Hey Ya'll,
My wife...who is also a musician herself and is always very loving and understanding in regards to my being a musician and a guitar player...said a very unusual thing this evening. She said, "The first step is admitting you have a problem". This was of course after having realized that I had all my Strats lined up in the living room...







I had just finished an old project Strat I've been working on...it's a body I had refinished earlier this year. Yesterday I had picked up a Korean Squier in exchange for a couple of older pedals I don't use any more...this is of course in addition to a Squier Bullet hardtail that I picked up last week. Anyways, when I got the MIK home and started working on it, alas I found it had a rather cheapo plywood body. I thought about just taking the parts I wanted and then just putting it back together and reselling it as is, but the neck on this thing is actually quite nice...getting a really nice yellow tint to it (it's a '92 MIK according to the serial number), so I went ahead and used the neck and the pickups (very wicked sounding pickups...and very heavy too) on the aforementioned project. Anyways to cut to the chase, I took 3 cheap Strats and built a really nice one out of them!







I also had used the 3 ply pickguard from the Bullet hardtail...hey....saves me another $20! I then put a single ply pickguard on the hardtail and got her re-strung (no more "Bullets on the Bullet", LOL!!!). Hey...she looks sweet, she plays sweet and she sounds sweet...what more can ya ask for?

So once I'm finished with all of this, I go ahead and start lining the Strats up on the mantle in the living room so I can take a picture (she didn't know about the picture) and my wife says that to me. Do you think she was trying to tell me something?


Just wanted to share some pics...enjoy!

Jim


(p.s. I'm hoping to pickup a Japanese made Strat at a guitar show next month....ya think she's gonna kill me?)

She’s right. You do have a problem…

There’s room for a LOT more Strats in that living room.

You need to be filling it up!

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Old age and treachery will win every time over youth and enthusiasm.

"You can never have too many Tele's." A quote from my Sweetwater Sales Engineer

Always buying guitars is like any other addiction. It releases endorphins in the brain. Like cigarettes or alcohol. Many if not all guitar players suffer from this. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It can get out of control if you are not careful.

Wish I had that kind of problem...


Nice looking collection BTW.
Cheers.

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MIM Std Tele, MIM HSS Strat, Homemade Mongrel Tele, Blues Jr, Champ600, coupla pedals...sweeeet!

Don't leave your wife alone with the guitars lined up by a fireplace !!

Very nice picture btw

At least your wife plays so I have to believe she is understanding. I have to have new axes shipped to a friends house then slowly smuggle them home then give her the "What are you talking about you know how long I have that"

At least your wife plays so I have to believe she is understanding. I have to have new axes shipped to a friends house then slowly smuggle them home then give her the "What are you talking about you know how long I have that"

ROFL

Nice pic btw dont think my lounge is quite big enough!

Hello Lomitus,

A Strat for every day of the week, neat.
Great photo of the 7 lined up.
I got a little guitar envy.


Cheers.

My wife used to tell me I had too many guitars.

I sure am going to miss her.

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Fender Stratocaster MIM (5)
Fender Stratocaster, Squier Series MIK
Squier Affinity Strat, purple, modded
Gibson SG Standard, Her. Cherry
Epiphone Inspired by Lennon Casino, Vin. Sunburst
..and several acoustics

dude, i have only been playing for about a year. right now i have one nice acoustic, one nice tele and a lep paul copy. looking to get a new strat aasp and i too am getting the same treatment from the misses. She already knows what GAS is and knows I am a total addict. Not sure what to tell you because I too am suffering from the same symptoms. But hey, you have a very nice collection on your hands there. Good work!

Don't let her get any wild ideas with all that wood lined up in front of the fireplace!

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

You should tell her you're already in a twelve step program. Five more Strats And you're done.

HAHA! Yes! I've done the same thing. "What? That? OH, Ive had that forever."

Fortunately, it's a gas fireplace...and it's disconnected. It's not actually the fireplace I'm worried about anyways...it's the wood burner down in the basement! LOL!!!

Seriously though, I know she'd never do that...she knows how much some of them are worth (even the cheapies) so if the ever got that mad at me about something, she'd sell them before she'd ever burn them.




Yes...for the most part she is quite understanding and she really does put up with a lot of crap from me. That said, even she has her limits...and I have gone a bit "gung ho" in the past year. 2 Squier Standards, 2 Bullets, a Yamaha bass -and- an electronic drum kit (for the studio of course). And this doesn't count the two I've already built and 2 more that are "works in progress" (one Strat and one Tele). It's just that after the last several years and not really having much money at all, I've just gone a little crazy I guess and I'm picking up every little "bargain" I can snag.




