CONFESSIONS: Guitars I Have Stupidly Let Go Of...

Hey,

I'm almost 60. I've been in love with guitars since the mid-50's when my folks made me take accordian lessons. Get this, it's 1957 and I'm dragging my accordian past all these Gibsons and Fenders in the music store in Northern California. There really aren't very many rock and roll stations around yet (though some are playing SOME rock and roll with the other music on the air).

It wasn't until I was like 15 that I had my own job and disposable income and got my first guitars. My first electric an Ibanez I saw at a International Trade Show in Chicago's old McCormick Place (yeah, the one that burned down and was rebuilt).

Fast forward to 1980. I'm 33 and working for IBM in Palo Alto. Every couple of days I go into downtown Palo ALto on my lunch break to look in music stores for deals. One day I find this baby in Drapers Music - a 1959 Gretsch Double Anniversary - two tone green with Filtertrons, an ebony fingerboard and big Bigsby tailpiece... It's got a 2nd knob near where the master volume is on the cutaway and a not stock phase switch down near the neck pickup volulme knob. With original stock case, price out the door $300.00 !!!! It was great !! Had the best tone and that vintage mojo that is hard to describe and can only be felt... Many years later after some beauty broke up with me I sold it. Went walking into a Guitar Center and had a group of salesmen following that two-tone gray case to the counter like I was Britney Spears in cut off shorts... Got $1100.00 and a new Strat for it.

Obiviously that was a big blunder. Tell me: what guitars have you had and let go of that you wish you still had, if you have pictures please post them. Here's a pic of me and the guitar circa 1980...






(MODERATORS: I put up a similiar thread earlier today and it quickly disappeared. If this is out of line or not an appropriate topic for this board, please PM me, if it is in the wrong location please PM me also. MANY THANKS !!!!!!!

Two that I rue selling are a wonderful '73 Mustang bass, sunburst, drenched in 'mojo', which I let go for pennies as old Fenders didn't have the same following then as they do now. And an early MIJ Squier Tele...

It's interesting that of all the 'things', cheap or expensive that I have ever owned, the only things I regret selling in any way are these two instruments.

I have huge regrets about selling my Gibson 345 in the 70s. It was a real honey. Severe lack of finance meant I had to sell the guitar. It's a story told by millions of guitarists but it is also very real. Sorry, no pictures.

it's not what I sold, it's what I didn't buy. In about the 10th or 11th grade (1996-97?) I had been saving my yard-mowing money and was ready to buy a serious guitar... I already had a '94 American Standard stratocaster, so I was like "I'll get a les paul now." I bought a nice '83 flametop custom that in hindsight looked great but was too heavy and wasn't anything special sound-wise.

I paid I think $1150 for it.

In the same shop that day was a '63 Strat, factory re-fin Candy Apple Red (re-finned in about '65) and re-fretted... sounded AMAZING (i knew this even at 16). I could've scored it for just a couple hundred more (I think they were asking $1500) but I went with the Les Paul, despite the magnetism of the '63, because I "already had a strat" and it was the sensible thing to do.

I've been kicking myself ever since.

I later traded the Les Paul to get my beloved LPB/factory gold hardware '62 jazzmaster (matching headstock). I love that guitar so I guess all's well that ends well... STILL kicking myself for not buying that strat though, as now I'll never be able to afford one.[/i]

Great thread.

Over the past 4 years or so, I have, for some unknown reason, started collecting guitars. I've been playing since I was 13 in 1977 and only ever used 1 guitar, a 1963 LP Junior. In 1987 I bought my 2nd guitar after listening the new bohemians and realizing I couldn't get some of those sounds on my 1 P90 LP jr, so I got a seafoam green strat plus. It was beautiful guitar. I traded it in in '93 for a PRS emerald green flame top CE24. Then for some reason in 2000 I started feeling that 2 guitars weren't enough and now I'm up to 17. Why? I dunno. Actually, I think it had something to do with EBAY. :roll:

Anyway, back to the thread. Over the course of acquiring the 17 that I do have now, several have passed through my hands that I wish I still had. They are in chronological order of my having them:

- 1987 Seafoam Green Strat Plus. Wonderful guitar that was well taken care of. I bought it for $600 new and now they fetch nearly $800. But it's not the price really, it's just that they're hard to find. Traded for the PRS.
- 2001 See-thru Purple Ernie Ball Super Sport w/ P90s. I got this for $375 and it was also awesome. At the time I didn't know what I had and sold it for $475. Now they go for close to $600. Sold to buy a '52 MIJ Tele.
- 1978 Greco Semihollow Les Paul. Again, a steel at $300 (from Japan). Everything was original and sounded/worked well. The neck was thinner than my other les paul-type guitars, but I found that I went to it a lot. Sold to buy a 2005 Gibson SG classic.

Out of these three the one I probably wish I had back the most is the strat. The neck was amazing and I loved the lace sensor pickups.

Thanks!

For many years I could only justify/afford one guitar so don't as much regret selling but do wish I still had :

Vox teardrop (original) - bought and sold for ?50;
JV '62 sunburst strat with tweed case - sold to buy a Sinclair Spectrum when the initial personal computer/games thing took off ;
Aria Pro PE LP type
Early 80's Ibanez mini 335 (can't remember the exact designation);
1970's Strat (all black);
Fender Japan '62 reissue (white);
60's Tele (in which I installed a SB hot stack) ;

Not really high end stuff but enough to bring a tear to my eye.

I miss my '69 Tele thinline.
It had it all. Great tone, great neck (the best), and it was very light (obviously).

Had a 57 LP jr. Wish I still had It was the wife thing ME OR IT.
6 kids & 18 Grand kids later I still have the wife. But in 1976
the 250.00 I got for the Jr. was dbl I paid for it. BOY DID I GET A GREAT DEAL OR WHAT