Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 01:35 PM

I dream of being able to afford to rent a lock up room in a storage wharehouse for all my gear...

Then I remember the valuable guitar collections lost in flooded or burnt out storage facilities...

Heart breaking...

A rehearsal/storage building in Bristol went up in flames recently,
with bands losing all their gear...

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 01:19 PM

Saves on space.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 01:05 PM

I see that one of David Gilmour’s guitars recently sold for $3,975,000 - just the sort of thing to take down to the local club.

We did once do a pub gig with £80,000 worth of lights but that’s another story.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 01:00 PM

JB's got all those fine old guitars, why shouldn't he and his fans enjoy them. At least they're not hanging on the walls of some rich dude's man cave.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 12:45 PM

Leenia - you don't understand the fans/audience demand for their idols
to show off a line-up of many vintage expensive dream guitars on stage.
It's all part of the show biz trappings...

AS much as it is to do with the ego of any famous guitarist
sucessful enough to employ guitar technicians
to care for and prepare the harem of guitars for a major tour...

A very well known USA blues guitarist is expected to play concerts
with ridiculously valuable original late 1950s to early 60s Gibson Les Pauls,
that other collectors would keep safely sealed and unplayed in museum cases in Bank vaults...
Otherwise, his fans would feel severely let down
not to be in the close proximity presece of such fabled instruments......

However, a local folkie turning up for a pub or house session with several valuable vintage guitars,
well that's just a rich bragging pillock...

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 12:24 PM

I don't think it's a male thing. I have a lot of recorders. However, I can afford them, and I don't look at them later and say, "Why did I spend money I need for other things on that?"
======
I don't believe that any capable musician needs 14-23 guitars onstage.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 10:35 AM

I can’t imagine getting 14-15 back home on the bus never mind 19 or 23!

Personally, I never take more than a guitar and a mandolin out at the same time although I often regret not taking more.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Tony Rees
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 11:39 PM

Actually I am told Jackson B has had up to 23 on stage - a mere 19 in this pic:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/joemoconnell/5723547940

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Tony Rees
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 11:30 PM

Jackson Browne normally takes about 14-15 guitars on stage with him and switches between them for his set. His excuse is that each of them "has a different song (or songs) inside it"... hmm. Not entirely convinced, although there may be *something* there.

- Tony

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 11:19 AM

I was stuck with one guitar in our band throughtout my late teens and early 20s..
My stab at success and record contacts..

..and that guitar, that was the best I could afford, was crap.
It hampered my playing and development as a musician...
So much so, I gave up playing for 15 years
and worked in photography instead...

Now the bloody thing is considered a vintage collector's item...???

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Stringsinger
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 11:02 AM

I know the perfect cure for GAS. Learn to play one of those instruments well. Then you'll be identified with that instrument and not need any more.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 07:37 AM

I mean, a Lowden, almost new and a grand cheaper than one from the factory...

It would be economical disaster not to....

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 04:33 AM

Some of you sound to have commendably got the affliction well under control, but then tend to blow it a bit by going on to list all the instruments you do have. However, it does seem to be more of a male thing, this appetite for collecting things, be it cars, instruments, books, recordings, etc. It’s also an age thing of course, because today’s young people are more attuned to borrowing and then disposing of things, particularly sound recordings. In my case, I rarely come across a record shop that has more stock than I have myself at home, but then I rarely come across a record shop these days.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 10:35 AM

Finances and space have largely kept me in check but there have been times where I might otherwise have got quite into the more general instrument acquisition syndrome.

Current playing stock are 2 acoustic guitars which are quite different in tone, electric guitar, mandolin, electric mandolin, mandolin banjo and 2 tenor banjos – one a 17 fret “Masterclone” and the other a 19 fret open back with a 12 inch pot.

I suppose favourite possible additions would be a good quality octave mandolin (or maybe bozouki) and a B/C button accordion but my relationship with music is one these days where, even with resources, either would probably be better considered a passing whim.

