In the 1980's, when I started my TeleStrat project, I bought a case that I found on sale for $35. The case was originally made for an Eko guitar in the 1960s. The case is in good shape, and still has the "Made in Italy" badge on it. It just has one 2 cm place where the tolex was damaged and repaired before I got it. Quality-wise it's on a par with my mid-1970's black Fender case. Aged, but not otherwise damaged.
I think the case is sort of cool, but to me a case's only intrinsic value is for protecting what's inside. I am thinking it's probably not worth much, but that's also what I thought about my Epiphone Newport, which is now worth 8 times what I sold it for...
I looked at what 60s-era Eko electrics go for on Reverb. I thought they might be worth something because they were decently made and look a bit like Airline or Supro re-issues. Nevertheless, they seem to only rarely go for over $400, although a few pristine examples, often with case, go for $650-1000.* I found one case, about like mine, that was listed for $100. I didn't see any that had sold, so realistically mine's probably worth less than that.
The tolex, wood and hardware are pretty nice, but the orange fur is "meh", and the padding is pretty much non-existent. It's deeper than a strat case, but otherwise similarly proportioned. Good news is that there is plenty of room for a strat. Bad news is that it needs much better padding to hold a strat safely.
I'll need to do some mods to the inside to get my guitar to fit securely. Am I right to think there is no good reason to try to keep the inside original?
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