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Guitar Collectors.... what else do you collect?


-TJ-

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Does your GAS extend to other things, and if so, represents a greater part of your personality, or is it strictly related to your love of music.

 

I know my gear collecting spans guitars, amps, and pedals..... and outside of music gear, I also have 9 watches that I accumulated over the last few years. Certainly more than I need, but once I got into it, it felt like shopping for guitars, and there were things I just had to have lol.

 

So how about you?

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Strangely enough, I collect ties. I love ties. My dad gave me a bunch of really nice vintage ties and it just started me into getting more and more. The attention to detail and difficulty in making ties is staggering, especially if you find a really nice one.

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I gathered an impressive collection of hand puppets (over 90), hand made in Germany by a women who has been very generous through the years and has done some to my specs and drawings. I play puppet theater in kindergarten, birthdays, etc. The characters I own cover most of the best known Grimm M

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Motorcycles. I've got two Harleys, a Duc, two BMWs, an old Norton, two Triumphs from the early '70s (a Bonnie and a Tiger), and '75 Yamaha XS650 that I just won't part with.

 

Beyond that, I keep expanding my home brewery. One of these days the revenuers will catch me for sure.

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Motorcycles. I've got two Harleys, a Duc, two BMWs, an old Norton, two Triumphs from the early '70s (a Bonnie and a Tiger), and '75 Yamaha XS650 that I just won't part with.


Beyond that, I keep expanding my home brewery. One of these days the revenuers will catch me for sure.

 

 

I'm looking into buying an older bike for getting around town and love the styles of the '70's bikes, but don't want to pay too much money. Any suggestions?

 

I'm actually starting to brew some beer this year. Hopefully it won't be too bad.

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Knives. Sounds strange to some I suppose, but they are great tools and can have a great look feel.

And as an indicator of my paradoxical nature, I also like to collect kites, of the dual line variety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My everyday carry,

cm19045.jpg

 

 

and a few great kites to fly,

IMG_2283_NFX2-Web.jpg

 

reel_3.jpg

 

 

1106725348045965109S500x500Q85.jpg

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I'm looking into buying an older bike for getting around town and love the styles of the '70's bikes, but don't want to pay too much money. Any suggestions?


I'm actually starting to brew some beer this year. Hopefully it won't be too bad.

 

Well, we could chat four hours!

 

Those '70s-vintage bikes do have a great style to them. The riding position is a little more forward and cramped, by today's standards, so be sure to ride before you buy. Nothing worse than getting to work feeling like there is a dagger stuck between your shoulder blades. If you want something reliable and somewhat cheap, I'd strongly suggest a Yamaha XS650 from '74-'80. Why? It's a straight-forward parallel twin that began as a copy of the iconic Triumph p-twins, but Yamaha managed to do it much better (not too many know this: when Triumph went belly-up the first time, Yamaha hired a lot of their engineers and gave them bigger R&D budgets to improve on the Triumph p-twin. Yamaha was facing big competition from Honda with it's new liquid-cooled 4 cyl bikes, so Yamaha tried to go the other route). Those Yamaha p-twin engines will last forever and are not too fussy. I believe they started having disc brakes in '74 and standard controls, which is something you definitely want. You should be able to find a nice, rideable one for under $3.5K. I would budget for getting your carb adjusted by someone who knows how. Then you'll be good to go.

 

Other good "UJMs" of the period are Honda's CB series and Suzuki's GS series, but I would stick to things in the 450-750 range--the larger-displacement bikes from that era will need a lot of love. My wife used to commute on an old CB450 that was really sweet. The Kawis from the period didn't age well. Generally, for those old bikes, air-cooled is always less of a headache than liquid-cooled.

 

I would also avoid Harleys from the AMF-era, unless you hold stock in an oil company. They're not cheap either--collectors keep the prices up.

 

While you will spend more, a good ol' BMW boxer from those days will be indestructible. I have a 1980 R80G/S which has over 300,000 miles. The parts are all out there and the knowledge base is huge. Great owner's community. Great style points, too :)

 

I'd avoid any British bike from the '70s. Great for collecting, tinkering, taking to the occasional rally, but really not dependable as a daily rider.

