In the late 1980’s, 1986 or 1988 no one can quite remember, Frank Moates started his own shop from the basement of a friends home in East Marietta, Georgia. And Frank also had been working for Dixie Guitars in Smyrna Georgia on Guitar Row as it was called due to their being 5 music stores on that street almost right next to each other! Music Mart, American Music, Amazing Music, Dirt Cheap Music and Dixie Guitars all called Cherokee Street/Windy Hill Road, home! Due to the times and bad decisions, Dixie Guitars had to close and Frank took over their location and Atlanta Vintage Guitars was born!

 Though it opened probably around 1990 it wasn’t until 1998 that Atlanta Vintage Guitars or AVG as it is known, was incorporated in the state of Georgia. Frank soon gained the reputation of having the good stuff! In old Vintage Guitar magazine articles you would find ads for AVG showing inventory lists where you would see several vintage Gibson, Fender and Martin guitars that would make your head spin now but then was pretty common to see in stores! The Joe Perry Les Paul that Slash bought came thru AVG at one time before Slash had it, Jimmy Page and Devon Townsend paid a visit to Franks store, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top bought a few guitars from Frank, one of note was a black guard Esquire from the early 1950’s! 

As the years went by and as the market went up and down, and times changed, Frank moved into a small little wooden house across the street from where he was, that was like 4 small rooms, and downsized the operation so he could do more of what he loved which was playing the blues. Around that time Frank bought his forever guitar a 1963 Gibson ES 335 from the one and only Steve Marriot from Humble Pie and the Small Faces. 

Marriot had moved to Atlanta to find musicians and the tale of Frank buying this guitar is so funny and Frank posted a you tube video, I won’t even try to recreate it so we will link to it on our video page!

Some time around the mid 2000’s Frank developed Colon Cancer and fought such a hard fight and played out and ran the store at reduced hours up until his death in July of 2009. The new owner Greg Henderson, ironically played with Frank on his last gig only 2 weeks before he passed. 

With the help of a couple of Frank’s friend’s, a lot of AVG’s inventory was sold out of the store and the inventory got down to a few guitars with issues, and a lot of amps, speakers and parts. On June 28th 2011 Greg Henderson bought AVG, the name, website and inventory and kept the original phone number that is still the number today! But due to the building declining sturdiness, and structure issues, moved all the inventory to 4 climate controlled storage buildings. 

The new Atlanta Vintage Guitars was launched and the climate control storage unit was soon not optimal for business, so they moved to a location on Hwy 92 in Woodstock GA for 4 years and then in August of 2015 to its current location at 3778 Canton Road Suite 400 Marietta GA 30066.
 
We are so thankful that since 2011, we have been able to keep growing and take care of our customers, who are not just customers, but who we consider our dear friends as well! In addition to Greg, Spencer Kirkpatrick, Ron Ferguson, Greg Montgomery, J.P Heinz, Jerry Farr, Eric Henderson, James Myerscough, folks who have helped get us to where we are today. We are not only known for good deals on new and used gear, whether it is buying, selling, trading or consigning, AVG also does appraisals and professional repairs and setups, and we have trusted artisans who do work for us outside the shop that we can not do in house! 

Plans for Atlanta Vintage Guitars? Well, we want to relaunch our charity, Guitar for Hearts, and our unique service for our customer guitar collections, The Guitar Registry. There are other changes coming soon such as our new easier to use website! 

Thank you for your support of our small business as our goal is to maintain what you love about us and keep improving on how we can keep being “Where Guitar Lovers Shop!”