I bought a (really cheap, hybrid) resonator guitar about 15 years ago. It wasn't very expensive, it _looked_ really cool (great headstock). But I couldn't get a

I bought a (really cheap, hybrid) resonator guitar about 15 years ago. It wasn't very expensive, it _looked_ really cool (great headstock). But I couldn't get a sound out of it I liked, and over time the resonator became difficult to "tune" or maintain. And I felt sort of guilty and stupid for buying it. I couldn't get on with the thing, but I felt bad about selling it to anyone because the resonator was more trouble than it was worth. Some frustrations should not be sold on. So I kept the very nice guitar case, and gave the guitar away to a talented, broke musician, who used its rather scratchy, broken sound for effect on a couple of recordings. I could have sold it for a few quid but I have never regretted this; I turned my frustration at this thing into a gift and a bit of joy for someone else and then moved on. Not something I'd recommend everyone does regularly, because if we all do it, it just prolongs poor product design by failing to reject it, but it helped this one time. (It also taught me an important lesson about musical instruments; the next guitar I bought was better, but more basic in appearance and already scratched from the shop.)