i've heard about this phenomenon with second hand PRS. Any dings and buyers just don't want to know, and them being hard to shift. This one I have here feels like a workhorse. I wouldn't have any issues gigging it at all.
Some people are just picky!
...PRS definitely have a reputation with most people of being guitars you look at and play at home and keep in mint condition.
I think there is a real culture amongst certain PRS people to play expensive Pokemon with PRS guitars.
I recently joined another forum as I was interested in learning about PRSs having acquired a second hand DGT (to play I might add, it's not on the wall). I was actually a bit shocked about the number of people who seem, so far as I can tell, to treat the guitars like kids do football stickers, i.e. to show them off and trade them for other PRSs. I'm not saying they're wrong to do it, who am I to judge, but it's an attitude that I wasn't expecting about something that's effectively supposed to be a tool, albeit a pretty one.
I also think PRS play to this crowd with their multiple limited runs of certain models and their continual reinvention of the line. I have no problem with that, I'm sure each revision results in a better instrument, but all the limited edition models definitely seem to feed the "gotta catch 'em all" mentality of some PRS aficionados. If you're interested in collecting PRSs for the sake of collecting them, rather than what they can do for you as a player, then I also understand why you wouldn't touch a dented one with a barge pole, it's all about the object and its worth to others, not its functionality. But they seem happy so where's the harm?
^ this 100% it's the lawyer/dentist brigade, the same people that buy the limited run gibsons and put 60's fender Strats in glass cases on walls...
I play my PRS, just because i don't want to take it out and ding it (it already has a little bit of buckle rash from when i pulled it out drunk one night) doesn't mean it doesn't get played extensively. But i'll stand up and say that i hate this "investment" attitude. Yes it's their money, let em do what they want, especially with PRS's and Gibbos that were designed to take their money off them, but when they start doing it with old guitars that were awesome tools, designed to be used then my attitude becomes Indiana Jones'd
some might say i'm jealous because i can't afford em. nope, i have one of the better paying jobs in the offshore industry, so i can. But i played guitar as a kid when my family didn't have much money, and i learned to really appreciate what i had. Still have my first jap squire. I don't want a private stock PRS because for me it's just too ostenatious. The only way i would consider one was if i absolutely couldn't get the spec i wanted, and i would certainly make sure some of the aspects of bling were toned down. I really like that Twinfan takes a guitar like that and plays the shitee out of it. and dings it. and says "ah well, still sounds great". That would make the colour drain from some of the posers faces.
This exists in most hobbys though, i've seen it in my other pastime which is straight razor shaving.
The mojo effect exists there too. certain brands are considered holy grail razors and there are 2 communities of people, the guys who buy old razors in antique shops, restore them, trade amongst themselves on the forums for fair prices, and generally try to keep these things in use and in the hands of the people who use them. Then there are the collectors who drive up the price of the "mojo" brands (made of magic steel apparently) to put them in display cases and don't have the first idea how to use them.
I guess that in any of my hobbys i'm physically involved with the function of the thing i'm interested in. I do not get putting something expensive and made for a purpose in a display case and never using it.
Have to say, at least PRS and fender put out workhorse guitars that aren't massively differentiated in terms of image from the higher end guitars. A PRS like Dmoneys, still says PRS on the headstock and is still made to the the same levels of quality as ever other US PRS, and a road worn strat still says "fender stratocaster" on the headstock and doesn't look that much different to the untrained eye from a CS relic. Gibson play a class system way too much, if you don't have the money for a standard or classic, which i think are way over priced these days, they make sure that it's massively differentiated from, say studio, so the corksniffers, when they're out watching a working gigging band "you see? he just has a LP studio, i have the more expensive proper one".
Not wailing on Studios BTW.
Rant over
Still don't want to ding my mine lol
