Largest personal guitar collection

[63Blazer]

This guy is obsessed and has what appears to be 3,000 guitars (or more) with about half of them being lap steels alone. There are you usual garden variety strats, too but he has some hard to find guitars like 50 Fender Coronados. Where do you find that many Coronados? And when is the last time you saw a lap steel for sale? And when you tire of looking at guitars, he has ukuleles, banjos, and autoharps. There are also what seems to be a world record number of amplifiers. If you don't want to see music he has 200 tweed suitcases, just because.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqYk7LFtHUw

There's also a DVD for his collection:

http://inspirationandcraft.co.uk/ins...urvey_DVD.html

[worldrecordholder]

I have mixed feeling about this.
Truth is I have many more guitars then I 'need'. I BS myself and try and believe they are 'investments'< that is pure crap because I will NEVER sell a guitar again, I have never sold a guitar that I haven't regretted it later and am STILL pissed about it after 25 years. I currently have about 25....too many???? I love them all and want another few.....

When I lived in Mississippi the Dr. that lived next door had a underground vault that had and extensive collection of civil war stuff....far beyond ANY museum I have ever seen. The collection was appraised over 5 mill.., I was one of the lucky few that got to see it (mandatory white cotton gloves before you entered!!!). Truth is it SHOULD of been in a place where others could see it.

(I was happy with the brass Carvery trouser button he gave me however!)

There comes a point where having too much stuff, no matter how valuable it is becomes and obsession on the collection and not for the joy of the piece. IMO when you could loose a good part of the collection and not realize it, you have gone too far.


~JH

[IamFastEddie]

Originally Posted by worldrecordholder

I have mixed feeling about this.
Truth is I have many more guitars then I 'need'. I BS myself and try and believe they are 'investments'< that is pure crap because I will NEVER sell a guitar again, I have never sold a guitar that I haven't regretted it later and am STILL pissed about it after 25 years. I currently have about 25....too many???? I love them all and want another few.....
~JH

I'm sitting at 56 currently, 24 of which I have no inclination of ever giving up so I hear you on this. But I love them. Some of my friends spend as much partying and drinking (I don't touch the stuff) as I do on equipment. At the end they have a hangover and I have another instrument.

[dratsum]

Originally Posted by worldrecordholder

There comes a point where having too much stuff, no matter how valuable it is becomes and obsession on the collection and not for the joy of the piece. IMO when you could loose a good part of the collection and not realize it, you have gone too far.


~JH

I totally agree with this. I've found that once you reach the point where all you think about is acquiring the next item in your collection, the actual items you have lose meaning. I've been buying Jem's recently (finally purchased an LNG!) and I'm trying very hard to keep reminding myself that it's the actual guitars that I'm interested in, not just the "collection".

[Ibateur]

As long as you're all happy, more power to you. Those Fenders in the vid are wowwowowowo to me!

[63Blazer]

This is what I used to do but on a smaller level with about 60 guitars mostly over a 10 year period of time. I got guitars mostly to have them. If it's one I didn't have but could afford, then there's a good chance I chased that one. One day I will post the pix.

I did get rid of all of them when I actually got interested in playing the things then I set out to get just one guitar that played well by me and one where I liked the sound. The rest of the effort these days is getting better on the thing and since music is such a huge field I will never master guitar so that one will keep me busy. I have a backup guitar but that's just to keep on playing. I no longer see the need to get something that doesn't get played.

But I do understand those who collect because it's fun and in the case of this guy with his thousands of instruments and amps, the historical preservation of them. At this point he should set up a museum since it's not regular stuff he has, but very rare pieces and probably a few one of a kinds. I like many of those lap steels which are early models which never took off (and were soon replaced by ones with more features) and they should be preserved. I also like failed guitars like Gretsch Penguin, Korina Gibsons, Fender Coronados, or any other models that failed to gain enough sales to keep them going. Guitars like the Gibson Corvus and Fender Katanas may not be pricey now, and still be considered used junk, but they didn't succeed and one day they will be as rare and valuable as those Coronados. Plenty of non-6120 Gretsch models are one year wonders with small production totals and they are now bringing in high prices on vintage market where thirty years ago you couldn't give one away.

While I think most instruments should be played I do understand some instruments are museum pieces (like Martin's first American acoustic guitar, Elvis Presley's Martin with four remaining gold trailer park stick on letters, various renaissance stringed instruments too delicate to tune to pitch (my professor had one), and Paul McCartney's Beatle bass when and if he retires it which still has the original Beatle's set list still scotch taped to the side.

[Takin' a Ride]

I'm not anywhere near this level, but I have 20 guitars currently and some of them are literally the same guitar with a different paint job. I am clearly owning them for the sake of collecting/owning them. But I truly get enjoyment out of owning them, partly because I had a dream when I was a kid to have tons of cool guitars like I saw in music videos and partly because I know that many of them are somewhat rare and hard to find.

But basically all of my friends and my fiancee thought I was crazy. To them it was just a bunch of cases everywhere and many thousands of dollars sunk into something that I can't play anywhere near the level of a Vai or Satriani.

But what was interesting was when I hung a bunch of them on my wall and displayed other on stands. I currently have 10 on display and will get out at least another three. When people saw them as part of a display in a cohesive room (like a JV version of Vai's Harmony Hut), suddenly they didn't think it was weird at all. I've gotten tons of positive comments and when you can see a bunch of them, people will ask questions about them, what's the differences, etc.

[Wolfram]

He who dies with the most guitars wins. This guy is looking like a contender


-Wolfram

[63Blazer]

Originally Posted by Wolfram

He who dies with the most guitars wins. This guy is looking like a contender


-Wolfram

As far as I can tell online, this guy and his 3,000+ guitars has the biggest collection outside of a rock star and actually way more than even Keith Richards' 1200-1500 or so instruments making it more than any star that I know of.

Other than the OP the collection of Scott Grove appears to be another really large one that may be way up there. It takes hours and hours of video for him to quickly go through them, or at least every main design. Scott is a wealth of information, not only to the commonly collected ones like strats and Les Pauls, but to many rare or otherwise neglected models collectors have not shown interest in.

[Nevy]

OMG you found the GAS GOD

[louthedog]

I keep around 60, more than enough work cleaning and maintaining....

[kramersteen]

Makes me feel a lot less guilty about my 17 electrics haha.

[Jamm'n Jimmy]

Just shy of 40, I would not have it any other way!

[khaas]

I liked Reverend Guitars so much that I started out as a collector and now I'm an owner. Commitment. I currently call 30 or so my own - mostly prototypes and one-offs we've done for various reasons. 3 or 4 of them see stage time.

It didn't stop me from buying/selling other brands that I like. Obviously. I'm here. The Ibby thing is my mid-life "I wanted that real bad when I was 18" collection. I also keep around some nice examples of vintage & newer tele's, strats, LP's, a G&L or 2, a sweet 64 Jazzmaster, 69 Dan Armstrong, '59 Rick... and I call them "research" for models we're doing or would like to do in the future.

When storage becomes an issue I think you really have to sit think about it. I'm at that point now. Hard to justify selling good stuff in a soft used market, however.

See how easy it is to come up with excuses?