I remember this guitar well. It started life in Pewter as the Royal Albert Hall pics show. Then it was 7-Up Green in the gear photo on page 79 of the first Christie's Eric Clapton auction catalog for the June 24, 1999, auction (not my favorite color I might add). I know when that [the color change to 7-Up Green] happened. When it finally became black and beautiful I do not know, but I applaud it. However when Lee says it is almost like a prototype I must disagree! It is a prototype! It is Mike Stevens #1 regardless of its chameleon-like life.

Cutting to the short version, when I finally copied Blackie (which for two weeks never left my sight unless locked in my office in Corona or stashed under my bed with a pistol under my pillow while I slept) to finalize the Clapton series for Fender, I made two necks for Eric that were approved. John Page, George Blanda, the electronic R&D guys and I all worked on this project. I built the necks and the carving templates and later helped get it into regular production. But then my job was to assemble my necks on these two bodies and make them play great! This [current Lot 86] is Mike Stevens #1. If you will recall, Lot 62 in the first sale was Mike Stevens #2.

That guitar is the prototype double-neck of the Robin Guitar Company. I built it for Dave Wintz along with five other guitars and one electric mando before he had his company up and running in Houston. These instruments were the body of his first NAMM show appearance. I can't remember the year, about 1985 or 86? They are Dave's designs. I built the protos from drawings and added all the 60s or 50s details so they could be copied overseas easily. We never mentioned I built them because of my reputation in Texas might confuse people as to whose or what they were. No harm in talking about it now. They were Dave's ideas.

By the time this prototype was built, Dave had the Ranger guitar in production, so I did use a company neck. The blonde Ranger guitar in the center of the pictured color handout from NAMM is my prototype. I called Dave to confirm. I guess this is a bit different from Jimmie's [Jimmie Vaughan] story but should not make any difference, it is the guitar they [Jimmie and his brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan] played and played.