nomadh wrote: āWed Jul 29, 2020 12:58 pm
Those are nice. And nice prices too. Why the sale? If these are going what are you keeping?
I have a lot of guitars.. too many. I love them, and I really relax and get into it when I'm plinking around or working on a guitar (to the extent of my non-soldering ability), but the truth is, I don't play very well. I'm actually a pretty good drummer, but my guitar skills are meh, at best. Although my skills are limited, I do have a real passion and appreciation for guitars.
A couple Saturdays ago, I also learned I have a leaky roof. It's a big, old, 2 family house, literally 100 years old. The roof has to be a complete tear-off, down to the wood, and it needs to have a ridge vent installed. It's going to be expensive. I don't have that kind of money, so I'm trying to minimize the loan I will need as much as possible by thinning the herd a little. That's the whole, sad truth.
What am I keeping? Well, I still have a few tricks left up my sleeve. I have a couple original horn (and, by default, headstock) Agiles, a few original headstock (only) Agiles, a matching headstock, neck thru Agile 3000, and favorite Agile or 2 that I just like playing and that I think are beautiful instruments.
I also have a couple other LP knockoffs from other budget brands, like SX, Jay Turser and Davison. Their horn shapes are a little closer to the originals, and, although I've never actually weighed them, to my naked hands, overall, and just a generalization to which there may be some exceptions, they mostly feel a little lighter in weight than Agiles, so I like them. I bet they are using different types of wood to construct them... Maybe not mahogany and maple, like Agiles. I'm not talented enough to care about tonal differences, so the lighter weight ones are just fine for me. What good is great tone when the note is sour?
As far as non-LP models, I have a bunch of SX strat and tele types, a couple Agile Harms... One of those may be going up on the block soon, only because there are 2 of them, and a white Douglas WNO. I think I'll keep that as long as I can.
I have one, actual, big- brand name guitar.. a beautiful, red Gretsch 2655T. It's a lower rung model, but I really like it. It's a fine enough instrument for me. I wouldn't do any justice to a higher priced instrument.
As more of a collector and appreciator of guitar beauty, most of my guitars are in really nice condition and barely played. I have a 1960's Kent guitar that I absolutely love playing, and that one gets most of my abuse. I take it around the house and plinknaway on it. Most of the others stay securely locked in their cases. Some are new, directly from Rondo, and some are pre owned, either thru Reverb, GC, evilBay, or Craigslist. I'm pretty picky about the condition of the used instruments I buy.
Here's the thing.. I sort of switched addictions about 7 years ago. I quit smoking cigarettes. I had quit a couple other addictions in years prior, but cigarette smoking was, by far, the hardest to drop, and that habit hung on me the longest. Anyway, I was a heavy smoker.. 2 pack a day heavy. Sometimes more if I was stressed out.
Anyway, as my addicted brain works... I rationalized that since I was saving so much money from quitting smoking - they had reached close to $10 a pack in my area at that time - I decided that I deserved some sort of reward for my Herculean efforts (lol), and I had always been a fan of guitars. I had been the drummer for a few bands in earlier years, so I had access to guitars, and people with guitars. I had one guitar in my teens, a Dean Z super strat, red and black, then nothing guitar-wise till about 7 years ago. That's when it all started.
Unfortunately, as my addicted brain also works, a "once in a while" treat of a nice guitar turned into more and more of a regular thing, and eventually, sort of an obsession/compulsion and addiction all its own. I became a very aggressive buyer.
Here is the extent of my insanity... I had (maybe still have) convinced myself that if I was still smoking, all the money I spent on cigarettes would have gone up in smoke, never to be recouped. True. And I convinced myself that by buying guitars, I was actually investing in my daughter's college fund, because some day I could just sell them all off and get a big chunk of money to send her to school. I was hoping that by the time her college rolled around, all the Agile guitars I had amassed would have skyrocketed in value, and I'd be a star at a Sutheby's (spelling?) auction, or some such, liquidating my valuable collection of priceless guitars, with throngs of people clamoring to buy them.
OK... Right. Nice vision. Delusional, but nice.
Anyway, a big house repair bill has snapped me back into reality, and I now realize that Agiles are more for playing than collecting. A guitar and case and shipping that I paid around $500 for, I can not easily re-sell at $350 or even $300. That's a pretty bad return on investment. There is no, "snap your fingers and money comes falling from the sky." It does not work that way. Listing these things is a royal pain. It takes me hours to photograph and write them up. And boxing / packing is something that, for some strange reason, I actually ENJOY doing, and I actually take great pride in my packing, but MAN, that takes up another chunk of time, too. And getting to the post office or the UPS store, or whatever... That's all time that I could be doing other things to earn money... Not lose money and time on selling guitars.
For one or 2 guitars it's not so bad, and actually kind of fun, but when you have a while bunch to get through, it's very time consuming and labor intensive.
So from now on (...taking the pledge that I will inevitably break as soon as the roof is done and behind me), I will focus more on quality than quantity, and I will keep my guitar collecting to a reasonable level. (Right.). For investing in the future I will find some mutual funds or get into the S&P 500 or something, not Agile guitars. Maybe I will bet it all on a company to get to the Covid finish line with a vaccine first. Lol. Gambling was another addiction I have had to deal with, besides substances.
Fortunately, since the birth of my daughter, whose love and unwavering belief in me, has given me the will and the strength to try to become a better person, I've got most of my issues in check... except the guitar thing. That really got ahead of me. It's time to cut it back a little. What's the total number? I don't know. Enough to have a bunch in storage and still have too many laying around the house.
I'm no TJ, but he is my role model... Even though he is a lefty. Haha, just kidding. No Ill will toward lefties.
