What was your first Guitar?

[Zork]

Squier Bullet Strat in Cherry Red in something like 1996. I still have this guitar and gig with it sometimes. It's actually a great guitar by now. I tweaked it and fumbled around with it so much that I know her exactly down to the last molecule, so set up is very easy to do for me. I changed the pickguard, the tuners and the volume pot, otherwise it's stock. Tuning stability is great now (many hours of fiddling around with the tremolo) and the sound is spot on stratocaster. I really love this guitar and am very happy to take her to gigs after years of never taking her out. I used to play Les Pauls and similar guitars a lot but got a crush on Fender sounds some time ago.

[Axolotl]

Funny that you asked! A few months ago I recovered my first guitar ever, and it's a vintage offset! . No '62 Jazzmaster or Jag here, but a very bizarre Argentinean "Jakim" brand from the 60's. This guitar was given to me when I was about 9 or 10 yrs old by a friend of my dad who told me he'd give it to me but that I should take the guitar seriously. 30 years later, I can say that I have!

Recently I moved back to Argentina after 18 years of living in the US. At some point for some reason I remembered this guitar, which I thought long gone and asked my dad about it. Dad, a hoarder, had stuck it in a closet, for a few decades with lots of old things. And there she was!!. The body is kinda nice, I hope the pickups work. Very short scale, like a Jag or even shorter. The neck is horrible, in shambles and pretty much gone. Instead of frets and fretboard it's got a horrible metal contraption nailed to the neck.

I remember this guitar having some built-in effects. An array of switches and a battery cavity confirm this. It was somewhat functional at a time. Even if I don't remember well, I'm probably to blame for most of its current state (where the hell did the trem go? etc) I'll give a shot to restore during this year (new neck of course) and post a thread about it.

[Dan.]

A Shine superstrat type thing. Bought it with my birthday money when I was 15, played all my first gigs with it. Still got it, I keep meaning to refret it and change the pups but I don't think I'll ever get round to it, haha.



I don't have any shots of just the guitar, but this photo is hilarious anyway.

[sjperry54]

A Supro Sahara...



Typical 60's era cheap guitar. High action, big strings. Played like crap, but the dumbass kid in me didn't know that could be fixed. Now that I know, I wouldn't mind having one for sentimental reasons, but the typical prices are between $1000-$1500. I ain't that damn sentimental! I found one at a guitar show about 15 years ago for $800 which I thought was crazy then. The bad thing is I found out the day after the show that someone who works with my son sold it to the dealer for $200! He said if he'd known, he'd have let me have it for $100!

[NickD]

A double cutaway Hondo II. It was actually a pretty good guitar, set neck, solid wood and a couple of decent humbuckers. I remember the neck cracked near the headstock so I got it fixed and then got my Epiphone Les Paul for a birthday present, but I can't remember what happened to the Hondo.

Nearly 150 guitars later...

[MKR]

Squier Bullet Strat in Cherry Red in something like 1996. I still have this guitar and gig with it sometimes. It's actually a great guitar by now. I tweaked it and fumbled around with it so much that I know her exactly down to the last molecule, so set up is very easy to do for me. I changed the pickguard, the tuners and the volume pot, otherwise it's stock. Tuning stability is great now (many hours of fiddling around with the tremolo) and the sound is spot on stratocaster. I really love this guitar and am very happy to take her to gigs after years of never taking her out. I used to play Les Pauls and similar guitars a lot but got a crush on Fender sounds some time ago.

damn. Now you're making me miss my bullet even more now.

[MKR]

I don't have any shots of just the guitar, but this photo is hilarious anyway.

it looks like a staged shot with dolls or manequins or something. am i the only one who sees this?

[spacecadet]

Played like crap, but the dumbass kid in me didn't know that could be fixed.

I was the same way with my Cort bass. I thought the inch high action was just the way the thing was and there was nothing I could do about it. My bandmates and I would literally walk around music stores taking guitars off the wall and checking the string height; we would judge the quality of the entire guitar by the action set from the factory. "Action" was a buzzword to us; if a guitar had high action, it sucked. Low action, it was good. First time someone would show their guitar to us, one of us would immediately say "how's the action?" I don't think we had an idea that this could be changed, on really any guitar.

It really was not until I got my first Jazzmaster that I tried to learn all the things you can do to a guitar to make them play better. Somehow I *wanted* to work on my JM.

[BriansAWildDowner]

Squier Strat was my first. Not sure what kind but I got it in the mid to late 90s.

The first guitar I ever bought for myself was a Danelectro Convertible Pro.

Both of which I wish I still had.

[Levispeights]

I don't have a pic of the actual guitar but it was a Cort Viva Gold 2. Looked just like this one.

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0195/1 ... 1376405812

[Tokuro]

Funny that you asked! A few months ago I recovered my first guitar ever, and it's a vintage offset! . No '62 Jazzmaster or Jag here, but a very bizarre Argentinean "Jakim" brand from the 60's. This guitar was given to me when I was about 9 or 10 yrs old by a friend of my dad who told me he'd give it to me but that I should take the guitar seriously. 30 years later, I can say that I have!

Recently I moved back to Argentina after 18 years of living in the US. At some point for some reason I remembered this guitar, which I thought long gone and asked my dad about it. Dad, a hoarder, had stuck it in a closet, for a few decades with lots of old things. And there she was!!. The body is kinda nice, I hope the pickups work. Very short scale, like a Jag or even shorter. The neck is horrible, in shambles and pretty much gone. Instead of frets and fretboard it's got a horrible metal contraption nailed to the neck.

I remember this guitar having some built-in effects. An array of switches and a battery cavity confirm this. It was somewhat functional at a time. Even if I don't remember well, I'm probably to blame for most of its current state (where the hell did the trem go? etc) I'll give a shot to restore during this year (new neck of course) and post a thread about it.

This thing is great. Restore it! As I remember, the headstock has an EDGE.

[veryredtomatoes]

A terrible Peavey that put me off guitars for a long time. I sold it at a pawn shop for like $50. Best deal I ever made on a guitar:-)

[Maggieo]

A terrible Peavey that put me off guitars for a long time. I sold it at a pawn shop for like $50. Best deal I ever made on a guitar:-)

I had a T-60. It weighed more than I did. I traded it for this Hamer Special:


1981 Hamer Special And Swart Atomic Space Tone, July, 2009 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr

Quite possibly, the best trade ever.

[Sid Nitzerglobin]

80's Washburn KC-40V

Pretty typical shreddtastic cheap Strat copy that I bought from a classmate when I was 16. Not really that bad of a guitar overall aside from the Floyd Rose being a pain in the ass, some of that might have been due to my incessant tinkering while not knowing what the hell I was doing w/ it though... It's got a relatively beefy for the genus, slightly V'd neck and a chunkier, warmer sound than most Strats I've played (which is admittedly not a whole lot).

It served me well for a couple years as my only guitar until I got my LP and for another couple as a backup until I got my JM. I still have it but haven't touched it for >2 years.

[Despot]

1981 Hamer Special And Swart Atomic Space Tone, July, 2009 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr

Quite possibly, the best trade ever.

Oooh nice Maggie.
Also the Swart!