SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Finding your dream guitar can be a difficult task, especially if it is in a mom and pop store halfway across the country. However, a Sioux Falls founded auction site may be able to help.
Peter Burghardt has always had a love for instruments.
“I remember being a kid. I got my first sort of broken acoustic guitar when I was about, I don’t know, four years old,” StringTree Founder, Peter Burghardt said.
But things changed for him, when he became the owner of a 1934 Gibson L-00 that was previously owned by a World War 2 veteran.
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“He was an aerial photographer in World War Two,” Burghardt said. “He brought it with him to various elements of World War Two, and it was with him. I have pictures in the case of him in his bunk, in a training camp and things like that. It was his guitar his entire life. So I started thinking how can we find more instruments like this that have amazing stories?”
That’s how StringTree was born.
“StringTree is an online marketplace for vintage, collectible and high end musical instruments,” Head of Operations, Jennifer Falkenstein said.
“We don’t allow people just to post items for sale that they’ve taken a picture of on their bathroom counter,” Burghardt said. “We select the items that we think are interesting that are going to speak to our users. We try and tell the story of those items.”
Items like the Monsters of Rock Kramer Baretta guitar that is going on auction in a few days.
“It’s one of just a handful that were signed by all the members of Van Halen, and the collector kept it basically as a time capsule in completely unplayed, like mint, like it looks like it came out of the factory and was signed yesterday,” Burghardt said.
While many people may think the online market could harm brick and mortar stores, StringTree actually aids them, acting as a middle man.
“The market fluctuates so much so for brick and mortar. It’s hard to be able to sell their great instrument because it doesn’t have a lot of visibility. What StringTree does is it brings it forward to a massive audience all over the United States,” Falkenstein said.
Bringing music to the ears of stores and instrument lovers alike.
