[sullivj1970]

Hi everyone. Long time lurker, first time poster.
I probably would have remained a lurker forever, but there’s been something on my mind of late and I’m curious as to the opinions of the members of this forum in relation to it.
As a point of reference, my primary guitar (I won’t make SRV roll over in his grave by referring to my primary guitar as “my #1” as it would be generous to call what I do with a guitar playing it) is a partscaster. I have an 80’s MIJ tele and a squire tele as well. I’m certainly not against creating partscasters as a practice as, for me anyway, it’s a fun hobby. I figured out a while ago that no matter what commercially available guitar I were to buy, I was going to change so much of it, I might as well just build it from the ground up instead and it costs me less that way. The elegant simplicity (yet openness to modifications) of the telecaster’s design lends itself to this practice.
What has come to eat at me lately however is the increasing practice of certain eBay sellers of “parting out” telecasters. These aren’t partcasters to begin with; these are contiguous Fender guitars that were obviously complete before the seller stripped them down to parts. Their motivation in doing so is that they make a slightly higher profit selling the parts piecemeal than they can selling the guitar whole.
And again, I really like tele parts, that’s why I’m constantly looking at them online. So I’m not against people trafficking in tele necks and bodies. Also you can argue that a guitar that comes off an assembly line isn’t a work of art, or even a labor of love.
But I can’t help but see permanently disassembling a whole guitar and scattering its parts to the wind as an unethical practice. If the neck were ruined, sure sell the body without it. But to sell the neck and body separately for the sake of turning a slightly higher profit is, to me, a pretty crummy practice that frankly shows a lack of respect for the instrument itself. It’s not a question of the possible potential collectors value of the guitar years in the future. It’s just that a given model of guitar was designed and built as a whole. It will have its strong points and its flaws, but all of that in total sums up its character.
Maybe I’m being naïve about the whole thing, but I’m getting to the point where I think a certain eBay seller’s picture should be on a wanted poster for wanton abuse of innocent instruments.
Just wondered what others thought.

Thanks,