Tier 1

From Handover To Return

Handover

Once you've arranged delivery date, time & location, it's simply a case of being there to receive your guitar and/or peripherals. This is a personal handover service - I'll bring the guitar, Support Pack and/or peripherals directly to the location we agree. This is all part of the experience. You'll have time to:

Check the guitar and/or peripherals over for any pre-existing dents, dings or distinguishing marks
Give the guitar a first play to get a feel for it
Familiarise yourself with the Support Pack contents and accessories
Ask any questions about the guitar, peripherals or experience that you may have
Confirm God's Own Guitars contact details, just in case you have any problems or questions during the hire period
Reconfirm return date, time and location
Sign off handover of the guitar and/or peripherals.

For each hired guitar, I offer a Support Pack in a God's Own Guitars messenger bag, typically including:

A set of Gods Own Guitars plectrums (yours to keep!)
A guitar strap and rubber strap locks
A clip-on tuner
A mini guitar stand
A cleaning cloth
A care & contact guide.

Basically, everything you need to get going, at least before you plug the guitar in. If you'd like to hire anything else, like Effects Pedals, an Amplifier, or cables with your guitar, just let me know as part of the hire process and I'll be more than happy to help.

After which, it's over to you!

During Your Experience

My aim is for you to have the best possible experience with your chosen guitar and/or peripherals. Each item will have been inspected, set up professionally & tested prior to handover, to give you the optimum experience.

All I'd ask is that you treat the guitar and/or peripherals with care. Many of the guitars in the collection bear the history and marks of a life well-played. But new dents, scratches and any other damage can be avoided if you follow the Care Guidelines below.

General Care Guidelines:

Cased or not, don't leave your guitar outdoors and exposed to the elements, or indoors and exposed to extremes of temperature, direct sunlight, damp, condensation, or to liquids.
When not in use, keep the guitar on its stand, for short periods, or in its case for longer periods.
Don't leave the guitar unattended with children or pets who may not know quite what a special item this is.
Keep drinks or liquids away from the guitar, just in case of spillages.
Don't lend the guitar to anyone else. You're the one who's hired it, and you're the one I'm trusting with it.
Don't modify your guitar. Yes, look after it as if it's your own, but not to the point of modifying, removing, or replacing any component part of the guitar. Probably obvious, but these guitars are not experiments, they're experiences.

Play Care Guidelines:

If you wear a belt, riveted clothes, or any metal accessories, keep them covered while playing the guitar.
Give the guitar body, neck and strings a light wipe down with a dry soft cloth after use. And don't use any cleaning products on your guitar.
If you need to replace one or more strings, take care not to scratch the guitar's surfaces with string ends or pliers, and replace only with the same gauge of strings as the guitar came with to retain the optimum set-up.
Sorry, no stunts. 360 degree over-the-shoulder swings, headstock bends, speaker cabinet slides, basically anything that puts the guitar under strain or at risk of damage.

If in doubt or needing advice, just call me!

In Case Of Accident Or Loss:

Accidents can happen. In the rare event of an accident, please take the following steps:

Carefully remove or clean any cause of the accident (e.g., dry off liquids).
Photograph the damage as soon after it has occurred as you can - ideally with a digital camera or smartphone, to benefit from timestamping.
Call me with details of the accident, before playing again - so that I can 1) assess whether the item remains safe to use and 2) suggest or offer to take any further remedial actions.
And don't dismantle the item, try to repair it yourself nor take it to a repairer.

If the guitar and/or peripheral is lost or stolen, call me immediately.

When an accident occurs, my aim is to have you back to playing the instrument in the shortest possible time. My ask of you is to contact me as a priority step if any accident or loss does occur. It really is best to tell me as it happens rather than leave it until your return date - I'm here to help!

Return

At the end of your experience, I'll contact you within 24 hours of your return date to reconfirm time and location for handover.

All you need to do on the day of return is:

Give the guitar and/or peripherals one final wipe down with a dry soft cloth.
Put the guitar and/or peripherals back into its case, bag or box, if provided.
Put all non-complimentary accessories into the Support Pack messenger bag.
Be ready to hand over the guitar, case, Support Pack and/or peripherals at the agreed time and location.

On return, I'll:

Check the guitar and/or peripherals over for any damage, ideally, as above, pre-advised by you.
Ask you about the experience you've had.
Sign-off the return.

I'll also ask you whether you'd be happy to share any images or videos of you in action with the guitar and/or peripherals and to provide feedback on our site. As a small business, this isn't just helpful to me, but helpful to all future hirers, so hugely appreciated if you can share.

All good things sadly come to an end, but there are plenty of other guitars available for hire from God's Own Guitars. So, if you fancy hiring again, check out The Collection for new and existing stock, and I'll be only too pleased to help you with your next experience!

Protecting God's Own Guitars

“Since I’d been a kid I always thought that anyone who could steal a musician’s instrument was lower than the low.”

Johnny Marr, on the theft of his then favourite Gibson SG in 2000

God's Own Guitars is built on a philosophy of trust, integrity and fair-dealing between like-minded enthusiasts. I share these guitars because I want to bring the joy and experience of playing or listening to iconic guitars to a wider community. But I know that there are risks in a hire business, ones that a tiny minority of less honest people may want to try to exploit. In particular the potential for theft of a guitar/peripheral or theft/replacement of component parts of a guitar/peripheral.

There's a number of measures in place to discourage any inclination to theft:

Detailed condition reporting and photography. Each guitar/peripheral undergoes a thorough condition report, with detailed photos of every component & distinguishing feature. These are securely held for any necessary future reference.
Registration with Immobilise. Each guitar/peripheral is registered with Immobilise, the UK National Property Register, with certification of ownership, including photographs, serial numbers, and other key identifiers.
RFID tagging. All guitars/peripherals are fitted with RFID devices to enable easy identification and trigger an alert if an unexpected attempt at detection occurs.
Smart Water. Key components are marked with uniquely identifiable "DNA" to enable confirmation that components have not been replaced while on hire - or to assist in identification if stolen.

In addition, anyone wanting to hire will go through a series of ID verification checks prior to any hire agreement.

These are just some of the things I do to protect the guitars/peripherals available for hire. Each of the checks and deterrents above is intended to be entirely non-intrusive to the individual experience. And I've never yet had an issue, nor any reason not to return a deposit in full. But I do need these measures in place to protect against the one in a million that may want to exploit the business for illegal purposes. I hope you understand!

By the way, Johnny Marr did eventually get his lost Gibson SG back. It took ten years. It took the determination of a fan who also happened to be a policeman, named Joe. But he got it back. So, here's to all the honest Joes - you're more than welcome to join God's Own Guitars!