Ya know...I think you've probably hit the nail on the head here. While I won't compare it to smokes or booze since there is a chemical addiction there, I would compare it to gambling or even religion in that it's a "physiological" addiction.

As I just said to Straycat, I really have gone a bit over-board this last year and I really do think that part of that was due to being so broke for so long. I see a "bargain" that I can actually afford and before ya know it, I'm walking out of the store with it.

At the risk of sounding a bit "Freudian", I also think that my childhood has a good deal to do with it too. I first started playing guitar when I was only 4. I wanted to learn so my parents bought me my first acoustic, a Gianinni 3/4 size classical...which I still own. They had gotten it from an old local luthier as an unclaimed repair for $25. For years I kept getting the ol' "if you keep your grades up, maybe you'll get one for your birthday (or Xmas or Easter). Right from the beginning though, I wanted an electric. I wanted to play the kind of music my older brother listened to at the time...stuff like The Beach Boys, Elvis, The Beatles, etc.. Of course they sent me out for lessons and the teacher had me working with the old Sam Fox Modern Guitar Methods (pre-Mel Bay but same thing). Let's face it here...even for a kid, you can only play "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Little Brown Jug" just so many times before your freakin' head explodes! Very simply they didn't want me to play the kind of music that -I- liked, they wanted me to learn music that they liked. Between that, and refusing to get me the guitar I wanted (and I really would have been quite happy with ANY electric at that time) and...well...being "a kid", after a few years I lost interest completely. Looking back in hind site, I'm surprised I stuck with it as long as I did.

It wasn't until I was 17 and had my first job that I started playing again. I realized that I didn't have to rely on my parents and more...so screw 'em. The first electric I bought was a really cheap Kay...one of the few guitars I've ever turned around and sold. Even though it was new, it really was a serious pos. The second one though was a decent (for the price) Memphis LP copy...which I also still own. I guess the point here is that part of it is that I really guess I feel like I was deprived as a kid.

I think this is also why I get a bit bent out of shape when someone will say something like "I'm thinking of getting a new guitar...what should I buy" and inevitably some yo-yo with money dripping out their butt will say "buy an American Strat"...they don't understand what it's like to be on a tight budget. It certainly drives me nuts when I see folks who've never even played a Squier crack on them...."oh...if it's Chinese, it must be junk". They don't appreciate "guitars", they appreciate "money".

Am I obsessive/compulsive? Yea. Can't really defend that. Here I'll simply take the Freudian way out and just blame it on my folks. Either way though, I do get something of a thrill when I look at all my "toys" such as in the picture I posted (and by the way...for those interested, those 7 Strats are less than 1/3 of all the guitars I own ). I dunno...maybe it's some sort of mis-placed sense of accomplishment. Maybe it's just that every time I walk down in the studio, in my head I hear that one little line from Pink Floyd's "The Wall"..."are all of those your guitars?" LOL!!!!! Maybe it's also that living here in the states, it's the only way I can legally have a haram! That said, knowing you have a problem....and knowing what to do about it are two completely different things aren't they?

The wife is certainly understanding...and I'm grateful beyond belief for it. I'm going to a guitar show next month and I'm going to take a few guitars as well as some other stuff I don't use with me...maybe sell it or at least trade it for some stuff I will use. Guess it's time to start "culling the heard" as it were.




If I -really- thought that would work.... Unfortunately, if I were stupid enough to say that, I'd probably end up with my nuts shoved down my throat!


Anyways, thank you all for the kind words! I'm glad ya'll enjoyed the pics.

Peace,
Jim

That's another thing...not that I'd lie to my wife but either way the truth is with her being a musician herself, she -knows- all of my instruments. It's not like with some people where "oh...it's a guitar". In fact she's been with me when I bought most of them and she's certainly been around with the guitars that I've refinished and/or built. In addition to being a great singer, she also plays bass, flute, hand percussion, etc.. While she doesn't actually play guitar, she's lived with me long enough that she does know the difference between say a Strat and a Les Paul and even a Squier and a Fender. She certainly knows the difference between a cheap instrument and a decent one and beyond that, at the very least she knows there's "the blue one with the black pickguard", "the cherry burst finish", "the brown sunburst I did earlier this year" and so on. I think the only way I could get away with something like that is if I bought something virtually identical to one I already owned...and then kept the spare hidden all the time, which sort of defeats the point.

Seriously...if I tried to sneak something in the house, the first time she was in the studio for practice (or even doing laundry for that matter) I'd hear the "Where did -that- come from?"...and if I told her anything other than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, my butt...and all the guitars would be out on the curb. Being married to another musician has it's advantages to be sure...but it does have a few disadvantages as well.

Peace,
Jim