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Mine was a late 70's lawsuit era Strat copy. No idea of the name, but the intonation was never quite right.
After that, I had a 1980 Gibson S-1 that I used for years.
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07-05-2016 12:41 PM
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I had an Ibanez acoustic. And I know that Ibanez makes some really great guitars, but having the one that I had is the reason whey I have never liked Ibanez guitars since. After that I had a Fender USA Tele back when everyone was saying that you better get one now because they won't be making them in the USA anymore. Probably should have kept it.
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Now that I think of it, I did have a ratty old flat top acoustic. Couldn't really play that thing though, as the strings were about an inch off the fretboard (I exaggerate, but it was pretty bad).
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Mine was a late 60's, three pickup Made in Japan Hollowbody (I do not remember the brand) with a three color sunburst and a whammy bar. It had a high action that made it almost unplayable. I was lucky in that my first guitar teacher set my mom straight and she was talked into getting me a Guild M-20. The electric cost her $50, the Guild cost her $90. Years later, I traded the electric in on another Japanese guitar, an El Degas SG copy. I later sold the Guild and the El Degas to buy my first Gibson, a 1970 ES-175. I paid $329 for it (1973). I have always owned at least one Gibson ever since....
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Gibson black beauty custom Les Paul air guitar. I played it with John McLauglin's Inner Mounting Flame and Robert Fripp. It was the best guitar I ever had and was always in tune. As an air guitar, it was also really light. I'm still trying to capture that feeling with every guitar I've had.
Never should have gotten rid of it.
David
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You sure it's not around there somewhere?
Originally Posted by TruthHertz
(Side note: I saw Rush last summer, and the spontaneous unison air drumming in the crowd was a think of beauty.)
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A old Aria flattop with a severely warped neck and a lifting bridge for $60.00 in 1972. I didn't start playing guitar till I was 18. I was a clarinet player as a kid. I heard George Benson in 1972 and that was it.
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The nylon string classical my grandfather (who was an acoustic guitar luthier), made for me, when I was 6 years old (back in 1969). Unfortunately, grandpa got sick with cancer (which he ultimately died from), and my Uncle Joe (my dad's youngest brother, and the only other guitar player in the family) went into the Air Force, leaving me with nobody to teach me how to play guitar (my parents couldn't afford to pay for lessons, and I didn't know anybody else who played guitar). The guitar went into the closet, until I was 15 (in 1979), and got serious about playing guitar again. At that time being a total noob, and an idiot about guitars, I put steel strings on the guitar (wrong!!!), and almost ended up wrecking it. My Uncle Joe (who lived outside of the area at the time - I think he was just finishing up his stint in the Air Force) was visiting, and when he saw me playing the guitar grandpa made for me, noticed it was in rough shape. Since my cousin (his oldest son) was learning how to play guitar at the time, and my uncle needed a smaller bodied guitar for him to learn on he talked me out of the guitar (I had another guitar - a Washburn acoustic, that I was already gravitating towards, so at the time, it was no big deal to me), saying that he would repair it (he inherited grandpa's luthier tools after grandpa died), and give it to my cousin, for learning how to play guitar. Well, the deal went down, and I've never seen the guitar since that time. Sometimes I wish I had it back for sentimental reasons (or better yet, one of the concert sized acoustics my grampa built, or even better than that, my grampa's mid 40s Epiphone Emperor), but my uncle seldom ever gives up something, once he has it. Oh well.
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My first guitar was a 1978 Takamine F340s "lawsuit" acoustic. I still have it but rarely play it. It's actually a very nice acoustic, sounds good and plays great. If I played styles of music more suitable for a flattop I'd play it more. I keep it for sentimental reasons more than anything practical.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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My first real guitar was a Mansfield Chet Atkins CG knock off with a bolt on neck. Semi descent.
The first guitar I bought at a real music store was a 68 (I think) Epiphone Wilshire. Tigerstripe sunburst. Very cool little guitar....and I mean little. Never played such a skinny neck.
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Univox ply dreadnaught, and El Degas SG copy.
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El Degas.....taking me back. Originally Posted by fritz jones
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In 1961 I bought a 1939 Martin 00-17 for the princely sum of $4 (four) dollars.
It was strung with flatwounds and .. though it sounds like a bargain price.. it did not include a case.
A friend had it under his bed. It was owned by his father. His father had died and given it to him.. he never played it.
It was stolen from me around 1965..
Only recently at my 50th high school reunion did I find out who had stolen it... one of my best friends.
It had since been resold and its whereabouts unknown.
I replaced this with a 1946 Gibson Banner J-45 at $100 with later Grover Rotomatics... which was subsequently stolen around 1967. I understand it was sold to a soldier stationed at Ft Ord, Calif... and it left for the East Coast.
I miss them both.Last edited by bohemian46; 07-05-2016 at 07:01 PM.
