Second Stringers

[Steel and wood]

Originally Posted by Chickee

I know this intimately. My steel became the worlds most expensive clothes rack!
My son is now it’s caretaker and it get regular workouts.
Attachment 38071

Man, that lap steel is beautiful. (Probably the only instrument I'd want to own and learn to play outside of a normal guitar).

I was just watching Ryan Adam's BBC4 Concert on YouTube and having a pedal steel player in the band adds something really special.

[Dru Edwards]

Got ya. I have an old Framus 6 string acoustic made in Bavaria (Germany), probably in the 60s. It's the first guitar I learned on in the 80s and even then it was hard on the fingers. I still have that guitar that my uncle gave to our family around 1980. He probably picked it up while stationed in Germany in the air force.

[Chickee]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

Mostly acoustics in that classification. I don't even put them in my sig because they are obscure and therefore not likely to be of any interest or informational value, and because I don't play them much.

My original guitar, a inexpensive all laminated Checkmate nylon string I bought at J C Penny off a table of just after Christmas clearance items at J. C. Pennys in 1974. Larger body, brass frets, painted barely-"ebonized" fretboard that is just the top of the beefy neck. Still works, still sounds better than you might expect. I took it out of a chipboard case I keep it in and played it last a couple of years ago for old times sake. Turned out to be one of the most popular pieces in my entire project, though not likely because the guitar sounded so wonderful.

On the troop ship to Gallipoli

A non-name nylon-string 12-string guitar, probably Mexican market, bought in Minnesota used 35 years ago or so for a pitance. Full scale, larger body, but not jumbo size. Has very high action and inexpensive parts. I played it a few times just out of curiosity, but not in this century.

My original electric guitar, a Kingston branded solid-body with an elaborately carved dual cutaway horns and greenburst finish. I took the now sought after gold-foil pickups off it and put a used Gibson humbucker in the neck position and a Tele pickup in the bridge, replaced the trem with a Leo Quan wrap-around bridge and played the heck out of it in my punkish years. Frets are now fully "fretless wonder" level low and I keep thinking I should get it out and play it at least one last time.

My Cortez late 1970s 12-string, which I play much more often than these others this century. I put a DeArmond magnetic soundhole pickup in sometime in the early 80s, and used it as my 12-string in my gigging days. Now have it in a variation of "Tibbetts stringing" with unison D G B and E strings and octaves only on the low E and A strings.

Doesn't sound to bad if you think of it like one might think of a all laminated electric archtop that isn't an archtop, but still derives its sound from a vintage neck position pickup and an substantial air cavity.

Prologue to the Canterbury Tales


The OP brings up the biggest problem with these instruments. They have no market value as instruments, and I wouldn't wish them on a beginner, even though I began on some of them. I can't bear to throw them in the trash. Non-emotionally, that's were they should go I suppose as that's where they'll go when I get recycled I expect.

As I typed this and was reminded about the Kingston, I started to think about getting a complete refret done on it, which of course is not an "investment" move, but it might be fun to revisit old times without harming my old finger joints trying to cleanly fret it.

You put a lot of time and effort into this post, Frank, and I appreciate it. I really enjoyed the detail of each of the guitars. This was what I was trying to draw out with my query in the OP. But I am no wordsmith, that’s for sure.

[Chickee]

Originally Posted by Steel and wood

Man, that lap steel is beautiful. (Probably the only instrument I'd want to own and learn to play outside of a normal guitar).

I was just watching Ryan Adam's BBC4 Concert on YouTube and having a pedal steel player in the band adds something really special.

Thank you, S&W. It’s a Justice Judge FatBack E9tuning S10(single neck, double cabinet)four foot pedals, five knee levers. Of the 230+ pedal steels built by killer pedal steel player Mr. Fred Justice out of Arizona it’s the only tri-color FatBack with matching front and rear split color aprons and a black satin top. I tried to get music out of it for six years, to no avail. My son is a natural, God bless him.

[Eric Greno]

I keep an old Alvarez that was my first "nice" guitar on the wall in the den. I play it about once a month. It was a Christmas present from my parents when I was 15 or 16. Being a hoarder, I still have all of the decent and not so decent guitars, minus one mexican strat, that I have owned. A couple of beater electrics here or there gone, but why get rid of something that you have had for 30+ years?

[Chickee]

Originally Posted by Eric Greno

I keep an old Alvarez that was my first "nice" guitar on the wall in the den. I play it about once a month. It was a Christmas present from my parents when I was 15 or 16. Being a hoarder, I still have all of the decent and not so decent guitars, minus one mexican strat, that I have owned. A couple of beater electrics here or there gone, but why get rid of something that you have had for 30+ years?

I agree 100%
frankie

[EZYPIKINS]

Over this COvid break I have gone into my closet and resurrected my first nice acoustic,My dad bought for me when I was a kid. Guild D25. Haven't played it since around 1990. Dad borrowed it for a few years. I got it back as he was building his collection. But it's just been sitting and bellying. So I dug it out and gave it some love. Will never replace my #1 but this thing sounds and plays very good.

[Chickee]

Originally Posted by EZYPIKINS

Over this COvid break I have gone into my closet and resurrected my first nice acoustic,My dad bought for me when I was a kid. Guild D25. Haven't played it since around 1990. Dad borrowed it for a few years. I got it back as he was building his collection. But it's just been sitting and bellying. So I dug it out and gave it some love. Will never replace my #1 but this thing sounds and plays very good.

Nicely done. Show us some pictures!
fd

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by Eric Greno

I keep an old Alvarez that was my first "nice" guitar on the wall in the den. I play it about once a month. It was a Christmas present from my parents when I was 15 or 16. Being a hoarder, I still have all of the decent and not so decent guitars, minus one mexican strat, that I have owned. A couple of beater electrics here or there gone, but why get rid of something that you have had for 30+ years?

Agreed as well. I still have my first “decent” acoustic Alvarez guitar that I bought new as a teenager. The action is barely playable now due to bellying (the guitar, not mine ) but I’ve had it 40+ years and will never get rid of it.

Other than that, no, no guitars have been given to me so no second stringers here.

[guitararmy]

Like many of us, we traded off or sold our first guitars for something better, not realizing the value of those instruments to our timeline and how they inspired what came after.

For me, it was an early 70's Gibson ES-335, a 1975 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, and a Suzuki dreadnought.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by guitararmy

Like many of us, we traded off or sold our first guitars for something better, not realizing the value of those instruments to our timeline and how they inspired what came after.

For me, it was an early 70's Gibson ES-335, a 1975 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, and a Suzuki dreadnought.

Wow- I'd love to have those Gibsons! Did you trade the Gibsons for something better or something different?

[Chickee]

[QUOTE=guitararmy;6391090
For me, it was an early 70's Gibson ES-335, a 1975 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, and a Suzuki dreadnought.[/QUOTE]

I could only dream of guitars like a 335 or LesPaul starting off in my guitar life.. Anything “real” Gibson was so beyond my reach then.
You were a lucky kid to have starters like that. What could you have traded up to by selling these off?