David
You lucky man (subject to what you paid!!). When I was at boarding school at Woodbridge the school group included Nick Lowe (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI2k6ase ... re=related) playing bass and Brinsley Schwartz (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWvrMoPp ... re=related) on lead guitar (this was in 1963), both of whom went on to various degrees of fame in the music industry. The second guitarist, Philip Hall, had a Burns Vibra Artist, one of the models with the mini-jack rather than the conventional one and he used to let me practice with it from time to time. I remember being in the dog-house when I trod on the lead and snapped the mini-jack off in the socket.
In 1964 Brinsley left the school and I formed the next school group and when we played at the end of term Christmas Concert Nick Lowe played bass with us. I still remember that we played three numbers - Stand By Me, Flingle Bunt but cannot remember the third song. At the time I had a Hofner V3. Two years later I left school and traded the Hofner in for a Burns Vibra Artist - with a standard jack! I used that through a Vox AC30 while playing with my college band gigging in the Eastbourne area. It was a great guitar but I never did suss out how the controls worked!
By the way going back to teh original school group I remember that Brinsley played a Fenton Weil three pick-up model. The drummer was Barry Landemann who went on to play keyboard and the recorder solo on Vanity Fair's one and only number one hit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbaISxK8QYBrian