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A $29 Franciscan -- plywood acoustic, horrible action. I enrolled for guitar class for eighth-grade, but didn't tell the parents until the end of August, because I was pretty sure they'd force me to change. Mom took me to the store, we alked in, and she said to the shopkeeper, "What's the cheapest guitar you have?"
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A friend had a 4 piece band (2 guitars, bass, drums) and I wanted to be in that band so I bought a Zimgar git for a few dollars, a silvertone amp and chord book.
Without my friend's knowledge, I practiced every day the chords in a chord book, and watched my buddys band practice for months. I remembered every chord in the set they played every day.
Well one day the second git player called the practice room 1 day before a
gig and said he could not make practice or the gig.
When I told them I could play their whole set they (in disbelief) had me practice with them, play the gig, and they fired the last player.
That was the best guitar buying decision I ever made.
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Yamaha flattop, $99 from Sam Goody Music
my brother still has it.
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1987 Martin Stinger Strat copy.
It took me 10 years to learn how to tune the darn thing,
which is why I am not a fan of the floating tremolo to this day.
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My first guitar was one of these, which barely counts as a "real" guitar:
But I saw this ad and was hooked on guitars!
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Early sixties. Harmony arch top. 1/2" high action. I had to beg my parents for the $5.00. I learned the opening bass line for Walk Don't Run on it.
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Oh Man, this is gonna be a good thread!
It started when I was 8 years old. When my parents would leave the house for long periods of time, I would slide my fathers 1953 Es175d out from under his bed and pull out my MelBay book and I tought myself how to play. One day when I was 12 my father left his wallet on the dresser and I didn't see it. He can back only 5 minutes after he left. I was sitting on his bed playing Roundabout.. Surprise! After he threw me a across the room, he made me play for him. He couldn't believe what I could do. But he still didn't want me playing his guitar. So now he locked the case. So I was given an old Univox custom (sunburst, whammy bar, white soapbar pickups, TOTALLY over built) from a guy down the street. He said don't worry about giving it back he didn't want it anymore. This thing weighed like 16 lbs. So me and my brother made all kinds of modifications to this guitar. It was probably the 1st weight relieved guitar in existence. We shimmed the neck, took out one of the pickups and put Sparklers in it. One day it caught on fire. A couple of months later the guy down the street came over and asked for his guitar back. Me and my brother handed him a box with all the parts that were able to salvage from it.. He was pissed.
With my paper route money that wasn't stolen from me from the muggers, I ended buying a Black Ibanez Les Paul which I lovingly played from 1976 to 1983. It was stolen from the hall we used to rehearse at. I never saw it again after that.
JD
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A Harmony acoustic. Cost 25 bucks. I have to say, I don't miss it...
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In '65 I started playing on a '63 S. Yairi classical model that was actually my father's guitar. Then, in '67 I got my own guitar--a steel-string flattop--a $17 Prestige from Japan. In '69 I got my first electric, a '65 Hagstrom I along with a 5-watt Prestige solid-state amplifier. In '70 I upgraded to a 50-watt tube model Teisco Professional amplifier.
I still have all of these guitars and the Teisco amp. Of course, the top on the Prestige is humped up behind the bridge so much that the action is unplayable. Heavy gauge Black Diamond strings from the old Rexall drug store will do that.
Wish I still had the little Prestige amp, too. Closest thing I have to it is a Park G-10 amp made by Marshall. Great little amp for what it does.
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I bought my first guitar (acoustic with steel strings, can't remember any brand) in 1970 at the age of 14 for 5 swissfrancs from a friend who had it lying around. The sum equalled about 1,5 USD at the time. Before that i regularly borrowed a guitar from a neighborhood girl who was always very neurotic about getting it back as soon as possible although she obviously didn't know what to do with it.
Last edited by JazzNote; 07-05-2016 at 05:01 PM.
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They used to sell guitar strings at drugstores? Wow. So Guitars-N-Jazz aren't that unique afterall. Originally Posted by Greentone
Cool.
JD
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Mine was a student classical guitar of indeterminate origin, bought approximately 45 years ago. I strummed my way through the Beatles songbook so hard that I was forced into my first customization job - applying a pickguard to cover the patch that my strumming was wearing through the soundboard.
I replaced it after about three years with a Harmony flat-top - quite rare in the North of England in the 70's. The bridge was height adjustable, but I allegedly got a good deal because one of the threads on the bridge was stripped - hence it always had a pretty low action. It must have been v. cheap as the soundboard was painted with a false grain. I eventually gave it to a work colleague about 10 years ago - he was delighted with it and has gigged it more than I ever did !
Just found that someone is trying to sell the very same model on ebay for $150 - mine was in much better nick:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-19...-/282000997865Last edited by newsense; 07-05-2016 at 05:15 PM.
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