Keeping a guitar for sentimentality?

strtdv · March 18

I've got a 2001 MIM strat which was my first electric guitar, which I bought when I was 15 or 16 with money I'd saved from a summer job.

It's a decent guitar, and I've upgraded it quite a lot over the years so it's had the tuners upgraded to vintage style ones, and I've replaced the stock pickups with Bareknuckle Irish Tours, at the same time upgrading the pots and pickguard to one that has aged a lovely cream over the last couple of decades.

The problem is that despite my username I'm really not a Strat player. I love how other people sound playing them and hate how I sound playing them. I just miss the bite of a telecaster, and find myself fighting the guitar every time I play it, and as a result it hardly gets played at all.

It seems a shame to have a perfectly good guitar sitting there that someone else could enjoy (and sound good playing) but should I keep it as it's my first "proper" guitar?

RaymondLin · March 18

I'd keep it, as it's not exactly

1 - Losing money
2 - Not worth enough to make it life changing if you sell it.

Unless you are desperate for that £600 or so quid? Because as we all know, you will look for it again in a few years and wonder where it had gone.

jasonbone75 · March 18

If you want to keep it then keep it. If you don't then move it on. You don't owe anybody else "a guitar to enjoy" it is yours to do with as you wish. If that means hang it on the wall, never play it and occasionally reminisce about it being your first guitar then that is what you do with it. You are definitely teetering on the edge of the over complicating precipice

munckee · March 18

jasonbone75 said:

If you want to keep it then keep it. If you don't then move it on. You don't owe anybody else "a guitar to enjoy" it is yours to do with as you wish. If that means hang it on the wall, never play it and occasionally reminisce about it being your first guitar then that is what you do with it. You are definitely teetering on the edge of the over complicating precipice

I don’t get too attached to any of them as I like changing guitars and have limited space, money and more importantly credit with the boss to just keep accumulating them. I’ve sold loads that I really liked, there’s always more!

LionAquaLooper · March 18

Doesn't sound like you hate that strat. so keep it. More often than not people regret selling/giving away gear that they did not even hate.

SquireJapan · March 18

I denounced strats many years ago with the only obvious path being Ibanez RG guitars.

Many years later I really like having a Strat as a bit of a pallet cleanser (after being tele heavy of RG heavy for a while, it’s nice to pick up something fresh).

Oddly enough I have eBay alerts setup in case the Strat like the one I had (the first proper guitar I owned) turns up.

Not because it was some wonderous instrument from the gods, rather it would be a fun bit of nostalgia.

Make all that for what it’s worth.

stickyfiddle · March 18

Put different pickups and heavier strings on it? Sounds like that would solve the problem!

TimmyO · March 18

"...because I want to..." is a perfectly good reason to do a thing.

Sounds like you want to keep it - you don't need to justify it to anyone. I think it's cool (fwiw) that you have it

TTony · March 18

Keep it.

I've still got my first "proper" guitar that I bought 40-something years ago. It lives in its case, rarely gets played, but it has all the sentimental value in it so it's been kept through all those years.

fretmeister · March 18

My first was a Hohner Arbor MXJ. A great started instrument but also wasn't worth hanging onto.

My second was a Marlin! It was awful. But I played them both for years.

Then I got a summer job and saved it all and bought a Gibson Explorer back at the time you couldn't give them away. It was (IIRC) £450 back in 1989, and the little music shop let me pay off a bit every week.

That guitar I really miss and I wish I still had it.

crunchman · March 18

Put a baseplate on the bridge pickup, and add a switching option to get neck and bridge pickups together. Might make it a bit closer to Tele sounds.

Paul_C · March 18

Sell and get a nice Telecaster.

rze99 · March 18

In 1984 I bought a guitar with money from my Grandad's will. Not just sentiment that I still have it (and I'll never sell) it happens to be fab Gibson Les Paul Custom!

DrJazzTap · March 18

I have two guitars which are purely kept for sentimental reasons. One is a gibson sg which I've had twenty five years now (christ). It's had a refret and was my first relatively expensive electric.
The second is a yamaha apx4a which I've sanded the finish off of. My father bought that for me so it's something I'll always have.

I'd say keep the strat, I hugely regret selling my jap squier strat which was my first electric.

UnclePsychosis · March 18

I've sold at least four guitars that had "sentimental attachment" and there's only one of them I'd have back. Even then I'm not that bothered to be honest.

The guys above are correct that you don't owe it to anyone else to keep it, but equally I don't think you should feel obliged to keep it either - forums are really bad for enforcing this whole nostalgia thing. See also year of birth guitars.

Esoterick · March 18

I donated my first guitar to a school, ended up somewhere that didn't have any electric guitars in their music department. That said it was really easy for me to arrange as my teacher works in schools and I just had to drop it off with him.

guitars4you · March 18

I’d keep it - for nostalgia- I still have the guitar I acquired for my eighteenth - over 40 years ago

munckee · March 18

My first guitar was an encore acoustic which I fell on while trying to take my jeans off while drunk and destroyed, my first electric was a pointy black thing a mate of my brothers (who I've never met) gave him. The first electric I bought was an epiphone les paul special which taught me I don't like les pauls.

Not a lot to be sentimental about! : )

Epsilon · March 18

Sold my first tele and regretted it. I was raising cash towards a house deposit, but could have managed without it probably.

Unless you really really need the money keep it, is my advice.

Offset · March 18

I have a guitar I keep for sentimental reasons. I don't play it much but I bought it 8 years ago to mark the end of successful treatment for cancer, so it'll stay to remind me why it's there. In fact I'm going to spend a few quid on it this year to get some aspects of it more to my liking.

OilCityPickups · March 18

The trouble with nostalgia - is that it isn't what it used to be ...

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Keeping a guitar for sentimentality?

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