By the way, to be clear: I didn’t pay *close *to $10K for any of the guitars I have mentioned upthread. I am an inveterate haggler, and worked out trades and such. My biggest source of funds was that I used to collect first edition books and was very fortunate that some went way up in value. When you can get a first of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (first in book form in 1902’s Youth) for a few hundred bucks and sell it 3-4 years later for $4,000 (I still can’t believe it - and I sold it to a dealer!), you build up a guitar fund.