Instruments you wish you still had!

Subject: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Bob Hitchcock
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 05:29 PM

As a follow on to the "What Instruments do you have" thread, I started thinking about the ones I sold over the years and wish I still had. So, here goes:-

Late 50's Strat, sold in 60's
Gibson Les Paul Standard
Fender Jaguar
Rickenbacker 330/12 1965
Harmony Rocket III
2 Gurian S3's
Martin D-35
Martin OOO-18, (Sold to Padre)
Martin D-18
Gibson ES 335
Martin Style A Mandolin
Gibson Hummingbird
Fender Vibrolux Reverb (Blackface)
Vox AC 30

There you go, I sold other stuff too but I don't think I want those back. I had good reasons to sell them when I did, usually to buy something else.

Bob.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 05:38 PM

Acrually, I have never sold an instrument that I now wish I had back but I did give a great playing Syaria acoustic guitar to my son, who was living with his mom, and he let is get hoy, then cold, then wetm then, then and when it got unplayable he gave it back to me and it is now in my closet absolutely ruined from cracks and warping...

BTW, I still have the first *real* guitar I ever bought: my ol' Martin D-18, which I bough new in 1965, thou it is a '64 model... Glad I never sold it... We;ve been thru a lot together...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Peace
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 05:44 PM

Fender Telecaster--1963

Favilla--1964

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 06:10 PM

I wish I still had the '74 Martin D-35 that I sold for financial reasons in 1982 and the '88 Taylor 810 that was stolen in 1990.

And, for purely sentimental reasons, I wish I still had the early 70's Yamaha FG 160 that was my first "real" guitar. I gave it to my then brother-in-law after I got the D-35 mentioned above. Being young and stupid I figured that since I had a Martin I'd never want to play a Yamaha again.

And there's the cheapo Kingston electric I had as a kid. I'd kinda like to have it back just so I could have the pleasure of smashing it and throwing it in the garbage a second time.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: eleanor c
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 06:28 PM

Aw, a wonderful Kasuga Les Paul flametop copy from the 70s. Just like the real thing except the chrome was peeling off the tailpiece. Weighed a ton.

Anyone got one they want to sell?!

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 06:42 PM

Opps! Yeah, brucie just shook out an old regretal... Yeah, 'round '70 I sold a fine playin' Fender Tele... Swore off electric guitars and broke up my band...

Never missed the band but sure wouldn't mind having the Tele back...

Danged, brucie... Now look what ya' did!?!?...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 06:48 PM

An F-hole bass, and a Vox bass I sold at university. The Spanish I bought in Torremolinos in maybe '68. The 000 size steel acoustic I bought in Oxford to learn on in about '64 - I now know how to sort the action, although I'm F888ed to know why my guitar teacher did not (the sound was nice).

But mostly the Watkins Dominator V-front 17 watt amp I sold and the Selmer Bassist Major amp I sold.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: kendall
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 07:08 PM

My first guitar, a Gene Autry model. I understand they are valuable collectors items.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: mooman
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 07:21 PM

I wish I hadn't sold:

- a very nice Guild D25 back in the early 80's
- an even nicer Hagstrom Super Swede with translucent red finish round about the same time (I still have a piccie of it as I used it on some artwork I did for a magazine). It was a beaut and they are going for a fortune these days.

But still, I'm happy enough with what I have now!

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 08:26 PM

I sold (and regret selling) a hollow-body Gibson 6-string bass.

And my pet Dobson Victor banjo was stolen. I wish it would come home.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: jimmyt
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 08:57 PM

I had a 50s blonde Kay Bass for a couple weeks in 1966, paid $75 for it from a guy in a divorce,   Sold it for $100. Wish I kept it so I (1) had learned to play bass 35 years earlier,(2) had the bass as it had a sweet action, and worth a couple thousand easily in today's market.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 09:17 PM

None, actually. Glad they have a good home.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: number 6
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 10:02 PM

I had a 1957 Selmer Alto sax, sold it about 15 years ago. Regret that now.

sIx

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Mooh
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 11:03 PM

On the Folkway Music site (www.folkwaymusic.com) there is a '74 Telecaster Deluxe which I am certain was mine from '77-'81. I loved that thing and if it wasn't $2600 now I'd buy it back in a heartbeat. Killer tone that got me through some tough years of gigging.

Also lost in action was a matching circa '78 Telecaster bass.

Gibson B-25(?).

'77 Fender Mustang bass...natural finish, great short scale bass. One of my band mates now has a similar one, so I'm always reminded.

Gibson 335 dot neck. Tone to the bone.

Goya Strat copy with a dragon carved in the top. It had issues which I now know how to fix.