That would be especially true with the B/C box. I have played a bit of G/D melodeon in the past and thought that if I tried again I’d like to change fingering and start out with a responsive box (I did briefly have a Double Ray that was air hungry and needed some work…) but whether I’d really settle down to learning is doubtful even if I was say armed with a Castagnari.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 10:12 AM

This thread started with "
I write to ask for your help in combatting an invasive and potentially crippling ailment that guitar players are particularly susceptible to." i.e, buying expensive guitars. Let me ask:

1. Is your retirement fully funded?
2. Do you have a fund for emergencies? Fire, flood, car crash,
    grandchild born with serious health problem?
3. Have you ever had a fabulous vacation?
4. How often will you play this umpteenth guitar?
5. Would new paint, new drapes, a kitchen re-do, lift the family's
    spirits a lot more?

Only you can decide.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 06:45 AM

I only have one washboard and a few other bits of percussion and two kazoos. One on a neck brace with a train whistle and the other in my pocket "just in case"...I also have other things people have bought me hoping I would learn them and give up the kazoo: harmonica, tin and swanee whistle etc. No chance.
RtS

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 03:59 AM

Just the 11 melodeons at the moment.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Tony Rees
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 01:47 AM

I remember someone saying, a boat is a hole in the water surrounded by wood, into which you throw money. On that basis, a guitar is a hole in the air surrounded by wood and wire, into which other people throw money (if you're lucky...)

- Tony

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: JennieG
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 10:24 PM

When I posted above I neglected to add that I also have six sewing machines (- all work, all are used - because it didn't fit the musical theme.

But this morning I remembered that four of them are Singers......

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 07:59 PM

I sent this thread to a musician friend

his reply - Oh so true. I’m not sure how debilitating this can get but at some 20 or so guitars to date it has its down side. Very hard to dispose of your best friends.

he doesn't just collect guitars, I've seen him learning/playing a number of different instruments.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 12:47 PM

I used to play spoons in a band, but got a shock when we all went electric. At least I made a great conductor.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 12:46 PM

For someone like me doing half-hearted reluctant research into best ways to sell off surplus gear,
Reverb looked like a viable more positive, safer, option than ebay..

I'd never heard of Etsy until yesterday, but I see there is a UK site...

Oh well.. who knows...???

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 12:40 PM

I'm a spoons player, and you all have my sympathy.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 12:30 PM

Not interested so I won’t. I’ve heard of Reverb but not Etsy. I tend not to sell what I buy although I did once trade in a spare Martin D18 as part payment for a National mandolin

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 09:37 AM

Breaking news.. Reverb has just been sold to Etsy...

Will that through a spanner in the works...???

Anyone interested should google...

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 01:28 PM

Bugger it.. you just reminded me I fancied getting a Wahburn Hawk...

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: John P
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 01:23 PM

We call it IAS, for Instrument Acquisition Syndrome. I have it myself, although my form of it doesn't cause me to buy multiple guitars, or mandolins, but rather many different types of instruments. I have six guitars, but only one type is duplicated: Lowden 6-string, my main performance guitar, Art & Lutherie 6-string, my camping guitar, Martin tenor, Washburn Hawk electric, Fender bass, and a lute guitar for medieval gigs.

But then there's the cittern, lap dulcimer, Celtic harp, piano, electic piano, 2 Korg synths, ukelele, accordion, oud, ruan, various wind instruments, and a large pile of drums, both acoustic and electric.

My ex-wife told me that if I brought any more drums into the house, something else would have to leave. I don't THINK that's why we're not married anymore.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 09:32 AM

A guitar spends its early life surrounded by other guitars, first in the shop where it's constructed and, later, in a music store. It gets used to having lots of company. Taking a guitar out of such an instrument-rich environment and introducing it to a new home where it is the only guitar can be a very traumatic experience. It amounts to cruelty to instruments.

