Your First Guitar


Guitar Tricks Admin
Full Access
Joined: 09/28/05
Posts: 3,528
Guitar Tricks Admin
Full Access
Joined: 09/28/05
Posts: 3,528
08/30/2011 8:50 pm
What was your first guitar? Where did it come from?
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact us.
# 1
hunter1801
Registered User
Joined: 01/27/05
Posts: 1,331
hunter1801
Registered User
Joined: 01/27/05
Posts: 1,331
08/30/2011 9:33 pm
VERY first guitar was a technically a rental that I got from my school. In 5th grade they started a music program (only lasted one year, so luckily my parents signed me up then). I guess the teacher rented out the instruments to the students so I got to take it home. I think my parents ended up buying it after because I have a beginner acoustic guitar that I can't remember where it came from haha.

My first guitar that I would give credit to is my American Fender Strat that I bought in 8th grade. Saved up all my Birthday/Christmas/everything else money to buy it and my dad loaned me a couple hundred under the condition that I pay him back monthly. Still have that guitar today and it's the one I use every day to practice on. Been around 12 years I think since I got it.

In between that beginner guitar and my Strat, I would use my Dad's '57 Martin acoustic. Guitar teacher always liked it when I brought that guitar in......at the time I had no idea why.
# 2
compart1
Registered User
Joined: 06/27/09
Posts: 1,410
compart1
Registered User
Joined: 06/27/09
Posts: 1,410
08/30/2011 11:41 pm
I believe mine was an Harmony blond arch top bought at a Lilly's, a local music store ..It would have been around 1959 or 60.. Bought by my Mom.. Too bad niether one of us knew anything about guitars.. I might have gotten something I could play..The action was so high. Where was Guitartricks when you need them..LOL. I still learning 51 years later..
# 3
SebastBerg
Full Access
Joined: 02/01/10
Posts: 421
SebastBerg
Full Access
Joined: 02/01/10
Posts: 421
08/31/2011 3:00 am
My first guitar was a 1990's Samick electric guitar. I forgot what was the model. I baught it at a pawn shop with a cheap all tube amp for 200$. The gear wasnt that great but for 200$ and for a teenager with almost no money...it was perfect :)
# 4
summer sand
Full Access
Joined: 02/23/08
Posts: 13
summer sand
Full Access
Joined: 02/23/08
Posts: 13
09/03/2011 3:52 pm
my great grandfathers mariachi guitar--unfortunately lost in a car crash.
# 5
RickBlacker
Full Access
Joined: 10/08/08
Posts: 1,971
RickBlacker
Full Access
Joined: 10/08/08
Posts: 1,971
09/03/2011 4:57 pm
An Ibanez Bass guitar back in 1986. Played it a few years, sold it when I went to college.

Grandfather left me his Mosrite about 20 years ago as well. Classic old hollowbody electric.
[U]Ricks Current Mystery Video[/U] - Updated Monday March/02/2015
# 6
ibanezaf12
Registered User
Joined: 09/03/11
Posts: 8
ibanezaf12
Registered User
Joined: 09/03/11
Posts: 8
09/04/2011 5:50 am
When I was 11 and after years of begging I received my first guitar!

It was an acoustic found in my stepfather's mom's attic with two rusted strings and tuners that didn't work. I was told learn to play that and I might get another.

After months of making racket with that POS I gave up. Six years later a real killer guitar player friend of the family, that made the all to cliche transition from metal to bluegrass, lent me his first guitar a Yamaha Pacifica 821 with a Floydrose trem and locking nuts (and strings.)

Now I currently own a nearly mint Ibanez AF120 hollow body (all original) I'm working my buns off trying to learn music theory and the blues. Oh, and a Fender DG10-CE NS so if anyone wants to purchase my two string "attic special" I'm looking for 10 cents O.B.O.

--Hunter kudos on the Martin. Still have it in tow?
--RickBlacker kudos on the Mosrite.
# 7
bikerbill77
Registered User
Joined: 08/08/11
Posts: 2
bikerbill77
Registered User
Joined: 08/08/11
Posts: 2
09/04/2011 8:37 pm
my first guitar was a 78 Giuld D25. At the time I had small hands and it was the only one I could get my hand around. I only learned basic beginner cords and scales. I gave it up and sold it it in 83. I needed money for a Harley I could buy on the cheap. That was 30 years ago. I still played from time to time but riding and working on bikes was my true love. 6 months ago I blew out my back big time and was looking for something to do lying down. So I went to my local guitar center and got some help. I told him I had $400 to spend and wanted the best I could get for that kind of money. He set me up with a Suire Strat and a Line 6 Spider IV. So far I love the set but had to make some adjustments to get the string heights to specs and have been playing it till my fingers hurt. I'm glad there are places like this site where I can get much needed info.
# 8
JeffS65
Registered User
Joined: 10/07/08
Posts: 1,602
JeffS65
Registered User
Joined: 10/07/08
Posts: 1,602
09/05/2011 12:54 pm
I was a very lucky cat for my first guitar. It was a '68 Les Paul Deluxe. I got it in '82

Originally was a Gold Top with the skinny humbuckers..but by the time I bought it, the finish had been stripped and resealed to the natural wood (actually looked quite nice) and the skinny buckers had been replaced with full size humbuckers (thereby ensuring that the guitar could never be restored to the original condition after the routing etc).

