What guitar/instrument have you had for the longest period of time?

[guitpic]

A recent thread about Gibson Hummingbird guitars got me thinking....

What guitar/instrument have you had for the longest time? When did you get it and what did you pay for it?

I bought a Hummingbird in 1969 for $300 and sold it about 20 years later for the same price. Had I hung on to that guitar, I would now have owned it for close to 44 years.

However, the oldest guitar in my collection, that my son now has, is a Takamine dread purchased around 1985. Can't remember what I paid for it...maybe $300 or so. So we've had this guitar for about 28 years.

Others?

[GibbyPrague]

My Cort Earth 100 which I bought in 1999 and paid about $180.

I still love this guitar and its as good a 'beater' as beaters can get. It could give a D-18 a good run for its money, no joke.

[Richie H]

I own a 35 year old Yamaha G-230 for about 20 years now. This was my second guitar. I traded my first for it + 75 usd in todays money. I still play it from time to time and I'll probably never sell it, too much sentiment. I still love it, though the sound isn't great and the playability is crap, but since I learned to play on this one, I can play it fairly easy. No one else can though...

[LeftArm]

I have a Yamaha YTS 21 Tenor sax that my parents bought for me when I was about 15. As far as I remember it was £800 which was a huge amount. We went to Chappells Music to buy it in London.
I have now had it for 32 years. I bought a replacement but I can't let it go.

[Doubleneck]

High school Gibson 1967 J45, bought new for $232, owned for 45 years. Hard to believe, amazing guitar now. Been helped by a few luthiers along the way.

[HeimBrent]

That would be my first guitar, a Puldin. Got that one seventeen years ago. Bulgarian-made 3/4 classical guitar. I still have it on a stand sitting next to my couch, and it still get`s played(last time I played it was actually last night).

[Dadgadation]

The first guitar I ever bought was an electric - an Ibanez GSA 60 + practice amp for €250,-. Still love her; she sounds horrible on the high-end and has some tuning issues, but I've never found another cheap guitar that's thís lovely for tapping runs and blueslicks. Must've been about 7 years since I bought her

First guitar I ever owned is a seemingly brandless nylon-string that I still have lying around for sentimental purposes.. Got her as a birthday present 8-10 years ago.

[Ed422]

Acoustic? Harmony Archtop Tenor. My dad gave it to me in 67 or so. I think he paid about $.25 at a yard sale a year or two earlier. Other than that, my Larrivee Parlor which I got in 99.

Electric? Guild Starfire III, bought in 75 for the princely sum of $165.

Somewhere I have the violin my brother and I took lessons on. When I got it, it had sat in my dads basement for years and all the glue had dried out. It is more of a violin kit. Lol. I also have a bunch of, old instruments that were my dads, banjo uke from the teens or twenties, a 30s bowl back mandolin, a teens Hohner accordion, etc. I have a bunch of stuff.

Ed

[rampix]

The Guild in my signature is the one I've had longest. Quite a few nicer, solid wood guitars have come and gone in the interim, but the old maple plywood Guild isn't going anywhere. I bought it used in the 80's and I think I paid around $600 for it. Other than a lot of finish checking it was in pretty good shape and still is in spite of the fact it is my take anywhere, camping guitar. I still play it several times a week and it holds its own nicely when played with others.

[rkl245]

For me it's my Fender banjo, bought in 1978. My oldest guitar is my 2006 D18VS

[HHP]

The one instrument that has been with me the longest is a Harmony mandolin I got 25 years ago in Memphis. It is the "Batmando"

[fazool]

I had a 1977 Yamaha FG-512 twelve string.

I got it from my brother in about 1980 and I had it for 33-ish years.

I just sold it this past month.

[bmc]

I picked up a 1975 Fender Precision fretless with maple board, back in 92. That's twenty years or so.

[Von Beerhofen]

The longest in my collection is an Ibanez Artist 2609, followed by a Gibson ES Artist Active and a Fender 25th Anniv. Strat. All were bought new on their release dates.

Ludwig

[kdn]

that would be an old Conn acoustic guitar i bought from the music shop i worked for about 1974/1975.
all i remember about it is that it was 000 siz/shape, sounded good to me (at the time) & that it played easy.
over the years that i had it, i put a shadow transducer in it (remember those?), strung it with 'light' strings that were more like todays mediums,
& when i needed to plug in, i ran it thru my old Lectrolab half-stack that i usually played bass thru.
it really was a very nice guitar & i miss it sometimes.
i traded it in in the late '90's for an Ibanez acoustic that i really never liked (i wanted a Guild, but let my then-wife talk me into a cheaper instrument).
what a nice guitar that Conn was. we went thru a lot together.