|
What is the purpose of this
site? If I wanted to be pretentious, I could describe it as a gallery
of my guitar collection on display to allow global appreciation of such
things, but actually it's more like one of those sad sites where people
put up pictures of their cats, describe how many children they have in
their family and the last time they had their nose hair trimmed.

A bit of boring background - I grew up in
Christchurch, NZ but now live in Wellington. I left NZ in 1990 to get a
bit of OE and try and make some money. I returned 11 years and 20
guitars later having worked in the UK, Ireland, Malaysia, Singapore,
Pakistan, Poland, Sweden, Vietnam and spending reasonable amounts of
time in eastern Europe and the US. In those days I worked as a Retail
Banking Solutions Architect, now I manage the New Technologies Team at
the Department of Corrections.
Since I have started collecting
guitars the one thing I have noticed is the lack of availability.
Supposedly 8-10% of people are left handed but you won't find anything
like that proportion of left handed guitars manufactured. The number of
these guitars I have had to custom order gives a strong indication of
the lack of quality left handed guitars readily available for retail
purchase. Most guitar shops will stock a token left or two - Japanese
strats or copies being the most common. It's not surprising that a
large number of natural left-handers decide to play right handed.
Having said that, most major
guitar manufactures do make some of their models available left-handed
- Gibson, Fender, Gretsch, Rickenbacker, PRS (well, they used to). So
why can't you find them? Retailers not wanting slow moving stock seems
to be the most obvious answer but who wants to wait 6 months to a year
for their guitar to be manufactured? That's enough whining, but if
anyone from Parker is out there, it's about time you came to the party.
I would love to hear from anyone
who has an interest in guitar collecting, left handed guitars or wants
to complain about Swedes. Please note that none of these guitars are
for sale so don't bother sending price enquiries. Enjoy the site. Feedback appreciated.
Thomas B. Perry
March 2006
|