Meet the Collectors: Forderer and Westbrook

by Cyndy Burton

Originally published in American Lutherie #94, 2008



At the 2006 GAL Convention I spoke to Jim Forderer from California, and Jim Westbrook from Brighton, England, about their collections of historical guitars and their adventures in building those collections. At both the 2004 and 2006 GAL Conventions they arrived together in Forderer’s outsized RV packed to the ceiling with the most incredible road show this interviewer has had the pleasure to see. I began by asking Jim Forderer how he started collecting.

I played violin as a kid, starting as a four-year-old and playing through school and with a Country and Western group in college. Then I began to be interested in guitar, and bought a $10 guitar in Mexico. I played that guitar until it wore out. After I left school I didn’t play guitar for many, many years. I had a career as a horseman, and then got married and had a number of children, about thirty-two....