I bet at least like 9/10s of the people who read this board own a Big Muff pedal.

i have one but i very rarely use it.. these days i use a peachfuzz instead

3 of them - russian green, silver re-issue, black. (listed in order of pref)

Still have my russian green one. Still use it all the time.

Haha, yep, black russian one was one of the first pedals I ever bought, still have it, though I've since swapped it for a Barge Concepts BB-1.

For light-mid overdrive I use a Sonic Ignitor, Tube Driver for thicker stuff, then the bb-1 for all-out fuzz that plays itself. Still miss the Muff a bit, it was slightly better in the sustain dept.

Nope. And was there at the start. Bought an original Black Finger compressor which Matthews thought was one of EH's worst-sounding pedals. Still have it. Used it quite a bit for a couple decades. Haven't in the last ten.

For fuzz, it was a Fender Fuzz-wah, which was an unsuccessful pedal, too. The wah was good but built on pulleys, rather than a gear, and the pulleys always had to be tightened. The fuzz was a one button always on full-control-it-at-the-volume-knob silicon. It was very good. Plus it was a volume pedal, which was handy. That went missing a long time ago.

The only fuzz I still use off-and-on is a Holowon Static Egg. Out of business, apparently. Does an extreme 60's-zzzzzzz at anything over half way on the guitar's volume knob, but really adds mid-rip, so you can make it semi-clean. However, mostly I depend on either power tube distortion or things which try to get close to it.

Last time I was in GC, a few weeks ago, a fan boy clerk wanted to sell me one of the recent edition Russian Muffs -- big slabby green box -- very cheap. Tempting, but I passed.

Mine is an ancient Sovtek one, with the pale green/silver box. I love it for bass because it doesn't lose any of the low end.

The best instrument in my arsenal for Muff fuzz though is the FARFISA.

Had a russian green one, but lost it in a move years ago.

i was pretty amazed to see a Sovtek one like mine on sale for £365 yesterday but apparently that is on the low side now?

yeah, used prices for sovtek and ehx stuff seems to have gone crazy recently - old electric mistress pedals are going for like £250-£300 too

Old Big Muff prices can get pretty high. Variations in components between different production batches led to different tones being available, some more well-regarded or highly sought-after because of whatever famous guitarist used that particular model. Add to that relative scarcity because the company went out of business a few times. Or people would buy them and stomp them to death and discard them. There is an exhaustive history that tbh just makes my head spin. The section on the Sovtek era starts here: http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_history2.html

There are many modern companies that have been making clones of and improvements on many of these old muffs for years. In fact, EHX is notably late to the parade by rereleasing their Green Russian just last year. But I guess the old ones still retain their collector's value.