 

For more money, you could get a "modern classic." Ducati and Triumph make modern versions of their iconic old bikes. Very, very cool looking bikes, but with modern brakes, suspension, fuel injection, electric start, etc. You could probably find a used "new" Thruxton or Bonneville for under $6K. There are also the Harley Sportsters, which look as cool and classic as ever. The Sportster was Harley's response to Triumphs back in the '50s, and they've been making them ever since (with updated tech, of course, but timeless style). These days there are ZILLIONS of low-mileage Sportsters on the market. You could easily snag a two or three year old Sportster with less than 3K for ~$5000. Then, heck, you're in the Harley brotherhood. The dealer network, parts availability, after-market, and knowledge base on Harleys is second to none.

 

As for brewing, it's a lot of fun. As long as your process is clean and you can maintain temp control at all points, your beer will turn out fine. Just remember to be patient: what it tastes like at 4 weeks is nothing like what it will taste like at 12. Best brewing investment I made was a chest freezer with an external thermostat (that I installed).

 

What do you have in the secondary now?

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I know little to nothing about brewing right now, haven't even gotten the supplies, but I'm doing it with 2 chem majors (sounds like I'm making something other than beer) so we're going to keep it clean and professional.

 

As for the bikes, I'll check out the ones you've mentioned. I don't really need anything special, just something I can ride downtown so I'm not paying out the ass for gas. I'm on the lookout for an old BMW.

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Strangely enough, I collect ties. I love ties. My dad gave me a bunch of really nice vintage ties and it just started me into getting more and more. The attention to detail and difficulty in making ties is staggering, especially if you find a really nice one.

 

 

My daughter is going on a field trip, southern Illinois, to study Asian carp. The class held a garage sale to raise money for it. The week before the sale, their teacher went to a bunch of garage sales, gave them his card, and asked if they would donate what didn't sell at their sales. There was a ton of stuff. Bags, and bags of clothes, and nowhere to put them. One of the garbage bags was full of ties. Don't know how many, 2, or 300? When I opened it up, I was shocked. Tried doing the math in my head, how much money I was holding, if they were brand new. As I went through them, the even more amazing fact was, out of all the 2, or 300 ties, there was not one good one. They were clean, they were in good shape, just ugly beyond belief.

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I hate ugly ties. I try to keep it classy, or cool print or something. It's also just easier 9 times out of 10 to put a shirt and tie on than try to cop some other style. And it gives brownie points to me at work!

 

I've seen some ugly ass ties though.

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I'm looking into buying an older bike for getting around town and love the styles of the '70's bikes, but don't want to pay too much money. Any suggestions?


I'm actually starting to brew some beer this year. Hopefully it won't be too bad.

 

 

Kawasaki W650. It looks like an old Triumph.

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I know little to nothing about brewing right now, haven't even gotten the supplies, but I'm doing it with 2 chem majors (sounds like I'm making something other than beer) so we're going to keep it clean and professional.

 

 

The best homebrew forum with the nicest folks is homebrewtalk.com. Lots of help there. Or PM me if you ever want to swap recipes, talk brewing, etc.! (Chemists do make the best brewers!!!)

 

 

As for the bikes, I'll check out the ones you've mentioned. I don't really need anything special, just something I can ride downtown so I'm not paying out the ass for gas. I'm on the lookout for an old BMW.

 

 

Then maybe a "beater" from the early '90s or '80s would be better. Definitely cheaper, now that the hipsters discovered the style of '70s bikes. And you'll still get 45-55mpg, even more from a 350 or a 250.

 

Nothing about BMW bikes is cheap (buying, servicing, insuring), but they are a special breed. And the BMWMOA are as obsessive, helpful, and welcoming as any group of bike-geeks out there.

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Vinyl records. Just found Green & Wood's self-titled the other day at a shop, and yesterday I got Megafauna by Yoga in the mail.

 

I'm guessing dudes from the doom room probably know Green & Wood, but if anyone on this board listens to Yoga, I will send you a pedal fo' free.

 

(I will do no such thing)

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I used to collect plastic automotive model kits. I sold 150 of them at one point, gave about 80+ parts and started kits away, and sold probably another 50 -70 kits just last year and I bet I still have around 150 kits left.

 

Now, besides guitars, I guess I just collect parts for our three cars in the garage to build with ('20 Model T, '71 Duster, '85 Ram stepside).

 

I also seem to collect alot of side work in the fabrication/engine building arena. Just finished tubbing this 73 Plymouth Roadrunner today after about 6 months of work. Now just have to finish the two engines for other guys cars---then just maybe I can get to my Gretsch build thats been sitting for three + years.......

 

73RoadrunnerMKirsandra20.jpg

 

73RoadrunnerMKirsandra22.jpg

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