When most people think of changing the timeline they debate assasinating Hitler, or jailbreaking William Wallace, but let's aim lower here. In your winding journey of buying and selling music and recording gear how many times did you not know any better, or miss a useful opportunity.

Last night my friend and I were talking about how we should have been buying Jazzmasters in the 90's but we were listening to too much Bad Religion or whatever to know that. I also would have bought STA Level compressors.

I also never should have bought all of those dumb mid-shelf mic preamps in the early 00's. I easily could have skipped all of the Focusrite and Presonus junk and hung out with my Mackie until I was ready to get fancy stuff.

1. Save extra hard and buy all the vintage Fenders you can find in the 90s. It seems out of your grasp but its gonna be way more out of your grasp in the near future.

2. You dont need that SVT and its not worth trading the 68 SG Junior for it. The SVT is only gonna give you two hernias, which costs money to fix, dummy.

3. Learn how to build stuff earlier.

4. NEVER SELL A KRAMER XL-8.

You will try really hard to make a '72 Tele Thinline work for you, on two occasions. Even spending Lollar money on upgrading the pickups in the first one. The Lollars are much better pickups than the fake Wide Range pickups, but you'll still find them too murky and grey. You will sink a lot of time and funds into this and you will ultimately sell at a loss.
Those guitars are supposed to have 1M pots like a Jazzmaster. A 1M pot is like five dollars.

Do not 'Jackson pollock' your 70s Yamaha SG, take out the neck pickup, put it in a fucked up Strat copy with a scratch guard made of a panel from a Morris Minor, then sell it for peanuts.

Do not sell any of your guitars in fact.

Do not sell any of your Joe Meek stuff, in particular the guitar preamp/distortion/compressor.

Do not buy that digital multiband compressor! What are you thinking?!?! Idiot!

Don't sell a Travis Bean you bought for $1100 for less than that.

I don't regret too many gear things. But here are some definites.

1) hold on to your TB1000S and TB2000 for an additional 10-15 years before selling them, if you don't NEED the money.
2) Don't sell your '80 Fender Telecaster Deluxe, '77 P-bass, or '63 Bassman
3) Buy an AC30 as early as you can.
4) Buy a vintage Thinline in the '90s.

Don't sell that FZ-2! The fuck is wrong with you???

Don't trade in an ugly, better sounding guitar for a better looking, shittier sounding guitar. Sell the ugly guitar!

That Peavy 15' combo amp is awesome, don't get rid of it.

Don't buy an SVT, they're too heavy and you'll get tired of moving it despite it's awesome sound!

Keep the Peavey Mace. Buy that Ibanez Destroyer instead of that Floyd Rose-equipped thing. Keep the 90s RAT. Buy no other guitar gear unless one of those gets stolen or catches fire.

Dude, you are 18, you have an 84 Marshall 2203 with matching cab, it rules, gonna take you 20 years to work your way back to it, but it rules, don't sell it. Also learn to use and love a tubescreamer. Grass isn't always greener.

You also have a Travis Bean Standard and a Rickenbacker 330, you are good. You are going to buy 3 more Beans, do not fucking sell for any reason. In fact, buy more. Anyway it is 2021 and you are STILL bitching about selling your TB standard and Wedge and I hate to tell you, you aint getting them back.

When you are 19, go ahead and buy that 71 Hiwatt DR103 with matching cab for $500, that $500 you are going to spend on a vacation with your girlfriend is going to fucking suck. Come on, dude was going to deliver it to your house, what a deal you dummy.

When you are 20 and you go into the local dirt bag music store, take the dude up on the offer. Yes, you think that new Mesa Boogie Duel Rec is cool, but you know what is better? The stack of 6-8 1st generation Sunn Model T heads. $1200 bones he would sell you all of them, do that shit.