Probably others I've forgotten at the moment...sigh.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 12:29 AM

Grandmother's rosewood piano - it warped, splinterd, peeled and broke the chord in an outhouse, outside of Elko Nevada....its noble memories live on in tunes never heard from its enchanted keyboard.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Teresa
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 12:43 AM

Well, I once had a very inexpensive but new (to me) instrument ... an Afro/Brazilian birambao (sp?) It consists of a gourd that slides up and down, a string you strike with a stick, and the most amazing and unique sound. I think I got it for about $12, and it got damaged in a move. Now that I live in an area with um, not as global a population, I'm unlikely to find another one of these most peculiar and fun wonders.

Teresa

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 02:15 AM

My first guitar which I bought - very pre-used - from a shop in Sturgis, Michigan for $84.00 in 1954. When I broke up with my boyfriend I gave him the guitar and he promptly pawned it. When we got back together a few months later it was long gone.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: GUEST, Hamish
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 03:34 AM

A lovely Spanish guitar. SOld when a student and thought I needed the £25. £25!!!! What an idiot. :-(

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 09:28 AM

I still have painful memories of my 1967 Guild 12-string, stolen out of my truck about two years ago. I cried. It held its tune, it had good intonation all the way up the neck, nice action and sounded beautiful. I miss it, and I may never be able to find its equal.

I was having a difficult time with my wife at the time. I took the loss of my 12-string as a message to take better care of what is important to me. I take better care of my wife now.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: GUEST,flamenco ted
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 10:30 AM

The pipe organ currently residing in York Minster.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 11:13 AM

1917 Gibson A-2 Snakehead mandolin.
1925 Gibson F-4 Mandolin.
1970 Martin D-28, traded for a Guild D-45 and another (blond) Gibson A-2 neither of which I still have, but which I don't regret selling.
Seamus

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: kendall
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 12:34 PM

A circa 1945 Kalamazoo guitar. (Made by Gibson) It wasn't a great guitar, but it was more playable than the Gene Autry model.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 12:40 PM

Like No6 , I miss a saxophone - but mine was a Hawkes (PRE Boosey and)Twentieth Century Soprano which I sold to help pay my fare home when
I got ripped off in Hong Kong in 1975 . It was a lovely old horn , and even with my limited abilities I could keep it in tune !
And the African Blackwood Clarinet I had stolen in 1963 when I was in Germany !! It cost me nearly three hundred quid to buy a similar stick
when I had a few bob to spare !!

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Mark Ross
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 01:23 PM

When I worked at the Folklore Center in NYC in the '70's I picked up a Weissenborn Hawaiian guitar. Paid $50 for it, sold it for 75 so I could afford to move out to the middle of nowhere(Kansas). Now they are going for something like 3 grand! Oh well, it's only money.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 02:30 PM

I once had a 'Bowed Psaltry' I miss it, it was great for slicing eggs!
Les

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 03:33 PM

I lost my Spatulas....

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: ET
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 03:45 PM

I used to have a Glastonbury Pipe that I bought as a "Folk" instrument. It played in F (sort of) which wasnt the best key but it was tuned to some ancient A=A225.76 and was way out of tune to everything else. It was sort of useless and sounded like a swarm of bees in a jar but I sold it and sort of miss it, I think. I used the cash to buy a Crumhorn. This looked like a curved walking stick and sounded like one. I gather its ok played along with loads of other crumhorns but I don't know of many in Yorkshire, so it went as well.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 04:14 PM

I sorta wish I had owned an accordion somewhere along the way so I could lie and say I miss it.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Helen
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 05:38 PM

I miss the pianola my Grandma had and which my crazy Uncle sold for peanuts after she died. I would have loved to have that pianola. Lots of happy memories of my sister and I pumping away on the pedals and having a wow of a time. My Ma-in-Law gave us her piano, which is in need of repairs, and which I finally may be able to afford to get done, and I didn't realise until the piano-moving truck arrived and a huge cardboard box was also brought inside, that this one is a pianola too. Just need to get the air lines fixed up and the neighbours will be hammering on the walls at all hours telling me to "for Gawdsake go to bed and stop playing that darn music"!

I sold my first flute a few years ago when I was seriously strapped for cash and I had bought another one, which is silver plated, from a pawn shop and thought I didn't need the first one but then found out the secondhand one needs major repairs and is hard to play on the lower notes. Wish I still had the first one. I bought that when I was a student out of some backpay I got on my student allowance.