When I bring a new guitar home, it immediately finds a bunch of new and interesting friends to play with. There are so many other guitars that it thinks it's only been moved from one music store to another, but with the added benefit of knowing that no 16-year-old is ever going to stumble through "Smoke on the Water" on it again.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 08:57 AM

What I forgot to mention is...

In the UK we'd need to be really deparate to sell our surplus guitars at Cash Converters,
or similar styled rip off merchants...

But that's all there is in most towns now...

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 08:46 AM

New Fellowship required?
"Compulsive Guitar Buyers Anonymous".

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:43 AM

"Those who trade up with instruments, ie. one in and one out, have the right idea to my mind, but it’s not so easy these days because of the loss of high street music shops and the rise of single transactions via the Internet."

.. and very significantly, the over abundant supply of guitars for sale on the internet, at all times...


If I won bids on ebay for guitars down to less than a 10th of their retail cost for the seller,
then I suspect I am stuck with instruments that will never sell,
or will barely cover shipping costs and ebay/reverb/paypal fees.

Not an optimistic return for all the time and effort trying to clear them out the house...

But it's got to be done sooner or later...

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:35 AM

Yes, it’s not as bad an affliction as say collecting cars, which obviously take up more space, tend to depreciate in value more and are generally environmentally unsound anyway. Those who trade up with instruments, ie. one in and one out, have the right idea to my mind, but it’s not so easy these days because of the loss of high street music shops and the rise of single transactions via the Internet.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 03:55 AM

It isn’t confined to BMW or Mercedes although a mate of mine does have numerous instruments and a yacht (plus two vintage cars, a banger, a sports car and a couple of motorbikes) He’s not rich, he’s a retired teacher.

Any half decent car will cost you say between 10K and 20K and in a decade or so will be in a scrapyard. A guitar costing the same price will likely be worth at least as much as it cost originally.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Tony Rees
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 01:08 AM

Through by student years I had one guitar for "everything" - traded cheaper ones for more expensive through time. Over my first 5 years of paid employment I treated myself to a couple more nice flat tops over time so ended up with 3 - plus the odd oddity (old style archtops etc.). Came out to Australia 30 years ago with 3 nice guitars - numbers have since fluctuated between 1 and 3 (but not the same ones) - so reckon I have been fairly restrained over that time! And I don't drive a BMW or a Mercedes, or own a yacht, so consider that owning better-than-average quality guitars is a fairly cheap indulgence in the scheme of things. When I go, someone else can enjoy them as well... As Alan Whittle said above:

"relax and enjoy - all this is taken away from us soon enough."

Cheers! Tony

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: JennieG
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 12:11 AM

Some ukulele players suffer from a similar syndrome......not me, I only have three ukes......one soprano, one tenor and one baritone.

Ukes don't take up as much space as guitars.

And two guitars. One nylon, one steel stringed. Need to cover all bases.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 01:49 PM

It's also like drug addiction, each new fix costs more money. I decided a long time ago, that I was not a collector. So, if I see a guitar I really want, I sell another one to help pay for the new one. I perform with two guitars, each in a different tuning, have another for backup, when one is in the shop for repairs. Anything else gets neglected. Having said that, I did recently get a new guitar, after nine years of not getting anything. I did keep true to myself and sold off the backup guitar.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: beachcomber
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 12:30 PM

Good, I am gathering all "defences" from this thread against the time when it comes to    - ME OR THEM !!!

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 12:28 PM

Kids guitars are great.. errmmm. I've got at least 7..

ok.. maybe I do need to seek specialist advice...

But in my defence, they easily convert cheaply into banjo/mandola style tunings...

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 12:26 PM

That sounds like a very mild form of GAS/MAS to me. You clearly need a larger house!

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: beachcomber
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 12:21 PM

Oh Jesus, I recognise now, in myself,having read all of the above posts, a propensity for buying instruments that is obviously the beginnings of a GAS/MAD type addiction. I presently have three jumbo guitars, two parlour, a classical, two mandolins, a Five-string banjo and two fiddles on each of which I can "knock out a tune" to use a colloquial expression of this area. Is there an antidote before gridlock to our home sets in ?
(P.S. I also recently bought a small child's guitar even though our grandchildren are both under two years !)Where am I headed ?

