I noticed in your signature that a couple of those are your wife's ukuleles. Does she play the ukulele too, or are they just the ones you bought for her? I ask because I used to do a lot of upland bird hunting. My friend kept using his wife as an excuse to buy 20ga shotguns. He bought them for her. I never knew of her to go upland bird hunting but she had three shotguns. So I was just wondering.
An excellent point and valid question.
My wife’s Kala was the first uke we ever had in our household. For years, she thought of herself as having 0 musical ability, but tried and loved playing a friend’s ukulele at a ukulele Christmas carol strum along that they hosted. She found Cynthia Lin’s instructional videos to be super helpful for her style of learning, so the next step was to buy her an instrument.
Being a musician myself, I knew we wanted to get something nicer than “entry level” (how little I knew back then!) for her to learn on, and the Kala was one she really liked the feel of.
Fast forward a few years, and while pregnant with our daughter, my wife put the ukulele away and that was it for awhile. Until I got curious and pulled it out of the gigbag. Pretty soon, I was hooked.
The Rebel Double Crème is also my wife’s, largely because she loved the look of it and maybe because she also loves perfectly ripe mangos above all other fruit, so it was kind of a fun birthday present for her.
I’ll fully admit that I’m much more of the ukulele nut than she is, hence why she doesn’t see a reason for me to keep acquiring more for myself.
I will also admit that a few in my collection—the Ohana sopranino, Keiki Kamaka, and Moon Bird—were all bought with the thought that our daughter may one day want to play them...but since she isn’t even a year old yet, I think those buys fall squarely in the same vein that your friend’s shotgun buying does.