NBN Guitars

NBN had finally made the decision to close down - everyone (except Monty) felt that it was time to get a little security for themselves and their families, and handmade guitars were just too difficult a way to make a living.  Remember, this was 1975/76, before the 'golden age' of American hand built acoustic guitars, and the music world was totally enamored with electronic instruments.  Monty, Reb, Andy, Lester Santos, and I were finishing up the 'last batch' of 15 or so guitars.  
 
At this same time, Elvis had been in the Colorado area, reportedly looking for a residential property to buy.  He had been around the resorts and in the Denver area.  Elvis was in the news for doing weird things.  He was buying Cadillacs and giving them to people like the head of the Governor's Drug Strike Force (Of course! A perfect co-opt move, Elvis!) and even showing up at the Cadillac dealers incognito with a ski mask over his head and buying a new Cadillac for a complete stranger he had befriended on the street.
 
As we were finishing this last batch of guitars, we listened to radio reports about Elvis in the news.  Making small talk, we said to ourselves, "Gee, I wish Elvis would give ME a Cadillac!"  Then the talk 'evolved' into things like: "Well, maybe if we gave him a guitar, he would give us a Cadillac", and "We should give him a guitar and maybe he will be a sponsor of our instruments and make them famous and we won't have to close down the company".  Stuff like that.
 
One of the guitars we were finishing was a truly gorgeous Brazilian Rosewood concert-sized instrument with a carved heel and a lot of abalone work.  Someone (not me, I think it was Andy or Lester) got the idea that we should take this guitar to Elvis (he was up in Vail) and give it to him.  So, Andy and Lester drove to Vail with the guitar.  They found where Elvis was staying, and asked one of his bodyguards if they could see him and give him the guitar.  The bodyguard said that Elvis was not there and when he returned the guard would tell him about the guitar.  Andy and Lester were to come back later.  When they returned, the guard told them that Elvis had said that he would take the guitar, and they should leave it with the bodyguard and he would give it to Elvis.  They left the guitar with the guard and returned to Longmont.  They never saw Elvis.  I remember deriding them about the whole fiasco -- telling them that Elvis never saw the guitar and that the bodyguard's kid probably had it in some dank basement somewhere banging out bad Rock 'n Roll on it.
 
Needless to say, NBN never got a Cadillac - or even a thank you - from Presley, and we went ahead and closed the company and all of us, except Monty, went off to do other things and seek our fortunes some other way.  Reb and I went to work in Boulder, Andy moved to Guild Guitars in New England, Lester went off to Wyoming to play guitar and build furniture.  Monty kept on building beautiful instruments in the Longmont area until his death in the early 80s.  
 
But there is more to this story.
 
Some ten years or more later, long after Elvis' death, Reb related that he received a telephone call late one night from someone in (I think) Nashville.  This person said that they had just purchased a beautiful NBN CT-Ltd from an auction of Presley memorabilia and wanted to verify that NBN had made the guitar and given it to Presley.  This person had paid a LARGE sum of money for the instrument.  He indicated that Presley loved the guitar and had used it in several concerts.