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,alan whittle
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 08:18 AM

during my time as a working musician. i did lots of different gigs. every time i changed direction, i seemed to need a different set of gear. so i got used buying and selling guitars - never at a profit - just to finance the next set of adventures.

now in my retirement , i get a lot of pleasure in the ownership of various guitars/amps/recording stuff/ukuleles.

relax and enjoy - all this is taken away from us soon enough.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,Gilly
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 08:01 AM

Wait til you have more than 3 mandolas as well as ?guitars etc and when anyone asks you reply by asking whether they mean acoustic, electric electro bass (long or short scale )project guitars rebuilds etc then see their eyes glaze over.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: Acorn4
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 07:33 AM

Menopausal Men with Expensive Guitars.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 05:08 PM

I don't think I'm too bad... I have 4 acoustic guitars. One of them I'm going to get rid of. The other three all have their own flavour and fit quite neatly under a double bed.
I have 1 of several other instruments: a fiddle, a banjo, a mandolin, a ukulele and a Seagull M4 (dulcimer guitar). All of which I play from time to time.

So that's not so bad, right?

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 03:27 PM

Ebay,violins, sold off a bunch, wish I had kept more than the five I did, so think hard before unloading.

Subject: RE: Help Needed - guitarist keeps buying more guitars
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 02:52 PM

Thinking about the effort involved in listing all my surplus guitars, amps, FX pedals, etc on ebay and reverb..
and the practicalities of packng and shipping..
Then estimating how much I might get back if any of them eventually sell...

[We do need money for repairs to our crumbling Victorian terraced house..
But I've always fancied a Gretsch...]

Followed by the thought of just carrying on as is doing nothing,
and leaving the problem to my mrs,
if I hopefully go first..

Well.. one solution is I might be more positively inclined to donate a lot of 'em
to worthwhile music community projects/charities...???

We'll see.. the thinking about it stage might take me a few more years closer to my 70s...

Subject: RE: Help Needed
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 12:10 PM

I’ve never been shy of spending a few quid on a decent guitar. My SCs cost me between £1500 and £2500 each and the average going rate for new ones is currently over £4500. I also have a Martin for which I paid £190 new. Nuff said!

Subject: RE: Help Needed
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 10:18 AM

It was too late for me when I realised I could either dream of saving up £2000 for one high quality guitar,
or fritter away much smaller amounts over time on ebay bidding for as many bargains as possible...

hmmm... one guitar for £2000, or 30 to 40 or more reasonable quality 2nd hand and B stock guitars
for the same amount of £££$...???

At my worst a decade ago, I was buying guitars with original retail price of 2 or 3 hundred pounds
for as little as 30 to 50 quid each, nearly every week...

I lost count about 10 years ago, and can't even get to a lot of them
out of reach at the back of the room behind the speaker cabs and boxes of CDs...

Clearing them all out, and just keeping the best few,
is going to be a mammoth chore..
which I can't keep putting off forever...

Maybe channel 5 should do an OCD hoarder documentary on me...??

Subject: RE: Help Needed
From: Newport Boy
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 07:39 AM

I must be immune! I have an early 20C Alfredo Albertini Italian guitar - £2:10s in 1961. It's a bit battered now having been used all over, including a truck trip through East Africa. My only other guitar is a 1965 Hoyer Jumbo, bought new for £36 on 9 months interest-free credit. I was earning £27 a week at the time.

Phil

Subject: RE: Help Needed
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 07:29 AM

I need to get rid of some mandolins, Gibson, Webers, Eastman. I've lost count how many I've got but I only play 3 of them [ and a tenor banjo ] Oh and I need to get rid of a couple or 3 banjo's too.

Dave H