style that my tech and I thought we would set it up left handed to broaden the appeal a bit. In short though you get a left handed guitar with a reverse headstock. The guitar is in very good shape. It weighs in at 7.4 pounds and has a classic Fender feel to it. Traditional Strat electronics. Perfect maple neck and a gorgeous rosewood board. There are a couple of nicks but nothing major. One very small ding through the finish near the tip of the lower bout. I LOVE the color. Ocean turquoise. It is probably just on the greenish side of teal. Really cool color. The neck plate in engraved with GUITARS R US 1995 COCO MONTOYA.

The previous owner who has had this guitar for the last 15 years or so loved to have the artists sign the guitars he acquired and he had Coco sign the body. The pictures are all of the actual guitar you will happily unpack. The listing includes the pictured Guitars R Us heavy duty padded gigbags. It is really heavy duty. They dont make gigbags like this anymore either.

Reasonable offers always considered as well as sensible trades.

As for me I've been lucky enough to carve out a living in the music products industry for my entire adult life and I had the privilege of owning Monster Music in Levittown for 14 years before selling the shop in 2019. Many of my former customers are still with me here online now as Brian's House of Music & Fun! Thanks for keeping the music alive!