Oh, the emptiness!

A vintage Eagles' song Tequila Sunrise uses a phrase "it's a hollow feeling". We all know that feeling when it comes to man - woman experiences. My good friend Rod Ice reminds "the GAS-afflicted go through a very similar experience in our guitarquests. You know that gnawing, pervasive mood of loss when (for whatever reason) a sufferer is unable to buy another guitar. Like withdrawal from an addictive drug, perhaps? A crawling hunger that rests deep within the belly... or soul."

I've certainly been there. Sometimes the GAS gods will put one right in your path at the worst possible financial time. And in today's economy, I'm betting there is a lot of these empty, yearning feelings occurring. I've also experienced it soon after a purchase which drained the ole "fun money" account into a bone-dry situation. Any new acquisition would come from giving one up, a (perish the thought) trade. Some are mentally skilled enough to rationalize that the timing is just bad, karma isn't right, or even that others will be there down the road - when the timing IS right. This enables them to move on. Oh, if only it were that easy for me. I wind up losing sleep doing "what if" scenarios. Remembrances quickly come to mind of all the ones that got away because I hesitated, the times I chose to bid instead of hitting the "Buy It Now" and ended the auction, only to find someone else just beat me to it during my hesitation. The agony gets revved up a bit when the notion occurs that perhaps this one just might have something about it that makes it even MORE collectible or valuable that wasn't mentioned in the description. You know, a little pleasant surprise that is unlikely to be there on others that come along. Olde sayings like "He who hesitates is lost" and "The early bird gets the worm" pop like kernals in a microwave. Words on a page blur, only to be replaced by mental images of where it will hang or sit among your others. Conversing with others brings strange looks as your mind drifts to bank account balances and impending debits and credits... desperately seeking something that might accelerate a deposit or delay a withdrawal. The combination of exhausting all financial wizardry ideas AND sleep loss exacerbate the gnawing feeling. All energy and reason reserves must be tapped in order to begin the painful acceptance of a hard reality.

What say you about this hollow feeling, this yearning?

How many is TOO MANY?

When the harem got up to 10, I decided to keep it there. So, my next GAS attack found me trading a keeper for what would have, should have been #11. The next milestone was at 25. I mean, who in their right mind could possibly need/use/play/care for more than that? In about a year, that harem size had grown to 50, and I found it much easier to hold there. I held for a while, then somehow caved on a few GAS onsets. Darn thing shot up to 72 before I realized exactly how many I had. In taking that inventory, I became disappointed that I had a few I had not seen or played in years because they were in the rear of the closet. I made a conscious decision that I needed to thin out the duplicate guitars in all collectible AND non-collectible models. Not easy to do, but it was a smart thing. I'm currently down to about 55 and headed towards a cap of 50. My strategy is working because for every 3 or 4 I sell, I replace it with a CP Thornton model - the guitars I consider to be the finest on the planet. This is the only strategy that has worked consistently for me. I want to be able to display ALL my lovelies and have NONE hidden away in a closet. And I'm finding that I can live quite well with fewer net harem members as long as the quality of workmanship and playability of the new members remains high.

What about it, how many is too many for you?

True Confessions

Come on, now... have you ever deceived anyone about exactly how many guitars you actually own? It's just hard to explain sometimes, isn't it? Lots of folks do because they'll never hear the end of it from someone who just can't understand. Tell us about it. What you did, why you did it, and how it turned out.