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Would you like to sell some of the cigar box guitars you build? Want to earn a little money to support your cigar box guitar addiction? In this post, Shane Speal shares golden nuggets of wisdom from his years of selling cigar box guitars at festivals. Learn from each of Shane's tips to sell your own cigar box guitars at festivals or wherever you set up your vending table.Shane's Selling Lessons Whether I'm performing with them in Shane Speal's Snake Oil Band or just selling them at fest …

Cigar box guitars, and other handmade musical instruments, aren’t just for people looking for a cool, new hobby. For instance, educators have begun using CBGs (cigar box guitars) in their classrooms as fresh teaching-tools to capture students’ attentions over a variety of subjects. In this post, we’re happy to share one teacher’s letter sent to us upon completion of his classes’ CBGs.Students of all ages like to get their heads and hands involved in handmade musical instrument project-based …

I buy a lot of cigar boxes from a number of wholesale sources, including a couple of the biggest online and mail-order cigar companies in the country. Just last week a shipment of 5 pallets of empty boxes arrived, about 1100 total boxes, and I just finished looking through all of the cartons to see what I got. I also smoke the occasional cigar, and go into cigar shops semi-frequently, both to get a cigar or two and see what empty boxes they have on hand.Based on all of that, I am seeing a t …

Recently, Glenn Watt and I have been very focused on creating 3-string cigar box guitar tablature and posting it in the knowledgebase over at www.CigarBoxGuitar.com. Folks have been asking whether the end result of all of this cigar box tablature creation will be a book of some sort that can be purchased. The short answer is: no, we're going to keep it free. Once there is enough we might compile it into a PDF collection (or collections), but even that will be free. There are sever …

At C. B. Gitty, we've always been excited about the idea of kids building cigar box guitars, and what they can learn from it, so we jump at the chance to work with teachers and schools who are insterested in making this happen. A couple of months back we were contacted by Tom Knight, a teacher at the East Woods School in Oyster Bay, NY (on Long sland) about a special class he wanted to do with some of his students. The East Woods School is a "small by design" private school t …