What's the worst guitar you've ever owned?

[Osage]

I own and have owned a TON of guitars. Some cheap, some worth more than a new car, and everything in between. If I had to pick a worst one, I would say it was the Sigma that my mom bought me for Christmas when I was 13. I was obsessed with playing guitar and had my Dad's old Telecaster. My Mom's heart was definitely in the right place and I know she asked around and decided on the Sigma. Even back then I knew it wasn't right. The action and playability were terrible right out of the box, it didn't stay in tune worth a lick and the intonation was horrible. I really struggled with this guitar and after 2 years, I put it in a closet. I ended up with a decent inexpensive Yamaha that was everything the Sigma wasn't. When I was in my early 20's, I dug it out and brought it to a good luthier. He told me that there wasn't much he could do outside of lowering the action a bit by taking the saddle down. The intonation was off because of bad fret placement. I brought it to a guitar store and traded it for a cheapo nylon string Silvertone that I still play to this day so something good came out of it.

Now, this isn't a knock on all Sigma guitars. I know there are people who love theirs and in theory, it should have been a great guitar for a beginner but mine was so unplayable that it really made life difficult and put me off of acoustic playing for a long time. I get that there has to be inexpensive entry level guitars but they should at least be playable on Christmas morning.

[89bruin]

Martin 0001xae. There are lots of good ones out there but mine was terrible. Poor QC.

[Theleman]

Originally Posted by flaggerphil

Electric...an Epiphone Les Paul. No matter what I did I could not keep it in tune.

Acoustic...a toughie. Probably a toss up between a Breedlove all-walnut jumbo (the tone was pure mud...And I LIKE Breedlove), and a no-name six string I bought in the Navy Exchange in the Philippines in 1977.

Surprised to hear Breedlove had been a bad one. They have high reputation, and I almost bought one from eBay. It wasn't cheap.

[Pitar]

1973 Martin D35 purchased new. The wood used in the neck was not properly dried and it kept warping on me. No adjustable truss rods in use by Martin back then, it had to be returned to them for warranty repair. After getting it back the 2nd time I gave it away with full disclosure, sent a terse letter to Martin and switched to Guild. Evidently, Martin's quality control was side-stepped in that period of poor sales to help ensure their solvency. Many guitars were affected.

[Tony Burns]

I had to sell one of my favorite guitars back in the late 1980's, my Guild D-40 , had one of the nicest sounds and latter when times got better I found another D-40 - dont know know why i did it , maybe thinking new strings , maybe play it in -it was a DOG -- luckily it was someones dream come true and i sold it to them - Love is blind .
Thats when I learned -not all Guilds are created equal !

[Rosewood99]

Recording King Dirty 30. Sounded like a toy and I returned it for an awesome RK RP-06.

[BoneDigger]

Mid-1980s Harmony dread. It sucked pretty badly, but I was too new to guitar to know any better.

[JTFoote]

The worst, real guitar (and not a joke?) A '73 Gibson Country-Western. Not only one of the heaviest, deadest, dullest sounding guitars I've ever played, but the biggest disappointment, as it was an unexpected gift that I dearly wanted to love. It wasn't just full of socks; it had the entire laundry basket.

I gave it away. I couldn't bear to sell it.

... JT

[lodi_55]

It was my first guitar.

A 12-string Hoehner with a poorly repaired broken neck. The guitar was the definition of unplayable and it's a wonder I still play guitar!

[FLRon]

No brand bashing here. I had a Takamine cedar topped cutaway dread that was my worst only because the neck had some sort of weird thing going on where it seemed the neck was moving.
The action would literally change from one day to the next. Too bad too cause it had a great factory pickup system.