[Steve DeRosa]

I recall reading an article in one of the guit-mags back in the mid/late-70's that asked some top players what instruments a serious all-around guitarist needs as a bare minimum - aside from triggering my lifetime case of GAS, the consensus list looked something like this:

• Large-body flattop steel-string (dread, MJ, slope D, jumbo)
• Small-body flattop steel-string (00/000/OM)
• 12-string dread/MJ/jumbo
• Nylon-string classical or flamenco
• Acoustic archtop w/suspended pickup[s] (Gibson Johnny Smith, Guild Artist Award, etc.)
• Semi-hollow/thinline electric (ES-335/345/355, Guild Starfire, Gretsch 6120, etc.)
• Strat/Tele or similar solidbody with Fender-style single coils
• LP/SG or similar solidbody with humbuckers
• "Niche sound" electric (Danelectro, Rickenbacker, Harmony, Kay, early MIJ, etc.)
• Solidbody bass guitar (P/J-Bass, Gibson EB-0/EB-3, etc.)
• Two "specialty" instruments (resonator, banjo, mandolin, bouzouki, electric 12-string, 6-string "tic-tac" bass, etc.)

Works out to an even dozen - and I think it's safe to say that most of us who are in this game for the long haul had/have all the above represented in our collection...