Every single guitar was different from the others in some way that was substantial enough. For me, anyway. It never made any sense to me to have multiple guitars that were the exact same guitar or that served the exact same purpose.
Today, most of my guitars have been sold and I currently have the acoustic, the Les Paul, the Telecaster and the Gretsch. All have sentimental value and won’t be sold. But there’s still that itch to own many guitars because guitars are tools and the more tools you have in your toolbox the easier it will be to get your project done, whatever it may be.
But I recently shifted my view and started thinking that now that I have one on the way, I don’t think I’m going to be buying guitar after guitar for the rest of my life until I have enough to make some kid on the internet drool in envy. I’m a little too practical, even though my tastes run on the fairly expensive side. I can’t handle that many guitars and besides, I like to play my guitars and having that many, I’d have a tough time keeping each guitar in use. Eventually they would be put in cases and then in the closet and then probably forgotten about.
While this may be good way down the road in the vintage market, I don’t think that’s fair to the guitar. Guitars are meant to be played and I am all about fulfilling your purpose in life and sitting in a case for fifty years does not seem natural or desirable at all. It seems flat out wrong, actually. Especially with modern guitars. I understand protecting vintage guitars, they’re vintage after all from a time that will never be back again and some of them are indeed very special, but modern guitars are said to be close but not quite there and buying just because you THINK it’ll skyrocket in value in thirty to forty years, that just seems so wrong.
Armed with the knowledge that there will not be an ever-flowing fountain of guitar funds I shifted my ideas. I still want a ton of potential and possibilities, the proverbial tools in the toolbox but I’ve shifted the ideas on how to achieve this.
I’ve gone from wanting a set of many knives to wanting a few Swiss Army knives. Of course, you can’t find EVERYTHING in a swiss army knife, no matter how thick it is, so I’ve accommodated that too.
Instead of buying different guitars with different pickups, I’m going to buy no more than five more guitars.
For the rest of my life.
Yeah, a lot of guitarists think their latest guitar is the last guitar they’ll ever need, but I’ve thought long and hard about this and this is what I’ve come up with.
The Gretsch Black Phoenix will scratch and 17” hollowbody with trestle bracing, more of a tight sound, more akin to semi-hollows instead of full blown hollows. Inside, it would be wired with RCA jacks so I can swap out pickups at will. We’re talking all of TV Jones’ pickups and a few various pickups as well.
This would be the same case in my 6118T. However, there needs to be something really cool in there so a Dyna loaded Country Club joins the list. 17” and no trestle bracing. Very big, very open sound and even though it can (and will) be played electrically, I’m actually looking to use it more as an acoustic guitar as I think the tone of it is very even, very mellow without being dark, and the fact it’s an electric makes it incredibly easy to play action-wise. It’s a very cool instrument and I think the way I’m going to tackle it is more than a little unique in this modern world of accepted roles and rules.
So that’s three guitars. Two more to go.
The Gretsch Patrick Stump Corvette. This is for a couple reasons: the tone of the (three) pickups would be out of this world and the body being made of mahogany will lend a completely different tone with Filtertron-sized pickups. Lightweight and considerably smaller than any of the hollowbodies, it also looks amazing.
The next guitar is my project guitar. This is the guitar I can tinker with forever. It’ll be an Epiphone Emperor-Regent which is basically an acoustic archtop, but it happens to very closely match one of my favorite guitars that are not being made (and they go for about 10 grand as of right now). I plan on making it an electric. It’s already KIND of an electric. It has a floating humbucker hanging off the neck so no output jack is required to wire. That’s a big load off of my mind. I think it would be fun though to buy part after part at varying points in time, whenever I can swing it, say, a new set of tuners here, a bridge pickup there, a different bridge here, knobs there, that kind of stuff. This will scratch the modding itch and in the end, leave me with something that would be how I would interpret a Gibson ES 350 (which isn’t so close to how Gibson did it).
The very last guitar is actually still on my “maybe” list meaning that while it will add to the toolbox, I don’t REALLY need it. I can get close enough through other guitars. It’s a Gretsch 5120. The 5120 has regular humbuckers in it which are bigger than Filtertron humbuckers and I think it would lend itself well to something like rock or in places that you would want a more conventional, immediately recognizable rock tone. It would be more like a Gibson hollowbody, only a Gretsch. So while it would be cool, I’m not entirely sure I’ll be getting it.
But those other four… That sounds like a great idea. I mean, even if two of them cost, say, 3K, and the Patrick Stump cost 1K (these prices are all generally higher than the real price), and the Epiphone ended up costing 1,500, that’s 8,500.00 which is a lot (don’t try to tell me I don’t think it’s a lot. It IS a lot of money), when you string it out over my life, saying I live until the ripe old age of 75, that’s a MERE 170.00 a year. Basically a new Squier Strat or Tele every year for the “rest” of my life. Isn’t that price so much more reasonable?
I think of all the things a guitarist can do and still maintain his gear happiness this is the best and most practical.
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