After many years of buying and collecting gear, and especially the last couple years of intense gear flipping to fund my acquisition addiction, I have decided to downsize. Many separate paths have culminated in this decision, call it maturity, or perhaps insanity. I’ll take either.
Like many guitarists, I started out by collecting as many pedals as I could afford. In the last couple years, I had taken to flipping pedals (buy low sell high) to make a small margin on them in order to fund more purchases. As I built up a larger fund I figured it was better to flip a few expensive pedals instead of many cheap ones, hitting a peak where I had two Klon Centaurs in my possession, each worth almost 2 grand. While I am by no means a profession, I have played long enough to be able to appreciate the quality and tone that allows these legendary pedals to command equally legendary prices.
Also around this time my incredibly awesome wife allowed me to make two purchases within the same year (birthday and Christmas gifts), a Two Rock Studio Pro 35 and a John Mayer Signature Stratocaster. These were both a big step up in quality as well as good investments. The Studio Pro was found locally through EBay at an amazing price, and the John Mayer Strat was picked up just a few weeks after he announced that he was no longer going to work with Fender which would mean the end of his signature series and the prices starting to rise.
So not only did I get the bug for getting better gear instead of just more gear, but also at this point of my life I decided to start simplifying my life and getting rid of clutter that I don’t need anymore. This comes about because I two young daughters who I want to spend my time with and so I don’t have time to spend as much on hobbies anymore. Also I have started getting more serious about my financial future and a design to move across county, likely to a small house, so downsizing is going to happen at some point.
That’s pretty much the roads leading to where I am now, selling off a majority of my gear. Starting with pedals, but eventually many of my amps and guitars as well. The goal is to keep a choice selection of pedals, maybe an amp or two and a guitar or two, but mostly to sell them off to fund two major purchases. The first major purchase is going to be a new amplifier, specifically Two Rock’s flagship, the new Classic Reverb Signature. The other piece of gear I plan to acquire is a vintage Stratocaster. Specifically I will be looking for an early 60’s Pre-CBS strat, preferably refinished with maybe a 5-way switch and refretted to make it more affordable. At this price range (quite possibly into 5-digit land), I am looking for a guitar that speaks to me, must be all original wood, mostly original hardware and all original pickups. A guitar that replaces all my other strats and that I will keep and play for the rest of my life.
Let me know if there is anything you want, otherwise it will mostly all be for sale on Reverb.
The main shipment from Fire Custom Shop in Brazil is finally here, and with it many Carpe Diem pedals. The pedals are up for sale both on Reverb.
