ARROYO GRANDE CA (IFS) -- Starting in late 2000 the Rock Creek Guitar Manufacturing company produced a limited quantity of the Merrell Fankhauser Signature guitar. The first guitar was to have gone to Merrell, but instead Sir Paul McCartney was given the opportunity to test and play the first commercial copy of the famous guitar, and he fell in love with it. He insisted that he wanted to keep that first one, and off to United Kingdom he went with it. In turn Merrell received the second copy, and his grand daughter Linda Fankhauser received the third copy.
The design and initial manufacturing was done by his son, Tim Fankhauser, a noted musician and songwriter with many credits of his own in the music business, including his timeless "Hazards", the surf music classic that has a life of its own, as his father with "Wipeout". If you get a chance to see one of these guitars anywhere in a music store or at a neighbors garage sale, and you get a chance to play it, you will be fore-warned that this 'Impact' model goes for an incredible $3,500. It's no wonder that Paul McCartney grabbed the first one and ran home with it.
It's just as crazy that the above blue label copy of Merrell's "Some Of Them Escaped It All" single on D-Town Records, on the collectors markets goes for over $50.00 per copy. There was never any reason as to why this particular release did so.
