Joe Dampt

Joe Dampt is the owner and lead appraiser at Joe's Vintage Guitars in Mesa, Arizona. A player and a repairman who grew up on the music of Hank Garland, Merle Travis, and Chet Atkins, he has spent more than a decade buying vintage instruments full-time — 10,000-plus appraised, 1,000-plus repaired or restored, from single inherited guitars to a 700-piece Tucson collection and the estates of musicians who played alongside Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn. A former traveling appraiser for Treasure Seekers Roadshow, he specializes in golden-era Gibson electrics and archtops, pre-war Martins, and Fender custom colors, and publishes dating and authentication guides at joesvintageguitarsaz.com. He still gigs, and his two keepers, a 1956 Gretsch 6120 and a 1956 ES-5 Switchmaster, are both single-coil guitars, a fact he hopes Humbucker Soup readers will forgive.