What do you value?

Today, someone reached out to ask me what kind of guitar he should buy. He was thinking either a custom guitar like Nystrum, Veritas, or Elliott, or a high end Les Paul or Duesenberg. I've recommended a lot of Nystrums, that's a guitar that I really love. But this time I decided to make a different recommendation.

I asked, what do you value most? Do you value comfort and playability? Uniqueness and custom one-off'ness? Affordability? Rarity? Vintage appeal?

I know it's a non-answer but I love this way of thinking. Don't let someone like me, or some celebrity guitarist like the Edge tell you what you should buy or play. Buy what you value most. For me, for a time, I wanted a unique guitar dressed 100% to my specs. So I spec'd out a Nystrum.

When I sold everything to pay off my debt, I still needed a guitar, but my values had changed. This time around I wanted something as close to my favorite specs and features as possible, but also affordable as possible.

I made a list of what I value most in a guitar and I found a guitar that best fit the items on that list. Under $2,000. Flat-ish or compound radius. No tremolo or blocked bridge. Bright, hot single coil pickups. Nitro finish so that the guitar ages beautifully. I chose the Fender Eric Johnson Strat and I adore it—it has everything I need, everything I could ever want.

What do you value? Is it looking like Jeffrey Kunde? Is it reliability night after night after night? Is it one-man-shop ultra craftsmanship? (I can tell you I think a lot of that is overrated, I'm not getting on a 6 month waiting list because the guy whittles his own brass saddles out of old seatbelt buckles or something stupid).

Ask yourself what you value most before clicking Buy on that next Reverb.com come up.