Internet auctions might have swept away many under-the-bed vintage bargains and put them out on the open market, but you can still find some hidden gems at the traditional second-hand haunts.

It’s arguably the ugliest Legendary Guitar of all — yet nonetheless one of rock’s most widely influential, the instrument that produced the landmark sounds of such widely influential Yardbirds tracks as “I’m a Man,” “Heart Full of Soul,” “Over Under Sideways Down” and the future-shock classic “Shapes of Things.”

Here are some quick but important checks you’ll want to make when first picking up any used guitar. This can be applied to instruments for sale in guitar stores, as well as pawnshops, estate sales and garage sales.

Brian Yale was 13 when he had his first bass lesson — on a one-pickup Gibson SG-shaped EB-0. Late last year the bassist for mega-pop heroes Matchbox Twenty had a happy reunion.

Artists of the 1950s and early ’60s — like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley — inspired an entirely new generation of rock and rollers who would go on to leave their own mark on the magical music scene of the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Music historians have thoroughly documented how blues and country came together with an extra shot of energy and a dash of panache to give birth to rock and roll. You could define one of the genre’s biggest stars, Elvis Presley, in precisely the same terms, then turn around and apply the formula to Elvis’s all-time favorite acoustic guitar — the Gibson J-200. Developed as the ultimate punchy, cutting rhythm machine for country stars of the late 1930s, the J-200 (originally, and again today, called the SJ-200) offered the maximum volume and clarity available from an acoustic guitar in its day, while also stepping out in the bold, flashy looks that really helped a performer stand out on stage. Both its look and sound translated perfectly to rock and roll, and Elvis embraced his own Gibson J-200 with a passion that The King rarely, if ever, displayed for a musical instrument.

Meditate for a moment on the sound of The Beatles in the mid ’60s—those amazing three-part harmonies aside—and your mind’s ear is likely to land upon that stirring 12-string jangle and zing that was, for a time, a trademark of the Fab Four’s instrumental assault.

Before he went electric in 1965 — and drew jeers from legions of (arguably small-minded) fans in the process — Bob Dylan epitomized the hard-traveling folk troubadour, and he established this image largely on a vintage Gibson Nick Lucas model flat-top guitar. The young Dylan had played other Martin and Gibson models in the late ’50s and early ’60s, but in those final years of his acoustic era, before a “blonde on blonde” Fender Telecaster ushered in a whole new folk-rock sound, the Nick Lucas was his instrument of choice.

An anonymous buyer has paid an amazing $460,000 for a rare Martin OM-45 Deluxe acoustic guitar that was once owned by singing cowboy Roy Rogers. The guitar, which was auctioned by Christies Auctions for The Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Mo., was built in 1930 and is considered one of the rarest and most coveted acoustic guitars in the world.

The quest for extended harmonic possibilities revolved around two main types of instruments: the multi-neck console and the pedal steel – even if a few players like Jerry Byrd stuck to single neck lap steels. Although pedal steel guitars had been available for more than a decade, they emerged as a crucial element in Country music during the 1950s. Music experts pinpoint the actual dawning of Country’s modern era to the recording of the song “Slowly” by Webb Pierce in late 1953.