A Letter From a New Friend
We've always said that we're not in this for the money. No sane person would start a guitar business to get rich. Yes, turning a profit is kind of important. It helps pay the bills and keep the lights on. But the real reward is the satisfaction of our customers. We encourage reviews from owners for three reasons: Firstly, it strokes our ego. We love hearing from owners who are surprised by just how good their new guitar actually is. Secondly, it gives us feedback on where we need to focus to make the experience even better, and finally, it plays a vital role in attracting other new owners.
Most reviews arrive in the form of bits and bites - small digital chunks that end up stored as words, sentences and paragraphs. Imagine our surprise and delight when we found an envelope in our physical mailbox that contained an actual letter from a new customer. Not only a folded paper letter but one that was composed on a typewriter.
I wrote John (by email, I confess) asking if we could share his praise for Tofino X, at the same time mentioning how unusual it was to receive a typewritten letter. He replied with his generous assent and went on to say:
Hi John, yes, by all means you can use my comments. And let me add that the guitar continues to show me new notes and combinations and melodies every day. An amazing instrument.
Speaking of amazing instruments, every now and then when I write I like to go acoustic, and I found a 1963-ish Olivetti Lettera 32 for those times. It's a legendary typewriter in its own way. Its initial iteration, the Lettera 22 (the same typewriter, really), is in the Museum of Modern Art for its design. American author Cormac McCarthy wrote nearly all of his works on a 32, and then sold it for a quarter of a million dollars. He used some of that to buy another 32. And you can find Leonard Cohen's muse, Marianne Ihlen, seductively typing on one on the back cover of Cohen's album "Songs from a Room." It's really a lot of fun to play -- I mean, write with.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and for giving us a look in the window of your creativity.
