It’s a simple idea. Take the drawings from the original patents for famous guitars and recreate them as forms of art. Fine Art America has a wide variety of guitar patent posters to choose from and they seem to be made by different artists. There is also an Etsy shop called Patent Prints that has t-shirts in addition to posters. Going one step further, PatentArtwork.com features designs that include more of the text that accompanied the original patents.

Not a bad way to add some style to your guitar practice area. Plus it’s a lot cheaper than buying a whole wall’s worth of guitars.

If you’re a guitar enthusiast who’s been following things online for awhile, you’ve probably come across the Chicago Music Exchange before. Their contests, videos, and stories usually pop up several times a year. If you get to see glimpses of the showroom and don’t live in the area, you probably just get jealous like I do.  Now you can get a more in-depth look at the store thanks to this video tour that Premier Guitar put together.

From the video:

Shawn Hammond: Hey guys I’m Shawn Hammond with PremierGuitar.com. We’re here in Chicago at Chicago Music Exchange. David Kalt. David, you’re the owner of Chicago Music Exchange right? You bought it like five years ago. Tell us a little about the history of it.

David Kalt: Chicago Music Exchange was started in 1990 by Scott Silver and Scott was just crazy for vintage guitars. He’d been buying guitars for a long long time and he was very very on the hunt for vintage everywhere. He built the store around four blocks from here on Clark Street. Over the years I bought a bunch of guitars from him and he became very iconic in the vintage world as one of the pioneers in vintage. He big vision and when he built this store that we’re in right now in 2007 he had a real big vision for a lot of quality inventory all under one roof. Large ceiling, chandeliers, couches, and really making it comfortable for the musician when they are shopping for gear. Really taking you outside of what you’d expect of a guitar store. When I bought the shop from Scott in 2010 I really wanted to build on that experience, really take that wow experience, and always make sure that customers could always come and try gear that they are not going to be able to find locally. And then be able to supplement that with lots of more affordable inventory in the used market as well as new inventory from all the top brands like Gibson, Fender, Rickenbacher, Martin, Taylor, etc.

We look at our store as a flagship destination. So a lot of people travel through Chicago, a lot of bands travel through Chicago, a lot of tourists travel through Chicago. So we want to build a relationship with you when you’re in town but we’re happy to service you when you are back at home. And that’s why we spend a lot of time on our online channel, on our video, our website, as well on selling on Amazon, eBay, and Reverb. We really want you to find the gear where you want to buy it. We just want to be able to service you wherever you are most comfortable buying. Whether it’s in your bathrobe or in our showroom.