Biggest "I should've bought that" regret?

guitarfishbay

Should've bought a Jazz bass 10 years ago. Got one now though

tone1

Loads of stuff! I'm a nightmare for 'I'll have a little think' and missing something.
One that springs to mind was a Olympic White Custom Shop Strat with tortishell guard, rosewood board on here in Classifieds which went for about £1200. It was on for ages as well 

Blueingreen

Couple of years ago guy on Ebay was selling a Tom Anderson Short Strat with jumbo frets.  Perfect specs for me.  It was brand new to all intents and purposes:  it had been ordered direct from the US and for some reason he had decided to sell it before it even arrived.  He lived about a hundred miles or so from me and I asked if I could come and see it.  He said no, that didn't suit him, just bid if I fancied the guitar.

I just ended up being too suspicious.  Why was he selling a guitar he'd ordered specially at a big loss before he even got it?  Why didn't he want me to see it when another bidder might push up the price he got for it?

So I didn't bid, and it went for iirc around £1,200.

Now maybe - just maybe - I dodged a bullet.  But part of my thinking was, another one will come along - and it never has.  And buyers are pretty well protected with Ebay and Paypal.  So I could almost certainly have got something close to my dream guitar at a great price.  And I'm still looking for something similar 2 or 3 years later.

TimmyO

Easy : Clearance deal on a returned (as new) Gibson CS-336 in figured Cherry - Aire Guitars (remember them?) wanted £600.
I dithered for 24h and it was gone. 

lasermonkey

Oh, and the almost-mint CE-2 which was in the Huntingdon Crack Converters for twenty quid.
 "But I already have a chorus."
 Twat!

blueskunk

Q of Nepalese from my old hippy mate

hassleham

My biggest regret.. Around 2 years ago I let this 48th street custom sell for £400 on eBay. I was going to put in a bid myself but at the time I wasn't aware of exactly what it was/how rare it was, and I didn't have the money.
3 weeks later it came up on eBay.com for $2000, and now it's sat on reverb.com for $2500 

stuagu

I had chance to buy the great billy duffys gold top about 10 years or so ago... The chance came and went while i was raising funds.... As a massive cult fan its always rankled a bit . 

JayGee

More recently I dithered over a bargain Lzzy Hale Explorer for a little too long recently and as a result had to console myself with a plain black one... :-)

Voxman

40 years ago when I was buying my first Strat, I borrowed £200 from the bank and bought my 1969 Hardtail Strat for £187.50.  But I had the chance of buying a Sunburst, maple neck 1959 Strat for £250 in original case  - it was in well-used and pretty battered condition, and missing the rear cover, whereas the '69 I saw looked much nicer, and (in those days) the extra £50 was quite a bit esp when you have no money.  I knew next to nothing about guitars and passed on the '59 - if I only knew then what I know now I'd have borrowed the extra £50. 

Rave

Around 8 or 9 years ago I had the chance to buy one of Prince's Yellow Cloud guitars for $7k. Same guitar sold this year for $137k....

Ooops.

57Deluxe

A met Bronze Fender American Tele B stock from D247... I didn't really like the colour but it kept coming down in price in the Monday eve -15% reductions and got down to £230 - but I opted to wait for one more week and a further 15% reduction and someone else decided they finally liked the colour enough...

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-YmUbO6P9oE/maxresdefault.jpg

pintspiller

I remember seeing a Melody Maker in a pawnshop in Edinburgh a number of years ago. I knew not to buy it as I would have taken out a chisel and tried to replace the pups with something not-spec

bloodandtears

Circa 1991, spectre sounds in bingley, I was loaded up with student loan goodness and bought a white ibanez jem 555 which I still have....but I'm pretty sure they had a PMC 777 next to it... It was a thing of beauty.. I should have stretched myself.

I have had one since, and sold it for family coffers replenishment. Whilst I loved the one I had, I would have had more time to appreciate it as a student I reckon.

markv

About 15 years ago I had a couple of hours to kill in West Bridgford while waiting for my girlfriend to get her hair cut or something. As luck would have it there was a small music shop there. I wasn't in the market for anything and didn't have any money anyway, but it was something to do.

The shop was deserted - on a Saturday afternoon! - and the very nice owner set me up with a Blade Delta Pro (a what?) through a Traynor amp (some no-name brand, right?) and left me to it.

It sounded just fantastic. Never really got it again.

dogload

Two in particular spring to mind.
The first is the other Fender Electric XII that the shop had in when I bought mine, which was 50 quid more because it was in better nick and finished in Olympic White (with matching headstock). I wish I could have afforded both but hey! There you go.

The other is the Ibanez copy of a Dan Armstrong Plexi that was hanging in a shop in Leeds for not very much money (about 300 quid IIRC). It was lovely. I didn't buy it because at the time I was looking for an electric 12-string (ended up getting the Fender) and couldn't risk spending on something else. Arse biscuits!

Halikus

Mine is a Blackmachine B2 back when Doug was still taking orders,  I had stumbled across them and decided I'm getting that when my inheritance comes through.  6 months later had the money, couldn't remember the name blackmachine... ended up getting a PRS.

andyoz

stuagu said:

I had chance to buy the great billy duffys gold top about 10 years or so ago... The chance came and went while i was raising funds.... As a massive cult fan its always rankled a bit . 

Love that one!

freakboy1610

I tried a black Fender Flame (or it might have been an Esprit) at my local guitar shop in Chatham. It was around 1985 I think and they had been discontinued so they were being knocked out for about £175. I had seen Stuart Adamson playing one on TV and I really liked it. I could probably have afforded it but by the time I got the cash together they were all gone.

tbm

The only one that sticks out is a late 60s Hagstrom Viking like Elvis played in the Comeback Special which was going for CAN$650 in a shop in Toronto in 2005. My friend had a similar era one, so I knew it was a fantastic guitar. Great neck and pups. Still not sure why I didn't get it. It wouldn't be a worth a whole lot now, but I still play my friends from time to time and wish I'd bought one when I had the chance. The reissues are different guitar entirely.