Whoa......It's been bugging me this year that I need to start gathering up all the pieces that compose my musical instrument disease. I have receipts going back to 1975! Amongst the musical instruments I found receipts for Amps, cabs, recording gear & PA. This is going to take a while.
Musical Instruments (mostly Bass) I finally now have a list of them....Believe it or not, I've never had them all out of cases at the same time. The Obscene tally is 45! The next thing I noticed is how I got so many of them on the cheap! I must have waited for Sales and friends & family discounts.
So far, the most information I have gathered are from Alembic & Rickenbacker. Excellent online information. The low serial numbers for Stick Enterprises pretty much says it all. My Rob Allen fretless 5 just has #251. Mike Lull M5V is #776.
When I get it more together I was thinking of going to Heritage Insurance to buy a policy. Any pros / cons appreciated. Other Insurers welcome from the collective.
Another thing is.....this list made me feel OLD! ;D
I really need to do this properly, and it fills me with dread. I don't have receipts for the vast majority of my collection, because most got wiped out a few years ago with water damage.
I should be happy that it was the paperwork and not the instruments, none of which saw a drop of water.
I've had good experiences with Heritage.
A couple of times I travelled with an acoustic guitar and prearranged to have Heritage on telephone standby so I could let them know if the guitar wound up underneath, and I would buy the extra insurance, or the guitar made it on board with me and the extra insurance wasn't necessary.
I had one claim when a guitar got water damage from a broken pipe. Heritage quickly paid in full and didn't give me any grief about the valuation.
Bill, tgo
Nothing negative to say about Heritage. My policy was issued through The Hartford. It wasn't cost-effective for me to keep it up after retirement and the subsequent downsizing. At one point my inventory sheet was well over 100 lines. Obviously I didn't have insurance coverage on all those... I drew a line at a specific value and covered only guitars/items above that.
Prepare an Excel spreadsheet with the model and serial numbers, your replacement values and distinguishing information. They like that. They suggested to me to keep a photo record as well.
I've had great experience with Heritage. The way they took care of me when my pedal board and case got stolen in Milwaukee got me hooked.
And as far as lists - I just recently made a list of every bass I've ever owned, along with as much info I had (serial numbers, weight, etc.). It was quite fun! I did 3-4 updates as I remembered things from the past, but I think I got them all now. Going back to 1977, I came up with 40 bass guitars. I currently own 15 of them. :D