Well, I have a rotating stock of 20+ guitars, six five-string banjos* and a few mandolins and such. I also buy and sell 'em, so part of my "stock" is just that, but part of the bunch are keepers, too. For some reason, I'm less attracted to the high-end acoustics; though they are fun to play, I'm not interested in getting one. I like older instruments, odd-ball instruments, and "different sounds." I have a friend who can afford LOTS of guitars, and he has at least one of each of the high-enders, but he doesn't have a pair of 1944 Epiphone archtops, one of which is from Pearl Harbor (though later than the attack there, of course). He may have five Fox guitars, for all I know, but I have a 1950s Valco/National "solid body resonator" guitar with a homemade pickguard made from that 1950s counter-top material with a Danelectro lipstick pickup added to it.

Yeah, I like to troll the stores, but tend to look on Ebay instead, and will buy on spec from there, sound-unheard, if the price is right. The result is that I have ended up with a few clunkers, a few gems, and a number of pretty-good guitars that I can sell for what I paid for 'em if not slightly more. I've never made a "killing," in terms of a $30 Martin (actually, yes, I did, but that was in 1968), but the business pays for the habit, and allows me to try out just about every kind of guitar to see if it suits me.

Bob Clayton

* I used to have a set excuse for having five five-stringers:
1 steel-strung fretted
1 steel-strung fretless
1 nylon-strung fretted
1 nylon-strung fretless
1 Frank Proffitt-style fretless strung with steel or nylon on demand.

Recently, I bought (from Ebay) a 1925 Gibson trap-door era shell with a reproduction neck that I liked so well that I'm keeping it, so now I have to modify the list:

1 steel-strung fretted open-back (the Gibson)
1 steel-strung fretted resonated (B&D Silver Belle -- my uncle's ex-tenor banjo)
... etc.

Next I need to justify having more than one tenor banjo. The mandolin justification was easy -- 1 f-hole, 1 oval-hole -- but the tenors will take some thinking (no one makes a fretless tenor).

Bob