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Buying guitars you weren't actually looking for.


Oldguy64

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I was looking at my current guitars and realized that i wasn't looking for them when I bought them.

Is this a phenomenon that the rest of you fall victim to?

 

For example, when I bought my Alvarez 5013, I was in my favorite junk/surplus store looking for a white belt. This big old square headstock caught my eye, I strummed one chord and realized I had to have it. (I got the white belt too).

 

When I got my Alvarez FD80, I was wasting time playing the inventory on the used wall. The salesman told me how much it cost with the hard case, and I realized that it was too good a deal to leave...

 

Please tell me I'm not the only one that has to take a "responsible adult" with me if I might drive by a guitar store....

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In the long run, I believe your way is cheaper...

Granted. I have yet to pay more than $400 for a guitar...

My ovation is probably my highest quality instrument! and it plays like its MSRP is a thousand bucks! However, it went home with me for quite a bit less...

 

Then the powers that be smiled on all of us at work. We got a bonus, and my share more than paid for my guitar.

 

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That's the story with my Blueridge. I was looking for a nice guitar when I stumbled across a selection if BR's in a store. I hated the headstock bling, hated the aging toner, and I really loathed the pickguard. But when I played it, I couldn't leave without it. In the last five years I've learned to live with the bling, the toner, and the pickguard; but I fall in love all over again every time I pick it up !

 

Mel

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I was GASsing for a Martin HD-35 when my wife surprised me with seed money for my 40th birthday. The amount she gave me however was about 1/4 the price of the HD-35 and history told me that there was no way to scratch up the other $1400 so I prematurely pulled the trigger on a D-16GT for another $150 from the wife. A coupe of months later I saw a used MMV (which to me sounded every bit as nice as the HD-35) for the same amount that my wife had originally gifted me with and I kicked myself in the ass for several months. Since that time I've enjoyed the D-16GT but haven't really bonded with it. I also know that if I were to sell it it would be for a big loss because it's no longer "mint" condition.

BTW, I also went Freeman's route to build my own guitar (with the help and sponsoring of many friends, Freeman included) and while it was satisfying, it was also a big test in patience and balancing the new diversion with life. In the end it took me over 3 years to complete but the real irony was that about halfway in my local shop had something very similar (a first generation Taylor GSMC - aka the GS5) on consignment for about $1400. By then I was committed to the build.

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Hasn't happened to me but last year my friend Mike found his electric guitar that way. He stopped at a place near his house to have a leather coat repaired. The lady who owns the shop does a resale business on the side and there was this Ibanez electric sitting there. He asked how much it was and came back later and bought it as his Christmas present to himself.

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While I'm "guitar crazy" I have only purchased one guitar for myself that I was looking for, and I actually bought that one on a whim. And it was the absolute worst guitar ever.

One of the kids at church had his guitar destroyed by his three year old baby sister while home from college on Christmas break.

A few of us got together and they had me pick his replacement guitar.

It was a great instrument and came within a few cents of what we had raised to buy it.

So I have actually gone with intent and bought a few instruments...just not for myself.

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Thats what life is all about -unexpected and interesting days .

My CFOX came to me that way -put a om larrivee up for sale and had a interesting

offer for a trade , that i took a chance on -- Its one of my favorites , and I've never heard of a CFOX before

that time - I also like it becasue their is not another guitar that sounds like that one- they have

their own unique sound --- those are the kind of guitars i like - that have their own voice.

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Oldguy64 wrote:

I was looking at my current guitars and realized that i wasn't looking for them when I bought them.

Is this a phenomenon that the rest of you fall victim to?

 

For example, when I bought my Alvarez 5013, I was in my favorite junk/surplus store looking for a white belt. This big old square headstock caught my eye, I strummed one chord and realized I had to have it. (I got the white belt too).

 

When I got my Alvarez FD80, I was wasting time playing the inventory on the used wall. The salesman told me how much it cost with the hard case, and I realized that it was too good a deal to leave...

 

Please tell me I'm not the only one that has to take a "responsible adult" with me if I might drive by a guitar store....

LOL...ok, here's my confession:

 

 

About 22 years ago, I went to a friend's guitar shop to buy a Gibson J-100 Ultra (a less gaudy version of a J-200, but with mahogany back.sides). He had two in his shop and I was alternating between them, trying to make up my mind, when he said, "Here, try this one!" and handed me a Guild JF-4...WOW!!!

It sounded exactly like what I'd had in my mind as "The Guitar", and I continued to swap between the three, until I had to admit that the Guild was noticably better sounding than either Gibson (which sounded pretty good, in their own rights).

My #1 guitar

 

I've never found any guitar I like as well as this one!

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When I'm actively looking for a guitar, I rarely find a decent or even half decent guitar.

But when I'm just about browsing, looking for nothing at all, those pesky guitars ambush me out of the bushes, they corner me in from behind street corners and they attack me whenever I pass a shop.

I've been found by my Gretsch 3713, my Washburn D46SP and my Guild GAD25 this way.

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That's what happened with my Dot Studio. I was in the guitar store looking for some small accessory and saw all the semihollows they had in stock. I strummed on a few and found that the one I liked most was also the cheapest, so I couldn't resist. It probably didn't help that I'd just gotten a student refund.

 

Same with my Laney GH50l. I was looking up amps online, with no intention to buy one, and stumbled across it on a local store's website for a good price.

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I've been down that road a few times....substituting a guitar over buying what I had planned on buying...most recently, a J45 Gibson. Always wanted one, but always got trapped into buying something else....took me years to get around to pulling the trigger on the Gibson, and only after making a lot of substitutions.......still the process was worth the journey. I appreciate the Gibby more now, than I could possibly had any other time of my life.

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