Forever guitars, what does it for you?

I've only have 3 guitars and have no plans of downsizing.

 

My Martin because it took years to break in and I'll be damned if someone else will get it while I'm alive.

 

No such thing for me. I now have three CS guitars: 1 Tele and 2 Strats. All are fantastic guitars and I love them all. They’re the very best instruments I’ve ever owned. I just sold a CS Tele that I also loved.
Any of them could be replaced. I could live without any of them tomorrow. I will eventually get down to just two and possibly one. I could just as easily sell them all and find something equally great.
I won’t because I don’t care enough anymore.

 

Not planning on getting rid of anything.

Someone else mentioned the pain-in-the-@#$@# factor of selling guitars, and I agree with that completely.

Plus, I like them all. Maybe I'm a careful buyer, or maybe I'm easy-to-please, but I like them all. I don't expect each of them to be completely satisfying all the time, that's why I choose different ones.

 

I don't duplicate instruments; for example, I don't have two standard Teles, I have a classic Tele with 50's-spec pickups and a Cab with TVJ Classics. They each give me something different. Same with my Strats and Gretsches.
If they give me what I wanted when I acquired them, there's a reason for that and I'll keep them.

 

Pretty easy for me. My National custom Deluxe NRP 12 resonator that sings by itself and my MIK Epi Sheraton II which is my signature sound (after lots of modding). I consider my others as lifetime keepers, but I could replace them if needed from loss or damage.

 

Oh yeah. My Style 1 Tricone round-neck isn't going anywhere.

You don't see a lot of "I'm dying to get rid of my National"....

 

1. My avatar Telecaster started out as a MIM Nashville. It now sports N4 Noiseless pickups. The 12”’radius neck is a joy. This one goes in the box with me for that last ride down the river.
2. My FCS ‘69 Stratocaster. Tone to die for, especially from the middle pickup.
3. My Simon and Patrick Showcase Rosewood dred. This one is an amazingly good guitar that sounds great played finger style or with a pick.

These are forever guitars, one of them good for eternity.

 

Haven’t found one yet, honestly. I’ve enjoyed the journey of trying different things.

A Thinline Tele does seem to be my home base, though.

 

It doesn't cost us anything to just keep them, right? RIGHT?

 

My Homebrew Tele w/MIM Neck.
Spent several Months on it and it turned out very well.
Keeper!

 

I bought my last new electric in 92' a white strat with lace sensors. That was my #1 for many years, then came my Telecaster obsession. Right now all of my guitars are keepers but at the end of the day they are all hunks of wood that could be replaced.

 

In general I agree, but I do have a 1985 Custom Shop Les Paul, one of about 50 made that has a Roland pickup wired from the factory. That one might be tough to replace. It's the only one I've ever seen.

 

I'm more of a "never say forever" kind of guy. My guitars are all cheapies; if they stop performing to my exacting standards I will donate them without a second thought.

 

2017 Elite Series Tele, 1999 Heritage 555 with Gibson Hardware and Schaller pickups. My other two guitars, a Modified to HSS ‘95 American Standard Strat and a now yellowed 1998 Alpine White LP Studio which probably are not worth enough to even sell.

 

My #1 is a Vintage Hot Rod 50’s Strat. It’s sort of an oddity with the mix of old and new specs but it just feels right in my hands. I cannot see myself parting with it...famous last words, right?!

 

Since it's Halloween eve-eve, this is a good topic and I have a spooky story that applies. I've told this here before.

In 2003 I was in a little mom-n-pop vintage guitar shop and this guitar was on the wall. It was a Fender CS '60 Stratocaster, light relic, two years old. I had always liked the surf green color so I walked up to it, took it from the wall, and plugged it in. It was beautiful. It practically played itself and it had a throaty tone that...sang. It was expensive. I asked the shop owner about it and he said it came in a few weeks ago in a trade on a mid-50s Telecaster. There was no way I could drop the dough on this because it was an extravagant amount of money.



I stopped in two or three more times over the course of the next 15 months or so to see what else had appeared in the shop, and this Strat remained on the wall, torturing me. I think the price on the tag kept it there. If I were a rich person, I'd buy it...but that was not going to happen. It was not the most expensive guitar in the shop; he had several older Fenders and Gibsons and a few weirdos in the multiple-multiple-thousand-dollar range as well. He also had a pile of used amps, including a Dumble Overdrive Special with matching 4x10 cabinet in tan fawn suede. That was expensive too!

Christmas morning, 2004, there's a large box for me leaning against the wall behind the tree, sort of like the Red Rider BB gun from the film A Christmas Story. I open it up and it was a new G&G tweed guitar case. It was beautiful, and I can always use a nice guitar case; one like this is not cheap and I wouldn't buy it for myself. A very nice gift.

After all the presents were opened, my hunnie and I were having coffee and she said, "Oh, I forgot one other thing." She went upstairs and came back, carrying in her hand a surf green Strat with a big red bow tied to the headstock. A surf green Strat? What?

When she handed it to me, it looked like the one from the shop. There's just no way.
I flipped it over and looked at the serial number. It was THE Strat. ^^THAT^^ one.

Here's where the story gets real weird: I never mentioned this guitar to her. I never spoke about it, or the shop, or the color or anything. I don't talk in my sleep. I never told anyone else about it.

After I quit crying like a little girl, I asked her how she found it. She said she was driving one day and saw a sign for a guitar shop (it was quite out of the way from her house and mine), so she stopped and went in. She was looking at the guitars on the wall and the shop owner asked her if he could help her. She replied, "I know nothing about guitars, but my boyfriend is a guitar freak. What would you recommend?"

He walked straight to the Strat, took it off the wall and handed it to her.

The shop owner didn't know me by name; he didn't know her, and he certainly had no way to associate us.

Cue the woo-woo music.

I guess I'm supposed to have this guitar. It is a wonderful, magical thing.

My hunnie surprised me a few years ago with a certificate for a pair of custom boots from J.B. Hill https://www.jbhilltexas.com.

So I ordered a pair in tan sharkskin, with this guitar on them, They, like the Strat, are as comfy as a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers.

 

Same story here--see the Strat in my user pic--except that the number of years is slightly smaller.

 

I just acquired a guitar, a "lawsuit" Takamine. I've had my eye open for one of these, an F-312S, for years, it seems like forever. 37 years old, it was half the price of some I've passed by, and it looks like it hasn't been played much. OM size, 12-fret, slotted headstock, solid top, wide nut, no face dots, mahogany back. Loud,evenly balanced across the strings. I'll do a little measuring and tweaking after I finish wearing its strings out, but it won't need much. It's in with the rest of my forever guitars.

 

I put this Strat hardtail together in 1997. It was a splurge ($500) to celebrate my first decent paying job. Might be an Allparts neck and body, but I don't remember.



It was supposed to be a forever guitar. It sounds great, has tons of sustain, and a fantastic low end which really suits my playing style. The fly in the ointment, was that I could never get the neck set up so it didn't buzz. I quit playing music around 2002 and only started back up in the last year.

I have other guitars, but I decided to try to figure out if I could get this one to play well. First, I realized that the neck has a double-action trussrod. When I figured out how these work, I was able to get the correct amount of relief. After this, it played a lot better, but there re still buzzes. Turns out frets 3, 5, 8 and 17 are all a little bit high. Once I get these addressed, it should play like a dream.

So I think I finally have my forever guitar, it has only taken forever to get there.