c. 1981 Morley Analog Echo Reverb MOD-AER6 Delay Pedal

I have to chuckle when I come across these photos in my old emails to myself. Partly because of what incredibly bad photos they are (I literally nailed a pillowcase inside a white bookshelf, used a junky early smartphone, and opened all the windows for light - I still just use natural light, because...auctions. Standards of aesthetic beauty were never a priority, one of the things which drew me to it after years of college photography courses, on a poor artist's budget), but partly because it makes a funny story.

This was the very first lot I ever posted on eBay. I started shopping eBay for guitars all the way back in about 1997, but in those days I was just using craigslist and physical bulletin boards you would always find in the back of music stores to sell my own stuff. I was always pretty good at just haggling the best wholesale offers out of the store buyers if I needed to flip something more urgently. I can remember when I would visit the library, I would always make sure to stop and use their computers, because the physical act of scrolling through auction listings was so much more glorious with their higher speed Ethernet capabilities than on my sucky dial-up connection at home.

I had originally bought this Morley MOD-AER6 effects pedal at Grandma's Music in Albuquerque in about 1999, and I think I paid $90 for it. It is one of the pieces of music gear I nostalgically refer to as my "Dearly Departed," which I genuinely regret ever getting rid of. Scrounging for rent in an area still new to me motivated me to look around and take stock of all the toys I had accumulated which I technically was not using much, and this was always at the top of my list of what-do-I-own-of-any-significant-value-in-case-of-emergency. I had always taken obsessive care of my gear, and I had a remnant role of heavy tape used to conserve collectible book covers from my bookstore job. I used that to secure the tattered vintage label on back of the stompbox.

Anyway, what cracks me up, reminiscing about this sale, was the high bidder did not want to use Paypal. He may not even have set it up, if that was possible then, and asked me could he send me cash. This one was the only in the line of late 1970s - early 1980s Morley MOD pedals he did yet not have, to make a complete collection. I had been anticipating waiting for a check to clear before shipping, missing my preferred seller deadline, and gladly agreed. A few days later, an envelope with three hundred dollar bills arrived from California, folded up in a random clipping from glossy card stock junk mail, with a crudely hand-written note about how happy the guy was.

As far as the "technical" specifications, audiophiles will tell you nothing beats the sound of analog. From my original auction description: "Great for slapback echo, Rockabilly sound. What digital pedals have the most difficulty imitating is the the "wet" sound you get from live manipulation of the knobs possible with analog." Silly novice eBay argot! Yet true - engineers have been trying to simulate those buttery tones and echo chamber sounds digitally for years, and they will never achieve it.