Let's be honest, the initial first reaction of when you pick up an instrument is the most important and when you have it in your possession you expect it to be a bringer of good feelings when you pick it up and strum it.
But it's also the other way: sometimes you start to associate an instrument with a nasty event or something other that is negative. Giving you a reason to get rid of it.
In my own case there one guitar I had to let go of because of it reminding me of something rotten.
It involved a really nice late nineties Gibson Explorer.
Now when this footage was shot I was on the eve of a very big row on another forum because of a former band member having wet himself in my car the day before. So when we played this gig people were asking me what had happened, why there was such an unpleasant smell in my car, so I told them what happened. And the weeks following that I got increasingly hostile messages from the guy who did it and from people who learned about it happening. Somebody even wanted to press charges against me. And as time went on I began to associate that guitar with all that BS and so it HAD to go.
So I took it to a shop where I could trade it in for a really nice SG. I called the shop up in advance to make sure they still had it but they didn't answer the phone, so I decided to place my bets and go there anyway. But when I got there they told me that that guitar had been sold just a day before and when I asked why they didn't answer the phone when I called them, I was told that they had lunch break. They were feeling sorry for me though and offered a Flying V which I kindly refused.
So I went to another shop where they kindly offered me an SG faded for it but I had to pay 300 Euros extra to get it. The reason why I went ahead with it: I was angry, disappointed, confused and I figured the guy to be trustworthy. It was only when I got home and found out how much an SG Faded costs new that I truly saw how "Trustworthy" that salesman was.
I recently went by the place where I sold my explorer and it was still there at an asking price of twice as much as I paid for it when I got it new.
Bad, bad vibes from that guitar and I'm glad to have gotten rid of it although I do regret not thinking the deal through more thoroughly.