I unwisely shared a house with a woman for a while and had to tell her it was time to leave because the arrangement was unworkable. She had given me an African harp called a Kora(?) and I was tidying up in the living room while she was packing her stuff. I put the Kora in her room thinking I would go back and decide where to put it and then she took it with her. I don't know if women are traditionally allowed to play the Kora but I always felt that it wasn't appropriate for me to play it. I had a strong sense of an African man standing near me every time I looked at it or picked it up. I wish I still had it, but I never felt that it was mine.

gargoyle, I saw an old piano left to rot in someone's yard near where I live. It was a very sad sight. Surely a home could have been found for it. So I understand how you feel about your Grandmother's piano.

Teresa,

I just looked up your instrument on Google.com and it can be spelled berimbau or berimbao and it is also known as a musical bow. They are for sale on the Internet if you look at the search results from Google but you'd have to check out the prices because some are over $150 and some are around $25 and then there would be shipping costs.

Helen

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Teresa
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 05:50 PM

Aha, thanks, Helen. Hadn't thought of looking on the web for it. :)

Teresa

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: GUEST,grumpy bastard
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 07:50 PM

I once had a wierd instrument which, when you blew in it, sounded like someone performing an ilegal act on a goat. It was guaranted to make all the cats and dogs in the area scream in utter horror, and howl for hours. Sometimes the local people would storm my house bearing flaming torches and threaten to burn me out if I didn't stop playing it. Eventually, they stole it from me and performed a rutial burning of it in order to dispel the evil spirits which lived inside. I later found out it was called a set of Bagpipes, I wish I still had them.

GB.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: iamjohnne
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 08:10 PM

I had a uke that I took the strings off of and painted white and trimmed with gold, I used it for a Christmas decoration.

My first guitar was a Silvertone (from Sears) f-hole archtop sunburst. I gave it away when I got my first Yamaha classical.

The same Yamaha classical, husband #2 pawned it when he decided he needed beer money more than I needed the guitar. $50 bucks was all he got.

A hollow body f-hole archtop gold Gibson electric that husband #2 also pawned when he deciced that he needed the money more than I needed the guitar. $50 bucks for that one too.

A clarinet that I played back in jr high band.

A kazoo and a jewsharp

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Padre
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 08:27 PM

A 1964 D-28 that was stolen from me at the National Folk Festival in 1977

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Mooh
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 08:35 PM

Oh yeah, a '50s Fender 6 string lap steel complete with tweed case, screw-in legs, and that killer pick-up. What the heck was I thinking?

Garg's story reminds me of an old upright piano that sat neglected in a barn at a Provincial Park. It looked like it must have been a wonder in its day, but was reduced to tatters. Forlorn old thing!

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 08:58 PM

Actually I need to get rid of some of the instruments I have around here that I never play! Anyone want a 6-string balalika?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 09:54 PM

never got rid of any instruments..

just cant bring myself to do it.. no matter how hard up i am
or what other sacrifices need to be made..

thats why i got so many guitars and other stuff in the house..
they're a health and safety fire hazard..

however, when i was 15 or 16 back in the mid 70's
my first amp was a £50 2nd hand 1960's valve Vox AC30..
it lasted a week before a valve or something expired..

i wish now i'd got it repaired and kept it..
instead of taking it back to the shop and trading it in
for a 'modern space age transistor' combo

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 05:57 PM

Actually I wish I'd never returned the S.S.Stewart Thoroughbred Model 3 banjo I borrowed from my brother in 1965 while he was in the service. It was one beautiful instrument.

I finally returned it to him in the late 1970's but he never plays it.

I have several other Stewarts now to keep me company but none so sweet.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: rangeroger
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 09:50 PM

My 1953 Gibson LG-3.Reduced to matchsticks in a Jeep accident. Paid $49 for it. $2500 to Replace now.
Gibson Les Paul Custom, paid $500, sold it for $450, was worth over a $1000. Decided then that if I was ever short of money again, I would sell off guns, not musical instruments.
rr

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: GUEST,DHL
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 03:08 PM

First electric guitar I bought was a '64 Fender Stratacaster-sunburst color with a Fender Princeton reverb amp. The other electric that I wish I still had was a ebony colored Guild Starfire 4 semi-hollow body. I recently sold a 1986 Martin HD 28 and bought a special edition cut-away triple O 16 Martin. Nicely made with spruce and redwood. No regrets with the loss of the 28.The drednaught style was too big for an aging body.

Subject: RE: Instruments you wish you still had!
From: gnu
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 02:50 PM

A cheap 1963 Kent electric guitar. Not for anything but the paint job I did on it. While I was replacing the pick-ups, in one fell swoop, I spilt a can of red enamel paint on the work bench and dropped the gut plate on the paint. When I peeled the plate off the paint, the most amazing pattern appeared, like endless river estuaries in blood red. I painted the body flat enamel white. It sounded a thousand times better than before. I gave it to my nephew when my arthritis took all the strength from my fingers. Of course, it vanished.