I love old guitars. They have more soul than new ones even though the news ones are often made to more critical specifications. It's kind of like all the notes and chords and vibrations and harmonics that were ever inside them still live
in the wood. You can pick one up and tell if there are more songs and stories that still haven't been discovered.
I scour Craigslist and eBay and Facebook Marketplace and other trading sites looking for old stuff: musical things, recording things, books, guns, fishing things, certain furniture and furnishings and other strange items. I have old stuff everywhere.
I sit for hours at auctions and never bid for anything waiting for the gem that no one else knows is a gem or, at least, wants more than me. I sit in my old jeans, old tee shirts and old boots and watch other people buy old things that don't really appeal to me but I know they like them for the same reasons.
Old things carry the stories of all the hands that have carried and used them. They are worn and smooth and broken in and that very fact tells you what you want to know. It tells you that the thing was good and useful and worked so well it got used over and over and saved and taken care of and guarded. When the other things of our lives get broken and tossed and given away and sold and replaced and stuck away in places that don't matter old things were out being used. They may be cracked and taped and glued and scarred but they still work and, more importantly, they survive because someone sees their value.
I hope I am that kind of old man.
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