Official Luthiers Forum!

Too many, although not nearly enough.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Since I don't play guitar, does that make the answer "more than I need?"

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

I have only completed a few guitars (2 more almost done), and have them. However, I do have a number of guitars from playing for 30+ years:

- 1920 Oscar Schmidt Stella Grand Concert
- 1925 Joseph Nettuno Grand Concert
- 1930 Maybell
- 1985 Franklin OM
- 1988 Franklin Jumbo Prairie State
- 1990's 3 pick-up Tele I built
- early 2000's Blueridge OM (all solid woods, picked up for travel)
- L-00 I made
- Jumbo Prairie State I made

The 2 I am almost done with head out the door as gifts.

Glenn

Thanks for the replies everyone. I suspected most would be collectors, so I think I can still accumlate a few more and still be on the left side of the curve. Todd, I was surprised you only own one (guess that makes you a real outlier), and Phil according to Peter's flow chart not playing a guitar is not a criterion. Peter, thanks for the flow chart; it's now posted on my wall.

I can't count that high. I only have 2 of my own and too many Martins and Gibsons. Electric and acoutic

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

don´t know if i qualify as a luthier, but this is always fun:

- a cedar/eirw classical from a spanish factory
- a spruce/eirw classical by myself
- an half body spruce eirw classical by myself
- an ibanez sort of archtop thing
- a spruce/laminated maple oval hole selmer/gypsy jazz guitar (good for rhythm)
- a spruce/solid honduran hog oval hole selmer/gypsy jazz guitar (better suited for soloing)
- a piano (it´s a strange kind of guitar with keys for each note and a black satin finish. spoiler: it lacks a fingerboard!)

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I'm not a luthier, but I've done a few repairs:

Les Paul Studio and an old CBS Masterworks dread - broken headstock repairs

Takamine - no headstock

No name archtop - brace repair

Classical guitar, Lys 12 string ( Cnd. made ) and an eBay buy waiting for a new neck

3/4 size that I got for Christmas when I was eight.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Just think of the money that could be made if we all had one big garage sale...

Me? I don't know how many I have owned in my life, I would put the number at well over 200, good, bad and ugly....

Currently I give shelter to:

1964 Gibson LG-0 (my favorite go-to guitar)
1971 Gibson J-40
1997 Martin EMP-1 (limited edition #161 of 600)
1972 Martin D18
1969 Giannini 12 string (Brazilian made with some stunning wood)
Yamaha FG130 (my take it outside and beat around)
1972 Harmony Sovereign
Art & Luthier AMI parlor Cherry back, sides and neck with Cedar top (by Godin)
Fender Strat
Fender Tele
Gibson SG
1965 Crestwood (strat copy) (my first electric guitar bought new)

Also have a few old carcasses laying around waiting to be resurrected.

That is this year, ask me again next year and I will have a new list. All of the above except a few can be bought or traded...

Cheers,
Bob

All mine are on loan to me from my wife...

That's a great answer Haans

What are you giving her next?

A Stahl "presentation" guitar.

Haans, Tim's right. Why didn't I think of that?
Of course, that means she'll be buying you a lot of shoes with accessories to match. How do you look in red pumps?
That guitar looks great by the way - more pictures when you get it finished.

These pictures are from Link, who asked about my Ibanez. Cheap….yes, but sounds really great, and so easy to play.

Beautiful, Haans. I will show my ignorance by asking what a preservation guitar is, unless I missed an explanation earlier in the thread.

Hi Beth, thank you for the kind words!

That's a "presentation guitar"...
Larson's sometimes pulled out the stops and would build guitars with the highest quality inlays and rosettes. They were most always BRW too, and this one has some of the darkest BRW I've ever seen.



I see you are in Tucson. My wife is leaving tomorrow for Tucson to visit a friend and look at a few houses with a realtor or two...
What's the music scene like in Tucson? She's an excellent country (very old time) singer. Any good instrument stores there?

PM sent

Haans we/ve been checking out that area. If your looking just outside tucson there is a town called green valley at 3k elevation with cooler summers and winters.

True, but there's a lot more going on musically in Tucson and Green Valley is lots closer to the border....some issues with that. Ernie, come to Tucson instead. You can go up Mt Lemmon to get cool

Tis true . I used to hit the ham radio repeater on mt,lemmon from glendale az. Right now we are checking out hill country near austin tx, or down towards tucson. We are looking to visit in march. Are you using a swamp cooler for cooling ? , .What do you need to get rh above 40% thanks. sorry to go off topic.

PM sent

Yea, Maureen has been looking at GV too. Problem is that I have COPD and don't know how my breathing would be at higher altitudes.
Really don't know if we will move, but she is sick of winters, and the snow is up to our noses right now...would miss trees and water though.

Let's see...

My first kit guitar build, which someday I'm going to carve the baseball bat neck down to proportions useful to human hands, and perform BRS (Brace Reduction Surgery) on.

An SJ that I built and is my stage acoustic

A Koa and Red Spruce GA-ish cutaway that I built

My old Ovation Legend (narrowest nut width ever)

Martin 000 with laminate B&S (sounds and plays fantastic) -- my campfire axe

Martin Backpacker (barely counts as a guitar)

Fender American Standard Strat (my main gigging axe, totally stock, the perfect guitar)

G&L Will Ray Signature with B-Bender

Gretsch Corvette with Bigsby trem

Aria Pro II pe-r60 from Matsumoku -- great guitar

Oscar Schmidt 335 copy

Ibanez Expressionist bass

Kentucky A5 mando

Ode banjo

That's all I can think of. Wow, I've got a lot of cheap guitars!

That's ok though, since via repair work I always have cool guitars coming though. Right now I have a Ryan Cathedral, a Hiro Ebata cutaway, a Bruce Petros, an Eastman lefty archtop, an Ibanez George Benson, a '78 Franklin OM (awesome guitar), a Michael Keller cutaway, and a Lehtela archtop either in progress or on deck.

Oh, and re: Tucson, great town. I lived there for ten years. If we could've afforded a home in the foothills, we'd probably still be there. However, we love our life here in WNC.


Ken Jones
Mountain Song Guitars

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Hey Chris, I don't know about anyone else, but I had to give up my GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome) when I got WAS and started making my own. Too many tools and too much wood to buy :/

Too Right, Beth. I had about 25 in my "collection." Then I started building. Now, I have a tele, and an old Ibanez 2469 that I restored, two of my acoustics(OM and Dread) and an electric(Tele thinline style) I just finished.

No room for more, though I wil build myself an acoustic 12-string soon, I think, but a parlour first, or a, but it could be a, oh, it'll be what it turns out to be.....

American Standard Strat
some $75 plywood Strat - used for pickup wiring experiments
Larrivee L-9
Larrivee Parlor
Guild Jumbo 12 -can't remember model - the one with the laminated maple back - F512?
Kentucky A mandolin
Lone Star Requinto
A Tele of my own with EMG pickups and a power bridge
A Tele of my own that is way too complicated - 3 DiMarzio pickups and every switching/splitting combination possible, plus a PUTW acoustic pickup
A Reyes flamenco copy of my own
A Barbero flamenco copy of my own
A Supro lap steel copy of my own.
Everything else I've built is off somewhere in the world.

and I don't play anything anymore

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu