Tell me about your first good guitar

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Daveyo

We all talked about her crummy first guitars
I want to hear about your first good guitar
Mine was a guild 25 factory black
I still miss that guitar
How about you?

Bought a used Guild D-35 in the early seventies. Sold it because I was too footloose to have a guitar, but I always missed it.

Ran into a '76 D-35 about ten years ago and scooped it up. Felt like a big homecoming. It's my forever.

Those old 25s were great, too.

[Mandobart]

Compared to the descriptions on other threads about cheap, unplayable, high action punishing first guitars that many people have posted about over the years, my first guitar was pretty decent.

It was an Applause (Ovation's cheap brand) 6 string. Some type of spruce top, lyrachord deep bowl, aluminum neck and fretboard. Nice action, pretty good intonation, pleasant tone. Cost me all of $80 back in '78 or '79. I still have it. Maybe not good, but a very serviceable first guitar.

In '82 I was stationed in Orlando and I found a used Ovation model 1115 (12 fret slothead 12 string deep bowl). In my young mind that was a good guitar. I still have it, still play it, still like it. I think it cost me $200.

I bought a few more instruments much later on - electric guitar, some mandolins and mandolin-family instruments, most of which were niche/specialty items.

In 2020 I bought what I now acknowledge as my first good acoustic guitar - a 2017 Martin HD-28.

[OptimusJay]

My first good acoustic was a 1997 Guild JF 65 6 string sunburst. Had the looks and the tone. Wish I still had it but I foolishly traded it in on other gear after owning it for a couple years...what a fool, in hindsight.

Jay

[jaymarsch]

My first steel string guitar was a Yamaha F-160 that I got when I was 20. It was a decent guitar but I didn’t know anything about set ups back then.
The first really good guitar that I was over the moon to get was a 1991 Martin M-38 that I had bought myself for my 40th birthday. I was at Amazing Grace Music in San Anselmo and was going back and forth between a 1991 HD-28 and the M-38. I liked both guitars but the 0000 responded better to my lighter attack than the dread. John set it up perfect for my playing.
BTW - I traded in the Yamaha towards this purchase and when evaluating that guitar, John chuckled and asked me where I kept the escalator that I needed to get my fretting fingers from the strings to the frets! He said that it was one of the worst set ups that he’d ever seen.
I played the Martin for about 12 years before selling it to get a smaller guitar - my first hand built - a used 2001 Wingert 00 that I still have and play.
Best,
Jayne

[Bob Womack]

My first good guitar was a 1974 Gibson Kalamazoo "Small Script" Standard Les Paul. In 1977, I was invited to join a major band and needed a major guitar. Ironically, I started saving for a Les Paul Standard in 1974 and inflation kept them out of reach for that whole time. But I sold my only electric guitar and added that money to the kitty for a total of $425 and went out shopping. By that time inflation had got me again, and the used LP Standards were selling for $485. Admit the brand new shiny Nashville Standards I found this sort of oddball and offered them what I had. The salesman consulted the manger, who turned out to have watched me try for an LP all those years. He took pity on me and let me have it for what I had.



I still have it, play it, and love it. It has done more gigs and sessions than I could possibly count.

Bob

[beatcomber]

I started out in 1977 on a Ventura classical, made in Korea. I don’t recall it being difficult to play. A generous local AGF’er gave me a similar guitar a few years ago. It plays okay and holds its tuning, but the tone is uninspiring (it’s plywood) and it has a thick poly finish.

My first electric was a Made-in-Japan Strad-O-Lin single-pickup finished in a yucky green sunburst. My parents bought it for me for Xmas 1977 at a Lechmere department store, and it came as a set with a truly crappy little Multivox solid state amp with a pressboard cabinet. Using it with a coil cable (de rigueur in the ‘70s), the amp would inevitably fall over onto its face if I wandered too far. But I loved having an electric guitar instead of an “uncool” classical guitar; now I could play some ROCK!

I think this is the amp I had:



By late 1978, my parents concluded that I was serious about playing guitar, and set a budget of $250 for me to get a new guitar and amp. My older brother took me into the city to do some shopping one night, and I came home with a used 1973 Hagstrom Scandia (aka Viking) and a brand new Kustom 1 Lead amp, just like the ones below. I actually played my first ever performance with that rig, at my junior high school talent show in May 1979!

[CharlieBman]

Like others, "good" is a relative matter. All my old Yamaha's felt good to me. But I guess the first time I felt like I had upgraded my concept of good is when I bought my first Martin, a 1990 Shenandoah. Now that isn't considered "good" by many, but I can remember feeling over-the-moon owning my first Martin guitar.

[zombywoof]

After the usual diet of used Harmony Stellas, mine was a Guild D25 BR. I snagged it new in either 1968 or 1969.

[abn556]

My first good guitar was a 1976 Les Paul Deluxe Gold Top bought for $400 in 1978. The pic below is from a band practice at a buddy’s house in the late 70s. Its the lone pic of this guitar that survived. I was so proud of this guitar. I drove around town showing it to all my
friends.

Note the early 70s Sunn Model T amp sitting on top of a 2 x 12 no name cabinet. Really great, but really loud amp.

IMG_3132.jpg

[jricc]

What I considered my first good guitar was an Ovation Custom Legend around 1979. Looked like this:
https://reverb.com/item/26336661-ova...-custom-legend

It had a carved bridge and TR cover. The pickup was "stereo", strings 1,3,5 went to one side and 2,4,6 went to the other side.

The funniest thing I remember was, I had a payment book with little pieces of paper to send with $30 or $35 a month to pay it off.

[Picker1]

My first guitar was a Guild hollow body electric

[Jack the Pearl]

My first good guitar was my first guitar. I started on bass and the first one was not good (a Conrad) nor a guitar. When my Mom saw that we were making money with our instruments, she popped for my Gibson EB-2 bass. It was an excellent bass, but not exactly a guitar.

Long intro. Here's my answer. My first guitar was a Guild f-212 made in Hoboken, NJ. Yes, ladies and gents. I'm THAT old! It was a very good guitar, but
it was a 12-string. Got that guitar just before the band broke up and I transferred to a different college to get serious about my degree. Practiced a lot less; failed at learning to play the 12-string. That guitar was neglected and then discarded many years later for a 6-string. No regrets.

The Guild was a "fine instrument" I suppose. But the neck scale was too long for my stubby fingers. I do not miss that guitar at all. But I still enjoy the path it put me on.

[Tleek]

My first decent guitar was an Epiphone Masterbilt aj500m. I got it at 16 and sold it at maybe 28 or so. I kind of wish I held on to it. It was a nice guitar and made a lot of memories.

[Teherie]

My first good guitar was a new Martin D35 with a shaded top. I paid $600 for it and still have it. It’s coming up on 50 years old and would be the last one to go.

[BoneDigger]

If I remember correctly, my first "good" guitar was a Martin X series guitar. I don't remember which one exactly.