How Many Are Too Many

IKnowALittle

IKnowALittle

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Apr 27, 2014
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I recently moved to a condo downtown, but as such things go, it is not spacious.
I also have a lot of guitars accumulated over the years, several of which are PRSi. I've never sold any of my guitars and they were all bought new at the time.
Now, I have guitars stacked in the bedroom, in the living room and in the den.
Funny thing is, I only ever play three ... my 2011 PRS studio for gigging which gets quite a bit of use, a much cheaper, but perfectly serviceable "other" guitar for practice/backup and my favourite electro/acoustic for fingerstyle and gigging.
It's starting to feel faintly ridiculous to have all these guitars, plus I'm feeling a little guilty about it lately.
I don't have the time to play them regularly and I don't have the space to uncase and display them, so I'm thinking of trying to sell a few. But I'm not sure, maybe I should just find some storage for them for a while.
What to do, what to do.
 
I tend to only have a few at any one time, but even then I sometimes think I have too many.

I don't have any advice, but you do have my sympathy if you're loaded down!
 
LSchefman said:
I tend to only have a few at any one time, but even then I sometimes think I have too many.

I don't have any advice, but you do have my sympathy if you're loaded down!
Click to expand...

Honestly, as problems go, it's not a particularly onerous one to have. :)
I tried to go through them before I moved, but left it to late and every one I looked at was "man, this guitar is to nice to let go."
Or to sentimental, or to "something". For example, don't know if anyone remembers the limited edition (100, I think), tree of life guitars PRS did in 2011. That one was on my list, but when I took a boo at it my thought was simply "damn, this is a gorgeous guitar, how can I sell it" and so on.
But, I keep thinking that I really should thin the herd a bit. I will never get my money back, but I never bought them for investment purposes.
 
Sometimes one isn't enough, and two is too many.

First thing I'd do is ditch the "cheaper" and "serviceable" guitar for one of the opulent pieces you have as a practice/backup. YOLO.
 
as I get older, it bothers me to have guitars lying around that aren't being used. I have 3 singlecuts, and soon will be selling 1 to get down to 2. guitars are meant to be played, and if i'm not playing it, someone else should be.
 
A few thoughts that keeps running around my head when it comes to stuff in general:
- I want to surround myself with great stuff as that's a reflection of who I am - hence a few PRSi :)
- I really try not to keep stuff around that I don't use. I don't want to collect things for the sake of collecting them.
- I also don't want to own anything that is so precious to me that I won't use it for the fear that it might be damaged.

So yeah, I would also look at bringing two nice guitars when gigging and selling the "serviceable" guitar. I would also start selling other guitars you won't miss, or guitars you keep but are too afraid to use. To me guitars are meant to be enjoyed so if you don't love playing them for either not being good enough or you feel you have to be too careful with I would sell them and keep the ones you love to play. There will always be another guitar if you want one!
 
Can you be too young?
Can you be too rich?
Can you be too smart?
Can you be too handsome?
Can you be too talented?
Can you have too many guitars?
Friends?
Women?
Fast Cars?

I'm thinking the answers to all of these questions is usually No.....
 
During my lifetime, I had to liquidate over 250 guitars that I had collected and played over the years. None of the liquidating I did was due to some fault of my own, but rather at the behest of either my parents, or wife. The most I had to liquidate at a time were about 50.

This happened on 3 different occasions. Now, I have 3 non-replaceable carbon fiber guitars, one custom Vigier, a limited edition Reverend, which I wouldn't mind selling, and one Yamaha silent guitar that my wife bought me.

My main guitars are the carbon fiber models, two of which I use live, and the Vigier, which I practice on daily, and use live.

I would like at least one more Vigier, S-type, and a PRS, but after that, I have no desire for anything else.

My amps are one Diezel, one Marshall, and one Marshall Code amp on the way to lighten my live playing gear a bit.

At home, I use a Kemper toaster for practice, but would like to try it live, when I get the foot controller for it.

There was a time when I had so much of everything that I "thought" I had to have, that it was on the border of becoming a sickness. It was emotionally hard for me to sell of most of the guitars and amps I did, as I had played them for a long time and they were great instruments. I made all of my music money playing those pieces.

However, having done it so often before, I am almost cold to it now. I have become reliant heavily on my gigging gear, and if anything happened to that gear, I don't know what I would do. The reason is that it represents the many years of repeat buying of gear I no longer have since I finally became satisfied with what I currently use. Had I not sold the older stuff, and become a bit more "wild" in choosing my current gear, I would still be buying and selling the older gear in a downward vicious circle, unendingly.
 
I'm a "quality over quantity" kind of guy, but if your collection is PRS-heavy, the problem is not quality.

I can only play one at a time, so I'd rather have a smaller number of high quality and versatile instruments ... or instrument.

Those would be the two criteria I would use to slim down the collection. I understand others can be sentimental about instruments, but to me personally, it's more about the musical connection to the instrument than the emotional one. Fortunately, a number of PRS instruments offer both of those criteria in spades (pickup configurations / splitting options, etc.).

I guess that doesn't make it any easier for you. You do have a forum full of individuals who would gladly remedy your situation, though. :)
 
Last edited:
Let's do the math. Since we all know that the correct number of guitars to have is n+1, too many guitars must equate to n+2.

Really though, I know the feeling. I held on to a couple of guitars mostly out of sentiment, and I used to rationalize keeping a couple more I didn't use much. Within the last couple years, it started bugging me to keep the B squad sitting around when I have a great A squad that covers everything.

I sold some stuff and I'm now down to five guitars (four electric, one acoustic) that cover a wide range, but with enough overlap to have backups. I keep thinking one more wouldn't hurt though, like a SAS maybe (n+1, y'know).

So anyway, all that is to say it sounds like time for a thinning of the herd until you get down to a manageable number of keepers that will get a fair amount of attention.
 
clasbtenn said:
Had I not sold the older stuff, and become a bit more "wild" in choosing my current gear, I would still be buying and selling the older gear in a downward vicious circle, unendingly.
Click to expand...

Not that there's anything wrong with that... ;)
 
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