What were your first guitars?

[bruce919]

A Series 10 HSS Strat Style and a little 15 watt Crate . Local Music Store sold it as a set. It came with a Mel Bay book and cord. Traded it off a few years later along with some lawn mowing $ for a Cort Strat the had a set of Dimarzios.

[specialk]

Tiesco Del Ray strat copy. This was 1967. 

[stedge]

 

The Sunburst and Martin, for the record. The original acoustic, epiphone, and Westbury are long gone   

Edited September 9, 2024 by stedge
Detail

[BoogieMKIIA]

Some Japanese electric that was hard to play. Then got a Gibson Melody Maker.

[stobro]

My first acoustic was a Yamaki, because I couldn't afford a Yamaha. My first electric was a Univox Hi-Flier, just like this one:

[burningyen]

Cort Les Paul copy veneer-over-plywood-core boat anchor like this one, with the subtle burst and double creams:

Kept it all these years only to find out a few years ago that my parents' tenant sold it or gave it away without our permission.

[DaveL]

Mine was a japanese guitar that I bought off a friend for $10.   My first real guitar was a Hondo II black les paul

custom...  $120.00     Just like the one Glenn Tipton was playing on the back of Hell Bent for Leather.   I soon

broke the headstock off it but epoxied it back together.   

 

 

[kizanski]

18 hours ago, kizanski said:

C. 1983 - ‘74 Les Paul Deluxe with “Gibson” in raised letters on the P-90s. 
$475 on 48th street.  

Here it is on the right.

After a couple of years, I got the "custom" bug and replaced the pickups with a P-90-sized Dan Lawrence humbucker in the neck and a DiMarzio in the bridge. 
Mini switches are for coil-cutting and out of phase (middle switch).

As you know, it was the '80's and that was the law.

[stratacus]

A Yamaha 12 string that was soon replaced by a 60’s Fender Mustang. 

[HSB0531]

On 9/8/2024 at 6:55 PM, Steve Haynie said:

The Les Paul Junior had a normal headstock.  The person who sold it to me put a new set of tuners on it, but they were meant for a Strat or any other guitar that had all six tuners in a line.  So, three tuners on one side were OK.  They were upside down on the other side.  That guitar would not stay in tune.  I knew nothing about setups and intonation at the time.

Kind of the reverse of when, in the early days of Hamer & the Standard, they had to use two sets of Grover tuner sets before they started making them all 6 on a side.

Chris: Thanks for the heads up on the tuners.  I had first noted them as being Schaller when in fact, as Chris stated, they were Grover.

Edited September 10, 2024 by HSB0531

[seeker]

1980 Yamaha SC 300T like this one and also black. Basically a strat they left in the oven too long and melted. Wish I still had it.

[HSB0531]

1 hour ago, seeker said:

1980 Yamaha SC 300T like this one and also black. Basically a strat they left in the oven too long and melted. Wish I still had it.

"Basically a strat they left in the oven too long and melted"

I like that description!

[HSB0531]

6 hours ago, stobro said:

My first acoustic was a Yamaki, because I couldn't afford a Yamaha. My first electric was a Univox Hi-Flier, just like this one:

I just realized that I had this guitar back in the late 60's!

[cynic]

My first was a cheap Sears acoustic I got for Christmas of 1979 as a test to see if I'd "stick with it".  My first real guitar came seven months later, a 1980 Gretsch BST-1500, bought new for $315 total for guitar, hard case, and a Lab Series L3 amp.

It has seen thousands of miles accompanying me on over twenty-three years of military deployments and even managed a decade or so with the infamous Wonderbar installed.  It remained stock (aside from the trem) for most of its life but spent some time with @murkat several years ago for a refresh.  

[DaveH]

16 minutes ago, cynic said:

My first was a cheap Sears acoustic I got for Christmas of 1979 as a test to see if I'd "stick with it".  My first real guitar came seven months later, a 1980 Gretsch BST-1500, bought new for $315 total for guitar, hard case, and a Lab Series L3 amp.

It has seen thousands of miles accompanying me on over twenty-three years of military deployments and even managed a decade or so with the infamous Wonderbar installed.  It remained stock (aside from the trem) for most of its life but spent some time with @murkat several years ago for a refresh.  

You sure that isn't a BST-1000? It look identical to mine, it was also my first real guitar!

ETA: I purchased mine new in 1981, and it was tagged as a BST-1000. Doing some searching just now, I think mine is actually a BST-1500 too. All these years I thought I had the 1000!

Edited September 9, 2024 by DaveH

[cynic]

10 minutes ago, DaveH said:

You sure that isn't a BST-1000? It look identical to mine, it was also my first real guitar!

