Wiardgroup

I remember when I acquired a second hand Serge Series 76, all the boards were rev. 79 
boards and I thought the faceplates should be silver like the series 79.

So I called Serge and asked him about this, and he replied with a very profound answer.

"Why can't you let it be what it is?"

It had never occurred that he would view changing it as vandalizing an archeological 
artifact.

He went on to give me a rather drastic crash course in psychology where he tried to 
proved to me that the instrument had no problems, but my head did.

He closed by saying "Buddha tells us unhappiness begins the moment we desire to change 
things from what they are now."

At the time I thought it was a bunch of psycho-babble crap and just an excuse to not help 
me. But over time I have come to really sympathize with his perspective and consider his 
words a great gift.

These instruments develop a history, and that history gives them a kind of soul, and 
simply erasing that history disrespects everything that instrument went though to be 
where it is today. Every scratch or fuzzy letter or dent is something that instrument went 
through to survive long enough to reach your possibly unworthy hands. You should be 
proud of it, it has earned the right to be exactly what it is.

This applies only to cosmetic issues, the instruments are all designed for long term 
functional maintenance. I don't care what used instruments LOOK like, but I do expect 
them to function well and be in calibration. If there is a functional issue, then by all means 
let's fix it. But I have too much work making brand new modules to fool around with 
cosmetic issues on older ones.