If you watch the Gibson "The Collection" video on Rick, I think you'll find he wasn't dealing in vintage guitars - he was (and still is) hoarding them. Some people have a LOT of guitars. Rock has (literally, not metaphorically) Tons of guitars.
His parents owned a music store, and got into it that way…
“Nielsen was born on December 22, 1948 in Rockford, Illinois, near Chicago. His parents were both opera singers and his father also conducted symphonies and recorded 40 albums. In this environment it is understandable that little Rick was attracted to music from an early age, although he was more passionate about
Chuck Berry and
Elvis than
Verdi and
Puccini. His absolute love was electric guitars and soon he saw his dream come true when, as a teenager, his father opened a musical instrument store – and Nielsen was like a kid in a candy store.
Before he was 20 Nielsen had already owned a Gretsch Duo Jet, some Fender Esquires, Telecaster Customs, Strats, Les Paul Juniors.... It was the beginning of a lifetime of collecting guitars and selling them. As soon as he was old enough he got behind the counter and even sold his second Les Paul Standard to the guitarist he most admired in the world,
Jeff Beck. But what he liked most was to play them. He got his first Les Paul, a '55 Goldtop for 65 dollars and with it he would go to a little place called El Dorado where the musicians who played there all knew him from the store - and when they needed a guitarist the young Nielsen would accompany them. That's how he learnt his trade, by playing with legends like
Del Shannon, Bo Diddley and
Chuck Berryhimself. Nielsen confirmed that the mythical bad temper of the father of rock & roll was not a legend, Berry didn't even deign to tell them the notes of the songs; they had to look at his hands and guess what fret he was on.
After playing in several cover bands, the first serious band Nielsen was in was
Fuse, formed in 1968, where he coincided with
Tom Petersson who played bass. They recorded a rather mediocre album, which appeared in 1969, with three songs composed solo by our protagonist who, in addition to playing guitar, also played the melotron. The band went nowhere but Nielsen and Petersson hit it off and went to Europe in the early 70's with a new band called
Sick Man Of Europe, in which
Bun E. Carlos played drums. In 1973 they returned to Rockford and changed their name to Cheap Trick.
At this time Nielsen was still making more money selling guitars, now as a private collector, than with the band. In 1973 he got a call from
Paul Hamer who was looking for a Les Paul Standard Sunburst. Nielsen had one and a lot of financial problems - his wife was pregnant with their first child - so he decided to sell it to him for $2,500. Hamer resold it shortly after for much more money and with the proceeds he started his own guitar company: ‘Hamer’. In 1974 they released one of their first models, the Hamer Standard, which drew on the design of the Gibson Explorer - Nielsen was one of the first to own one and it would become his best known guitar. His relationship with the brand would be totally symbiotic.”
He started selling off his latter day collection almost 10 years ago.