 

The 1000 was very similar but not exactly the same. 

[Hbom]

Mine was an epiphone acoustic. Don't remember name or number but it was a couple of years old in the mid '60s. It left home without leaving a forwarding address while I was overseas. Never heard from it again.

Edited September 15, 2024 by Hbom
clarity

[DaveH]

I just edited my post. Mine is defintely a 1500, like yours

[cynic]

You may be right?  Mine was sold as and annotated as a 1500 on my receipt, but there’s gretsch ad copy that calls it a 1000.

 

1500 seems to be what most online are calling it these days. 

Edited September 9, 2024 by cynic

[DaveH]

Yep, that's mine on the left... DC Dimarzio's and all! Maybe the 1000 had an early and a late edition(?). The head stock and pick guard on mine is identical to yours and the one in the ad, but the 1000's I saw in a search were different.

[velorush]

1 hour ago, cynic said:

My first was a cheap Sears acoustic I got for Christmas of 1979 as a test to see if I'd "stick with it".  My first real guitar came seven months later, a 1980 Gretsch BST-1500, bought new for $315 total for guitar, hard case, and a Lab Series L3 amp.

It has seen thousands of miles accompanying me on over twenty-three years of military deployments and even managed a decade or so with the infamous Wonderbar installed.  It remained stock (aside from the trem) for most of its life but spent some time with @murkat several years ago for a refresh.  

Exactly the same scenario for me. I got a $49 Sears guitar for Christmas around 1975 or so to see if I'd stick with it.  Not much motivation to stick with it as I had no idea how to play it, but I digress.  I got to college in 1982 and a soon-to-be fraternity brother had opened a music store. He had a Gretsch just like that hanging on the wall and a hardshell case for $185! Had to have it.

Here's the epilogue though.  Mom and dad are in their 80's and are starting to (mercifully) clean out closets and give / throw junk away.  Mom calls and says she's found "guitar parts" in my old closet. I cannot imagine what she's found. I run over to the house and there is the neck, body and highly modified pickguard of my first guitar. The rest of it (the original trem, pickups and other assorted hardware) has been in a shoebox I've carried with my since college.

Around 1985 or '86 we were having a tone discussion (we might have invented The Gear Page that day) and whether the body wood made any difference. I pulled the fake humbucker out of the plywood Sears guitar and replaced it with a tarbucker out of a '73 SG. It still sounded like a crappy plywood guitar. That's why the parts to the Sears guitar have been in a shoebox since '85 or '86.

I am considering having Terrapin or Pickguardian make a new pickguard for it just for kicks and giggles.  I'll try to post a picture this week and see if your Sears guitar was the same one. It's TSB with a fake rosewood fretboard and remember the scale length is 24".

[shankyboy]

This is my first guitar. 1990 American Standard in Gunmetal Blue. Changed out the pickguard, added Texas Special pickups, Graphtech saddles and locking tuners. I still have all the original parts. It's been re-fretted once. She still sees action regularly. Bought her new for $495. I had to make a few layaway payments before I could bring it home cause I was pretty much living hand to mouth in those days. 

[hamerhead]

I took over my brother's Kingston acoustic when it was clear he'd never learn to play it. Coulda shot arrows off that neck, but it built good finger muscles. Still have it.

My first 'real' electric was a Univox 335-ish (with a '64 Fender Vibrolux) from my BIL for $150, complete with a Big Muff and a curly cord. Detasseled corn to get those. Sold the guitar back to him for $100. Still have the Vibrolux, Muff and cord. The guitar looked exactly like this (from Reverb):

...with the same chip off the corner of the bridge pickup. Mine was stuffed with cotton balls, though. It squealed mercilessly.

I then hit the big time with one identical to this (for $160):

Miles better but two years later got serious:

Mom co-signed a loan. $675 in 1978. Still have it.

[svl]

Man, you guys were spoiled rotten. My first "axe" was a Sears Fireball- strings literally an inch off the fretboard, tuners that you could watch unspool when you tried to bend and oh that amazing "tone plastic". Had to work with that sucker for a couple years and prove I was "serious about guitar" before I could "upgrade" to a Kay SG (strings were only 3/4 of an inch off that baby, talk about heaven). The Fireball was a present from the parental units (two Christmas' and birthdays given for that mother) but had to earn the scratch for that SG solo (threw a lotta newspapers and shoveled a lotta Northern Illinois snow for that baby).

[svl]

Side note- just looked up my first "pro" (to me) purchase, a Maestro Phaser. Think I paid $40, just saw 'em on Reverb for almost $800. DOH!