Besides the Artist II in the pic above (whose current owner turned out to be a friend of one my my close buddies, who still has it and says he will never sell!), here are some of the super-great sounding electric guitars that I wish I had hung onto:
Stripped 58, Vintage Burst. Still the best sounding Singlecut guitar from any maker I've had, going back to the late 60s. Wonderfully resonant lumber! What was I thinking? I don't even remember, and it was only a couple of years ago.
CU22 Semi-Hollow Ltd., Charcoal Burst. Sold to fund a wild goose chase for a piece of studio gear I didn't keep. Not only sweet sounding as could be, but also gorgeous...
1991 Custom, Cherry Burst. My first PRS, picked out new at the dealer pretty much the day it arrived. It was a wonderful sounding instrument, and beautiful to look at, too. Light and resonant. So of course I traded it in on the Artist II a couple of years later! I should have kept both!
And rounding out the list of my madman mistakes...McCarty RW Soapbar, from a NAMM show in the mid-2000s. You can imagine how good this one was for PRS to take it to NAMM. It was perhaps the most versatile of any of my P-90 guitars.
I've had quite a few others that were darn nice, but these really stand out as among the best PRSes I've owned!
Honorable mention goes to the SC58 I sold only a couple of months back with the idea that I wasn't using it enough. Yes, of course I miss it! I started missing it within a week after the sale. And try to find one with 53/10s now.
As it stands, I have only two PRS electrics, the Sig Ltd and Artist V. If any of you ever see me selling either one of these, no matter how I rationalize it, please do this:
1. Tie me to a chair, and put duct tape over my mouth, in a padlocked room from which I cannot escape.
2. Put on a record of Ethel Merman belting "I Had A Dream" from the broadway show Gypsy. Play it loud, and put it on infinite repeat for 48 hours.
3. After 48 hours, my brain should be melting and coming out of my ear holes. At this point, take the Ethel Merman record off, and put a recording of a jackhammer on endless loop for 72 hours.
4. By this time I will be grasping at what very fine thread of sanity is left, desperate for a single thought that doesn't make me go completely over the edge. It is at this point that I must be told, "Do not sell your instruments."
