My sacrifices have involved selling musical equipment. It was mostly musical equipment that I inherited from my father, but never used. No reason for me to have 50 musical items when I make no money playing music, and don't even do it as a hobby as often as I should. So I have been slowly paring down the musical equipment and turning it in to photographic equipment. I have sold a Gibson ES-333, a Gibson Les Paul Studio Deluxe flametop (traded for my initial Sinar kit), a mint condition Fender Rhodes 73 (not inherited; I had had it for nearly two decades), and I am currently selling a Marshall JCM-2000 TSL 122 combo and a Fender Super Reverb reissue to fund my Linhof Technika III.
The ones I am keeping for sure: 1927 Martin 00-28K2 (parlor sized, all koa wood, even the top, five made per year for about 10 years, I've never seen another one), 1968 Gibson SG (standard, two humbuckers, Vibrola, nylon saddles, the fastest-playing and most evil-sounding guitar I have ever played), 1968 Gibson ES-330 with factory metallic cherry paint that ended up fading the most amazing metallic copper color I've ever seen on an instrument, also with nylon saddles, Custom Shop Fender Esquire, tan with birdseye neck, and Custom Shop '58 Fender Stratocaster in sunburst with a birdseye neck. These guitars (plus all of my own) are too sweet and have too much sentimental value to me to ever sell them. Well, the Strat miiiight go some day, but not the Esquire.
Dates don't have to be expensive. In fact, the best parts of the best dates are almost totally free!
