I will not create and entry for every guitar, bass, or drum kit that I have had over the past five years. That would be a way too depressing endeavor. I will only be moving instruments here that I have sold or traded since May of 2025.

Epiphone Les Paul Modern Figured (2021) in Caffe Latte Fade

A surprisingly excellent impulse buy, I was not in the market for a Les Paul. I never considered myself a “Les Paul Guy”. In the past, I have had two of them. The first one, over twenty years ago. It was an Epiphone Les Paul Standard in Ebony. It was a great guitar that I never used. My second was an Ultra Pro that I picked up in December of 2024 for a really good price.

The Ultra Pro needed to be cleaned up, have some bits and bobs added but overall it was a very nice guitar, just not my style.

Then for some bizarre reason that I still have not figured out, I got an itch. So, I started looking online for a reasonably priced Les Paul.

I found this particular one on American Musical Supply (AMS). It was listed as a “Minor Blemish” product and priced way below retail ($799) for only $447. Well, that destroyed any resolve that I had left.

Epiphone has been absolutely crushing it in terms of build quality, finish, and sound.

Photographs do not do this guitar justice. The Caffe Latte Fade finish is gorgeous, the Ebony fretboard is vastly superior to that miserable Pau Ferro that plagues a lot of guitars, and the quality of the build is perfect.

Initially, I left off the black three-ply pickguard. However, the more I looked at it, the mroe I thought it looked incomplete. So I installed the guard that was included. I think it looks much better this way.

I have traded the LP for a 2019 Epiphone Swingster Royale in Pearl White.

Ibanez Artcore AGB140-TBR (2006) in Transparent Brown

I bought this bass on a whim. I was looking for a semi-hollow bass and (as much as I dig them) did not want to pay $800 for the Epiphone Jack Casady so when it came up in the Facebook Marketplace, I decided to check it out and it came home with me.

In the past, I tried an Epi Viola bass but found the tight string spacing terribly uncomfortable and too awkward to play. The string spacing on this Ibanez is much better but the longer scale (34″) and the neck position relative to the body takes some getting used to.

This AGB140 was an odd duck of a bass. First, it had a single-cut body which I love and you just don’t see many semi-hollow single-cuts. It was also (I’m guessing, anyway) moderately rare. I am basing that opinion on the fact that you can’t find many offered for sale online. Check out Reverb and see for yourself. Ibanez’s current iterations of the Artcore bass are all short scale models. This is a full-scale 34-inch bass.

One of the previous owners for reasons that will forever remain shrouded in mystery, decided to first super-glue a CLIP-ON tuner to the upper bout of the bass. Then, when that failed miserably, they glued it to the back of the headstock. This was a weird bass that seemed to have garnered weird ownership over its 19-year existence.

For weeks after I bought it, I wasn’t sure about keeping it. I cleaned it up, put new flat wound strings on, and listed it in several online marketplaces. There was next to ZERO interest. I received a single DM asking about a trade for a more modern Ibanez.

I do not know if it was the shape, or the color, or the fact that it only had one pickup, but it seemed to be a bass no one wants.

Subsequently, I decided to keep this strange bass and make it my own. It was a One-Trick Pony, but I really liked the trick!

Not too long after creating this particular entry, a gal from Savannah, Georgia DMed me asking about the condition of the bass. She ended up driving the five hours from Georgia to Port Saint Lucie and bought it.