I got a Les Paul as my first as deal with my dad. He was moving his business (office) and said if I did it all, he'd buy mea guitar. I was looking at whatever cheapy I thought my dad would go for...He was like 'Nope, do it right...get a good one not some crap. You'll never play if it sucks'....Rock on dad.

Then in the late 80's, I traded it off for a pearlescent fuchsia Kramer Baretta (which I promptly put EMG's in....)

That's my story.
# 9
rundogdave
Registered User
Joined: 10/26/08
Posts: 28
rundogdave
Registered User
Joined: 10/26/08
Posts: 28
09/06/2011 3:33 am
My first guitar was a gut string type strung up with steel strings. I think I was about 10. Put nylon strings on it because the steel strings made my fingers hurt, waaaaaa! Think I gave it to my sister when I got a used Conn accoustic that I still have. Next was a new black Memphis Les Paul copy that I also still have. Got that for my 18th birthday 32 years....ah....a long time ago. Bought a used Epiphone Dot last January, and a basket case Memphis Strat copy as a project.
I am what I am, but I aint what I use to be. :p
# 10
hrandersoniii
Registered User
Joined: 01/31/11
Posts: 160
hrandersoniii
Registered User
Joined: 01/31/11
Posts: 160
09/07/2011 6:35 pm
Honestly, my FIRST guitar was a First Act guitar that my wife bought for me about 20 years ago from Fingerhut. I never got to learn to play it at that time as I was always busy so I gave it to my step-daughter and she sold it.
So, I will stick with now, my wife bought me an acoustic this past Christmas that go me going with learning. I'm now officially up to 4 guitars and still learning :D My favorite though is my Washburn USA Custom WI-80!
# 11
ferganzo
Full Access
Joined: 10/16/09
Posts: 10
ferganzo
Full Access
Joined: 10/16/09
Posts: 10
09/15/2011 5:28 pm
My first guitar was an Epiphone purchased back in 1978 from a local guitar teacher. I played about eight hours a day that summer and eventually moved up to a Les Paul. I wasn't quite as good as I thought, so I went back to acoustic (a beautiful mahogany Guild made close by in Rhode Island) where I could hide my deficiences playing Dylan and Neil Young stuff. I played that until 1986 when life's demands seemed to render playing too time consuming.

The Guild sat mostly untouched for 23 years so I placed it for sale on Craig's list. It sold immediately. When I shipped it to the buyer (after having a local shop restring it and look it over), he called me up and sent an additional check for $100 because the guitar was everything I said it was....looking like it came out of a time machine.

A month later, visions of that store kept popping into my head. I regreted letting the Guild go (hey...guy in upstate NY...if you see this...and want to sell it....just sayin'!). My wife surprised me with a Martin HD28V and I've been playing about 20 hours a week since.

I also picked up a strat earlier this year. Most of my stuff on GT is with the strat...but the comfort level for songs is not quite there yet.
# 12
Eronair
Registered User
Joined: 02/28/11
Posts: 7
Eronair
Registered User
Joined: 02/28/11
Posts: 7
09/19/2011 8:54 pm
was and stil is my washburn acoustic guitar, i got in in a birthday pressent around 6 years ago.

got it a little mounth after i started playing. after a while i got tired of it becourse its a western guitar. (yes you guessed it) my fingers were pracktically bleeding becourse i practised for to many hours. so i went back to borrowing one of te schools spanish guitars.

But after some mounths of hard practise, i finally got enough hard skin on my fingertips. to start playing my washburn. and havent really found the time to put it down since, and i cant bare to buy an electrick guitar. Just out of love to this guitar!

Cheers Rasmus
# 13
Jays.traas
Registered User
Joined: 04/01/10
Posts: 39
Jays.traas
Registered User
Joined: 04/01/10
Posts: 39
09/22/2011 6:28 pm
I'll never forget my first guitar, it was a no-name hand crafted kids sized Spanish guitar. I was 8 years old and from the age of 4 I'd had my heart set on being a pro-footballer when on my birthday my uncle handed me this present, I opened it and somehow suddenly I knew I would be a musician.. I remember telling my older sister that evening that, "I've changed my mind, I'll be a rock star instead"....

I'm not a rock star (yet), but that guitar changed my life and I've been playing ever since.. I don't think my uncle realizes just how much that gift changed the overall course of my life.
# 14

Please register with a free account to post on the forum.