The One That Got Away : 1978 BC Rich Eagle Supreme.

 

1978 BC Rich Eagle Supreme. Very few of these handmade guitars were ever produced. Even today, you have a better selection of 1950s Fenders in vintage guitars shops then you do original BC Riches.

And they were pricey when new. An old sales brochure lists the price at $1599 in the late ‘70s. Remember, the average automobile cost a little over $6,000 during this time frame according to the US Department of Commerce. 

 
I worked in a greasy spoon restaurant to buy that guitar. I simply fell in love with the look of the early BC Rich guitars. They were so unique. Plus, my guitar teacher owned one. So I was able to see it up close.

I parted with my beloved guitar only a couple of short years later thanks to the foolishness of youth. Stupidly, I sold the guitar to fund the purchase of another.

Out of all the guitars I have owned over the past twenty years, this particular one has always held a soft spot in my heart. I always knew that it would be easy to find if it ever came up for sale. There weren’t that many ever made. If it ever came up for sale I knew it would be listed at some vintage shop or prominently featured somewhere on the web. Plus, I still knew the old serial number and the wood grain would make it easy to identify.

After a decade-plus of sporadically searching for the guitar on Google, a familiar site popped up at beginning of January.

 

I looked at the ad’s photo for about five seconds before I said to myself, ‘that’s my old guitar.’ It was midnight, right before I went to bed when I found it. I had to wake my wife up to tell her.

 

I called the number listed in the ad and spoke to the current owner. He said he a some attachment to the guitar since he played it onstage with Rod Stewart at Madison Square Garden.

It turns out the guitar belonged to Oliver Leiber, who is the son of the legendary songwriter Jerry Leiber. Besides his stint as Rod Stewart’s guitarist, Leiber is also an accomplished record producer and songwriter; he even produced and wrote a number of former American Idol judge and ‘90s pop star Paula Abdul’s biggest hits. He’s currently member of the band fDeluxe, which features former members of Prince and the Revolution and Morris Day and the Time.

I recited the serial number from memory to Oliver and it matched. That’s when we both knew for certain that there was no questions regarding the guitar’s history.

On January 30, I sent Leiber the money for the guitar. One week to the day later, the guitar arrived in Sioux Falls from California.

There were a few wear marks that I remembered from when I had it before I notice when I first removed the guitar from the box. 

It's a great guitar and it's meant to played. And this time I’m not letting this one go! They’re too hard to find these days.

Check out a short video of love rekindled.