Lorien Guitar Recovery: The Story of Our Evolution

• The idea for LGR started in 2013. Working out of two offices in a pole barn in Boring, Oregon, I started buying used and discarded instruments, mostly guitars, and set up a process to refurbish them for resale. We realized early on that this was a viable business.

•  In 2014, I studied guitar maintenance and repair at the American School of Lutherie to gain more knowledge and skills about guitar. Also, in 2014 I became a dealer for the factory authorized refurbisher of new instruments that were refurbished, to fill out our inventory.

• For the first few years we sold on-line, through an eBay store. Then we realized we needed a direct connection to buyers, so in 2015 we started doing farmer’s markets. It turned out to be a big hit. People coming to the market for zucchini and tomatoes, went home with a guitar or ukulele. We were also excited to interact directly with our buyers, and realized we needed to take the next step. We started looking for a retail store.

• Finding a location for our store was a bit of a challenge. We wanted to stay in our community of, but there are only a few retail spaces in Boring and we lost our first bid for our space in 2015 to another retailer.

• We stayed on-line through eBay, launched our own website in 2017, and relaunched it in 2019, just before the Covid-19 crisis.

• In 2022, the storefront we lost in 2015 became available again. This time we got the space; a building from 1947, with character, and strong security. On September 22, 2022 we opened up our first retail outlet in Boring, Oregon. In addition to our original mission of selling refurbished instruments, we also offer guitar and instrument repair services, and in our second year, we introduced band instrument sales and rentals.