Guitars

Player, Not Collector: What I Kept When I Sold Most of My Gear

By Mike · Published October 17, 2026

We scaled down our living space this year, and a lot of gear had to go. I have said for years that I am a player more than a collector. Having to sell most of it turned that from a slogan into a test.

The honest reason is in my own listing: I can only play so much at one time. I have always bought gear to play, not to hang on a wall, which also makes it easier to sell. A guitar with normal playwear and a few dings can be described honestly in two sentences.

What went

The sold list is long. On the guitar side it includes the Reverend Pete Anderson Eastsider T, the 1986 Japanese-made FujiGen Telecaster, a 2006 Japanese-made Epiphone Les Paul Special and an ESP LTD George Lynch GL-256. The amps include the East Amplification Studio 2, a handwired ’65 Deluxe Reverb with its extra 1x12, and a Swart STR Space Tone Reverb. On the digital side, a Fractal FX-8 and FM-3 and a Kemper Profiler Player went. Add a pile of pedals, including two from Pigtronix, a Strymon power supply, a Diamond Tremolo and a Piedmont Falcon III.

Two of those had full reviews here, the Eastsider T and the Studio 2, and both earned 4.5 stars. Both are gone. A good review is not a reason to keep something.

What stayed

The short version, in the words of my listing: I have others I prefer slightly more, generally Japanese Telecasters, my Kemper Profiler Stage, and some modded Buddas.

The Japanese Telecaster preference is the thesis behind Why Japanese Telecasters Keep Winning. The Stage was already one of the pieces I explicitly chose to keep the last time I thinned things out, and the reasoning is in Why My Live Rig Is a Kemper. The Buddas are covered in the Superdrive review, and a few Superdrive-family amps are still here, though the V20 is listed for sale.

The pattern I did not plan

When I updated my rack page in August, I was honest about the pieces I did not have a real opinion on yet. The Epiphone Les Paul Special and the ESP were ones I said I had not put the hours into. I had no verdict on the Swart, the Mesa Mini Rectifier or the Baby Budda. I called the two Fractals newer additions I was still working through, and I kept the folding Ciari guitar around out of curiosity.

That is eight pieces. Seven of them are now sold or listed: the Epiphone, the ESP, the Swart and both Fractals are on my sold list, and the Mini Rectifier and the Baby Budda are for sale. Only the folding guitar is not on either list. That is my reading of my own list, not a rule I set out to follow, but it suggests that if I have owned something for a while and still have no opinion about it, I probably do not need it.

It is not the whole story. Gear I had strong opinions on went too, and the Gibson ES-335 with P-90s that I reviewed at 4.5 stars is also listed, as the review has said since July. Space does not care about ratings.

What I would ask before selling anything

If you are facing the same squeeze, here are the questions I would ask. This is general advice, not a record of how I made each call. When did you last reach for it? Do you own something else that does the same job? Could you buy it again at a similar price if you missed it? A piece you cannot answer any of those about is the first candidate.

I wrote up how I sell, and why I do it locally while buying online, in Why I Buy Gear on Reverb and Sell It on Craigslist. The rack page now carries a note about what has changed since August.