Welcome to Project: Gorgon!


Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Project: Gorgon also features an ambitious skill based leveling system that bucks the current trend of pre-determined classes, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience.

The Project: Gorgon development team is led by industry veteran Eric Heimburg. Eric has over a decade of experience working as a Senior and Lead Engineer, Developer, Designer and Producer on successful games such as Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Star Trek Online and other successful Massively Multiplayer Online Games.



User Tag List

Results 1 to 8 of 8
  1. #1
    Senior Member Hood's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Another Place
    Posts
    254
    Mentioned
    10 Post(s)
    Tagged
    2 Thread(s)

    My Rare Thrift Store Find

    Today has been a very wild ride.

    A couple of days ago, my wife and I went to a thrift store in town. We were casually walking around when I spotted something I'd been looking for. A small-body acoustic guitar. To be specific, this was actually a classical guitar. I looked inside the guitar and glanced at the label, "Taurus", then at the price--roughly 11 dollars.

    I was ecstatic. I told my wife I was getting it since I'd actually been wanting to get a piccolo guitar that costs around 100 dollars. I had effectively just saved 90 dollars since it's something I was going to get anyway. Plus it was in quite good condition aside from a couple of bumps and scratches.

    Flash forward to today. As I left town to come to school for a couple of days, I remembered the brand of the guitar. Taurus. As well as the broken tuning key on the guitar head's left side. I browsed Amazon on the bus, looking for a replica of the keys on the guitar or an actual Taurus tuning key to replace it. I found a replica, but absolutely no references to the guitar brand itself. So I went to Google and Reddit.

    I found nothing on Reddit, but on Google itself, I found very strange results. People lauding and praising the Taurus brand. They described in vivid detail its punchy melodic tone and bragged about its origins--the low-end student version of Ramirez classical guitars from Spain. The guitars in their images similar in size and color to my own The low-end student version that sounds just as great as Ramirez itself. As I scraped Google's results, I found to my absolute joy that these Taurus guitars were rare. Extremely rare. They were discontinued in the 1970's. I searched more and found old ebay and reverb (an instrument selling site) auctions where the Taurus guitars sold from between $100 (damaged nearly beyond repair) to a whopping $2,000.

    As my professor continued her lecture, I texted my wife a list of close-up pictures I needed her to take of the guitar when she got home from work. I waited hours in glee--I was so excited to post the pictures to some cork-sniffing classical guitar aficionado subreddit or 90's era forum and ask them how much they think I could get for it on online auction.

    I figured that barring any serious damage to the soundboard of the guitar, I could get at least $1000 with some high quality pictures, descriptive text, and careful packaging of the guitar prior to shipping.

    I've never been this lucky before. $11 becomes $1000 with next to no effort.

    My wife got home. She begins sending me pictures of the guitar. So far, aside from the fixable tuning key, the minor scratch & small bump, I see no damage. She sends me a beautiful picture of the rosette. In the background I see the old label on the interior of the guitar through the sound hole. It's out of focus, but I clearly see the word Taurus, just like I remembered. The next picture brings the label itself into focus, and with three words, my heart drops and I chuckle bitterly. Just below the flowing Taurus logo:"Made in China".

    It sure was fun to dream though!

    Note: this really happened today, for real.
    Last edited by Hood; 01-17-2017 at 12:14 PM.

  2. #2
    Member kell.shepherd's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    63
    Mentioned
    1 Post(s)
    Tagged
    1 Thread(s)
    Nice, that's like those Antique Roadshow scenarios.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Crissa's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Location
    Santa Cruz, CA
    Posts
    861
    Mentioned
    24 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Brands are almost a bait and switch now a days. You build a brand by making something good, you sell it as a loss-leader, then you sell the brand to China for big bucks (which is where you really make your money) and anyone expecting the promise of product you previously delivered finds crap arrives when they select your brand based upon previous reviews.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Tagamogi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Posts
    730
    Mentioned
    26 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    I was all ready to excitedly congratulate you and then I got to the end of your post. =P I know nothing about guitars but I'm curious about the mystery now: Is your guitar a Washburn Taurus? From googling that seems likely.

    Well, on the plus side, it's definitely worth more than you paid for it either way, and who'd quibble over such little details as how much more...

  5. #5
    Senior Member Hood's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Another Place
    Posts
    254
    Mentioned
    10 Post(s)
    Tagged
    2 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Tagamogi View Post
    I was all ready to excitedly congratulate you and then I got to the end of your post. =P I know nothing about guitars but I'm curious about the mystery now: Is your guitar a Washburn Taurus? From googling that seems likely.
    No, if it were real, it'd be a Taurus made by Ramirez Guitars in the 60-70's. Like this one: http://www.oldschoolflamenco.com/com...l-56-t408.html

    And yeah, I'm still very happy with it! I definitely still got a great deal.

  6. #6
    Senior Member Crissa's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Location
    Santa Cruz, CA
    Posts
    861
    Mentioned
    24 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Sometimes replicas are worth more (or are better) than their name implies. I have a Hondo and while it's just a copy of a copy, it's still super-good compared to other guitars in its price class. Very solid. Puts my original Affinity to shame - even though the Affinity is a licensed copy of a P-Bass and the Hondo was a Korean knock-off.

  7. #7
    Senior Member Tagamogi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Posts
    730
    Mentioned
    26 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    I was thinking it might be one of these guitars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washburn_Guitars - real brand name but non-rare non-Spanish. I just ran a search on "taurus guitar china" and turned up one review complaining that these guitars used to be great until they started making them in China, so that seems like it could fit with your label... Although from the pictures I saw, they were just putting "Washburn" on their guitars not "Taurus". Oh well, let's just call it a Chinese Taurus guitar.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Hood's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Another Place
    Posts
    254
    Mentioned
    10 Post(s)
    Tagged
    2 Thread(s)
    Lol yeah, something like that, I guess. Now that I'm home and can really take a close look at it I see that the wood itself is fine-grain composite wood covered in a veneer. It really is a very poorly made guitar with a (most likely) coincidental name.



Thread Footer

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •