I miss my curly white guitar lead.
 
It made me play better.
 
 

Craig,  I've always considered you a friend and had so much respect for you - but now you really are my hero. I don't know how I'd survive selling the guitars you've had to sell... :P
 
More seriously, man, it must have been tough. But I trust you're doing fine. :)
 
 
 
 

I can't remember how many guitars I've sold.
I know at least 4 LP's  starting with my first a '69, a Gibson 347 which was a decked out 335 with
coil splitter and fine tuning tail piece, a Gibson L5-S, a '70 model Strat (3 screw fat head..not sure exact year), a Jap Strat ( that I had the most fun with) ..If I could complete the list it wouldn't matter because none of these are missed and I'm sure none of the ones I can't recall are missed. lol
 
Every year they offer instruments that are suppose to be made better with better materials and design...why the old ones are of value has nothing to do with the instrument in most cases. It's to do with peoples quirks and stupid reasoning they dream up with goof-balls following them.
The only reason for an old instrument having value is "sentimental" such as a pickers first guitar.
Everything after that one is memory and hopefully one that contributed in learning and enjoyment.
I know...some will put sentimental value on everything they get their hands on...I've seen them on the tube and they are referred to as hoarders. Glad I don't watch much TV. Weird **** and people on it IMO.
 
I have seventeen guitars now- a bass,a lap steel and mandolin and would sell
and should sell all the guitars but one (the first one I built). No, I wouldn't miss any of them either.
The reason is because they can be replaced...and until they stop making guitars it just doesn't matter
and getting a new one is great fun and I sure don't want to be a hoarder. Now the issue is compounded
because if I really want one...I'd build it.
 
And if I were someone like Beep looking for one I'd save my money (about 4-500 dollars) and
wait for November and jump on one of the new Silvertones (in black metalflake) - either model- the Jupiter or 1449. (I believe they're considerations for any picker.)
 
I thought..."they don't build 'em like that anymore" was for good reasons but I could be wrong. Maybe the new and improved Strats hand made with the fine tonewoods and compound radius fretboards and plek'd frets...it's all just fluff and BS. Maybe that hold one in the closet for the last 50 plus years was just years ahead of it's time...yeah, right.

A good friend of mine summed it up very nicely. I asked him why he never kept a guitar and kept flipping them, often at a loss. He said that there's so many cool guitars he could never own them all, but he could own them all for a while. I have to confess that I was a bit wounded when he did the same with custom amps he had me build him. It's funny when you make something specifically for one person. There's a ton of talk, constant updates and eventually they get it and claim it's the finest they ever owned. When they off it 6 months later you assume that it's because there was something wrong with it and you feel bad.
 
All possessions are transitory. Good ones get passed along and junk gets thrown in a tip. I think that's why vintage instruments are so cool. They have stories, and the people that play them all add something. I have a 1932 Gibson L00 and it's amazing. It's falling apart but has the greatest tone. I'm taking it in for a rebuild in the fall but won't be having any finish work done. I just want to make sure it won't implode when I wind it up.
 
I wish it was easier to post pictures. I have over 5,000 on my computer and at least 30% are of gear.

It's one thing to have an instrument that one loves and had to give it up for financial reasons or
it was destroyed/stolen or something happened to it beyond ones control.
I understand Craig but I don't think it has to be a unique item. One can love their instrument for many personal reasons.
 
I've never had those reasons but would understand someone missing something for those reasons.
 
If one sells one to make a profit and later regrets and misses it...?... probably best not to talk about it I think.
If one sells it or trade-off for a different guitar and later regrets and misses it..?..again, probably best to mark it up and try to learn from the mistake.
 
Mike I can unfortunately relate to and understand the "crisis". The value of material objects is truely known when one suffers the loss of those closest to them.
In the late '80s I sold out everything. Walked away from a life, hometown, friends and everything to move my family away...away from it all and no guitar, amp or anything else I'd ever bought meant a thing. The only thing that mattered was having my family close to me and as far away from "that life" as I could get them. As you, music was dead. If a radio was on I didn't hear it. I didn't play for ten years...dropped the one thing that was as much a part of me as breathing. For the things that happened under my control I have not one regret and miss absolutely nothing. There are friends that I miss but that's life.
 
IF there were a guitar I missed I'd want to know exactly why I missed it.
The reasons are important to me. They will give me insight to the instrument or myself. Either will be
a "gain" should I find the truth.
If the reasons are details of the instrument I'd be in luck. More than likely I could find one that would
fill that particular and probably better and at the least, as good. And if it couldn't be found...well it could probably be built.
"Memory" is a funny thing. I can easily see one missing an instrument from a time long gone and if they
had that exact instrument today...something has changed...it's just not the same. Nothing remains the same.
Then there is always the fact that people just want what they can't have and if they get it there is limited satisfaction and they're on to something else.
 
I don't miss the scale-length of the LPs I owned and don't care for it on the LP I currently own. - something I learned about the guitar and myself.
I don't miss the amps. They're more choices now and probably better made but I have no use for earsplittinloudandboomer.
 
What I miss are the good times with some great musicians. I know it was part of times in my life that
have come and gone. The world was different so it is history never to be repeated...unlike a guitar or amp that is being made in more ways by more people than I can imagine. Both can be improved and I can benefit from new ideas and ways of construction - material choices and designs...the rest? I have the memories and sure glad about that but with instruments...I'm not missing or regretting the past but hopefully learning by it. I know they could sell LPs for cereal boxtops and they'd still feel like a toy to me. Now that is what's important. Knowing ones "truth". If ones truth is "money" and what they may be able to buy and sell one for...well I truthfully don't have anything to talk to them about when it comes to guitars.
 
See what happens when I get put on hold waiting for guitar parts? LOL
( and waiting for a recording host that doesn't give me fits causing me to throw computers in the trash
yeah I can't slammin Cake but I see it as they deserve it. No different than building a guitar with a Z in the neck IMO)
 
If one pays X amount for a guitar- take 1/3 of that and ask yourself; did it really cost that just to build it?
If you paid over $3,600.00 and think the answer is yes...IMO it's time to learn more about what one is
exactly paying for and if those reasons are worth the extra cash.
No offense meant either...if "look at what I got" is the reason that's fine by me. Knowing the reason is what's important after all.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Totally agree with you Spacey, things are just things. People and family are not even on the same scale. You are also correct that most products are made better today than at any time in the past. When I say that I miss a guitar, it was only for sentimental reasons and the memories that went with them. Things can be replaced, people can not be.

Of gear sold, I'm only regretting letting go of 2 of my guitars:
 
mint early 80's Ibanez AS200 (now, this is the John Schofield signature model) 

 
And also an Ibanez, the PRO 540p (the "p" is for Power). Just as this on the poster. I think it was an '88 model. 
Butt-ugly, I even had it in the magenta (kind of pink?) colour. Looks red on the poster. It isn't red.... 
 
This had the funkiest single-coil sound I've ever heard, and I'm still trying to convince the buyer to sell it back to me. I even have a eBay search to try to find one.