Today, though, I wanted to talk about something I just can't get my head around. I decided to place a few instruments up for sale recently and this always inevitably leads to a minor annoyance in life: weird emails. Yes, that's right, weird emails about what you're trying to sell, in this instance guitars.
The biggest one that completely boggles my mind is the always inevitable "how much does it weigh" question. I mean, place any electric guitar up for sale and I swear you'll get one of these within a matter of days if not hours. "Hey man...how much does it weigh?" T'is a curious question, really. Now, I know guitar weight is a "thing" with guitarists, enough that places like Sweetwater have been listing the weight of each instrument they sell right in the listings, and I can only assume they did that because they probably needed a whole department previously to handle the flood of emails asking "yo...what does it weigh??" I can just imagine someone asking their friend, "What do you do for a living?" "Oh, I answer emails about how much guitars weigh." You can almost picture the facial response so I can clearly understand making the decision to just post the weight up front.
Here's the backstory for those who don't know - along the way, somebody made some comment about how the amount of sustain is directly related to the weight of the guitar. Now, is that true? Hmm... I'm sure there's some grain of truth to it but HOW true is it? That's a different question altogether, and I'd politely argue that the difference in sustain between guitar A weighing 8.14 pounds and guitar B weighing 8.41 pounds is probably, er, not noticeable to the human ear. Just a guess, mind you, but...
Guitarists are just a strange bunch, in my opinion, and yes, I am a guitarist...but I simply don't understand this type of guitarist. I mean, if I like a guitar, I BUY the guitar...I don't immediately ask, "...what's it weigh?" Even weirder, I have never ever in my life ever heard of anyone saying "I really liked that guitar...but if it only weighed .25 pounds more I would have bought it." Seriously, never. So, dare I ask...what's the point in asking?!
I'll also go so far as to say that I've never to date had someone ask me the weight of the guitar and then actually buy it. It's almost like there's a group of people out there with nothing better to do than to respond to various ads asking "what's it weigh, dude??" It's just strange and the receipt of such an email basically goes hand in hand with "this is a waste of my time" since it'll inevitably go nowhere.
Almost weirder, though, but it's arguable, is the other question you'll receive repetitively: "yo dude...interested in trading for (some bizarre instrument)..." A real head scratcher for sure. My answer is always the same, in my head at least - "...sure, I put this item up for sale because I want some random guy emailing me asking if I would trade this item for some bizarre random item I've never had eyes on in my life..." Now, let me think about that...hmmm...er, no? The response: "Are you sure?" "Er, yes...very sure."
It's because of these two email questions that I always hesitate to post items for sale, but alas, when you need to get rid of something, you more or less have no choice. Still, buckle the seatbelt because on average you'll get at least 3-4 of these emails before your item sells. Life is weird; guitarists are even weirder, apparently.