Let's talk about that single guitar or bass that means the most to you, the treasured one, the one that you wouldn't borrow to anybody not even if they offered you a thousand bucks.
In my case that honor goes to The Veteran which is a 1989 Squier Stratocaster in Lipstick red.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/My%20musical%20instruments/Veteranrestored.jpg I bought this guitar new on my fifteenth' birthday back in 1991 to replace a cheap Telecaster copy with an Yngwie Malmsteen approved scalloped neck, the damn thing just wouldn't stay in tune. I knew I wanted a strat and I had saved up enough money to buy myself a Squier, the shop from which I bought it carried Squiers in Black and in white, only one example came in red and I bought it. This particullar shade of Red was apparently a rare color for squier because I haven't seen another one since. The Squier became my main guitar as I started gigging with it almost the day after I got it.
Later as I entered my final teen years and passed the 20 mark in age I began to experiment with the guitar, it became all covered up in stickers and I eventually began replacing the stock single coils for something more powerful, putting in several Humbuckers in the bridge position before settling on a Dimarzio DLX soapbar pickup, leaving the empty holes where the neck and middle pickup sat vacant. And I replaced the original neck (I never really liked the profile of that neck anyway) with a Telecaster neck and to keep the sweetheart in tune I installed a Kahler vibrato. In that guise The Veteran survived for many years.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/Ikmetgitaar.jpg Here I am playing The Veteran live. December 2004
Last year I decided to clean The Veteran up, I removed all the stickers, replaced the pickguard and put the neck and middle pickups back in.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/TheVeteran.jpg But wear and tear began to rear their ugly heads and it became apparent that the old faithful was ready to retire. So I brought her back to strat hood by installing a 1985 Squier Strat neck, replacing the Dimarzio with a single coil and wiring it all up like a Strat is supposed to be wired. I did keep the Kahler vibrato, loving the smooth way it worked and the way it kept my guitar in tune.
So as a tribute, I made a matching copy of The Veteran using the Dimarzio and a similar Kahler bridge. A playable snapshot of The Veteran as it looked with the tele neck. I routed the body myself it became a real labour of love, the resulting guitar got the nickname The Rookie
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/My%20musical%20instruments/P1010098.jpg But The Rookie didn't replace The Veteran as my main guitar as I intended it to do, my red Epiphone Les Paul did that.
Just today, I came home and I noticed that The veteran was missing from the stand, suspecting my younger brother (Who also is my next door neighbour) who owns a key to my appartment, knew more of it, I decided to check things out ant his place, and sure enough, there it was. Before I walked out with The Veteran I told him:
Look, if you want to borrow a guitar please ask me first and second, you can borrow any guitar you want from me EXCEPT the red one, NOBODY but me touches that guitar, understood?
