Guitar Collector Forum

Hello, fellow collectors, players, guitar enthusiasts. I stumbled upon this site and thought I'd check it out and get acquainted. I'm a New Jersey-based American guitarist and guitar collector, working musician, music journalist and author. I also buy and sell used and vintage guitars, and have done so for many years. My collection resides at around 24 guitars right now, plus my dad's old Vega tenor banjo, a couple of old manolins, a lap steel, and a great mountain dulcimer. I'm also a drummer, and work in three bands at the moment, playing drums and guitar.

As far as my collection, it's all guitars that have personal meaning for me in some way. I have five Les Pauls, a Sunburst Standard, a Special, a Junior, and two Goldtops-three Gibsons, two Epiphones. I also have an SG Special, a Firebird, a Moderne, two Strats, a Tele, a Jazzmaster, a Rickenbacker 330-12 string, a couple of Danelectros, a few 60's cheesy/cool Japanese electrics, several acoustics, including a '30's Regal wood body resonator, and vintage Guild F-30, a genuine diddley bow, a cigar box guitar, and a few other beaters-fun guitars.

Hi Bob, welcome to the forum, it's good to hear about your collection... I always like eclectic guitar collections, so much more interesting than brand loyalty!

As a gigging musician, do you have one workhorse guitar or do you regularly use many from your collection? I don't play often, but always always use my Strat Plus, sometimes supplemented by the Verythin (which is surprisingly good for songs originally recorded on Les Pauls). What sort of music do you play?

Thanks for your reply. I don't have one workhorse guitar, but I have been favoring the ones that seem to stay in tune the best, such as the Epiphone '56 Goldtop reissue, the Firebird 70's Tribute Studio, and my MIJ Jazzmaster. Some of my guitars stay home. If I gigged multiple nights a week with my band, I could possibly bring different ones nightly, but we we work about twice a month. It's always fun to choose which ones to take out. I generally bring 4-5 guitars, including a Les Paul, a Fender, the Rick 12-string, maybe the Teisco/Kingston for slide, and lately, my MIJ 60's reissue Strat, which is my Open G-tuned guitar, a la Keith Richards. I converted it into a 5-string like Keith, and eliminated the high E, so the top string is the B.

My band plays classic and album rock. We have recently added a girl singer, so we're bringing in some of her material, like Linda Ronstadt, Melissa Etheridge, Miranda Lambert, etc.