Your first guitar...

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bclaire
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Your first guitar...

Post by bclaire » Sat Feb 27, 2021 2:13 pm

Let's see some pix of your first guitars! (remember it has to be hosted elsewhere - can be facebook)

Mine was a late 60's Teisco E100 (pronounced tay-sco) fairly unplayable but got me started. Mine was stolen but I just cobbled together this Teisco from some bits from two guitars and it's identical to my first one! This is now set up to be "playable" but soundwise, the pickup is so microphonic that it almost immediately feeds back through the AD30TC. Apparently, those pickups are super desirable thanks to Ry Cooder.

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Jondog
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Re: Your first guitar...

Post by Jondog » Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:10 am

My first was a Tradition acoustic and it was actually pretty nice, that lasted a year before trading it in for a red Barracuda Strat copy with a humbucker in the bridge. It’s long gone, busted up at a house party back in the 90’s. Really cheap guitar, but I thought it was awesome until I bought my first Fender Strat which I still have although the only original parts are the body and pickguard.
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bfitz
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Re: Your first guitar...

Post by bfitz » Sun Feb 28, 2021 8:01 am

My first electric guitar was a Samick Strat that I bought when I was 15 for £65 off a friend of mine and I paired that with a squier SP10 amplifier. Me and some local kids started a band and we were terrible. Nobody could really play except for the bass player and there were five of us :lol: Our first gig came and my guitar just stopped working at sound check. A buddy of mine lended me his Mexican Fender Strat and I quickly came to terms with my pretty inferior copy. The next thing I did was get a job in our local Tesco supermarket 😉 got some bucks together and bought an epiphone SG copy which still exists though not in my possession. I am trying to find that photo cos it was a decent guitar and it helped me get into my next band 'Grandmere Poulet' and we weren't too bad. I also think I have a copy of a song we recorded somewhere. I'll see if I can find it :lol: :lol:
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Boy_Narf
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Re: Your first guitar...

Post by Boy_Narf » Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:54 pm

I've held onto mine! Got it 27 years ago!!! My parents got it for me with a Peavy Rage 158. Love the "Axe-Sac" haha. I remember the other guy in my class had the "Axe-Bra", basically the same but it just had straps and didn't cover the horns. Crazy to see wear on a guitar that was actually played for hours a day. Back then you couldn't get me to put it down. Shame I lost motivation in my teens and haven't improved much since then. Lessons stopped being cool and the guitar went into the closet when I started teaching myself drums.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/huWhv4JRCsA1L3wa9

Jondog
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Re: Your first guitar...

Post by Jondog » Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:18 pm

Boy_Narf wrote:
Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:54 pm
I've held onto mine! Got it 27 years ago!!! My parents got it for me with a Peavy Rage 158. Love the "Axe-Sac" haha. I remember the other guy in my class had the "Axe-Bra", basically the same but it just had straps and didn't cover the horns. Crazy to see wear on a guitar that was actually played for hours a day. Back then you couldn't get me to put it down. Shame I lost motivation in my teens and haven't improved much since then. Lessons stopped being cool and the guitar went into the closet when I started teaching myself drums.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/huWhv4JRCsA1L3wa9
I remember going into a guitar shop in the early 90’s and they had a wall full of those spandex guitar covers, except they were all neon colors with totally radical graphics in them! Animal prints, graffiti, etc... :lol:
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groundmeat
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Re: Your first guitar...

Post by groundmeat » Fri Mar 05, 2021 8:02 pm

I first picked up a guitar when I was probably 12 I think. I found it sitting in a dark dank corner in the basement, behind a bunch of rusty old junk, covered in spider webs. It only had 5 strings on it. But I tuned a couple of the strings to the same note and using one finger across the strings I managed to "sort of" play the tune to Black Sabbaths Iron Man, which I hadn't actually heard at the time, I only heard Beavis and Butthead grunting the tune on MTV. And my dad saw that I had dug out his old guitar and was actually making an effort to play, so for Xmas he bought me a new Hohner Western series acoustic. It was a sort of cheapy guitar at the time, but now it would be considered mid grade or high end probably since it was made of ACTUAL REAL WOOD, GASP! I played on that for a couple more years, then I saved my money working a summer job to get my first electric, which was an old used BC Rich Mockingbird NJ in a butt ugly hot pink color. What I REALLY would've wanted to have was a teal colored Gibson strat thing I saw in another local music store, but my dad wouldn't buy it at the time. And by the time I got that BC Rich, I was really into death metal stuff, especially Death/Chuck Schuldiner, so I just HAD to have a BC Rich like him. It was a HORRIBLE guitar. I still have it. I've never sold any guitars I ever had, but I've never had that many either.

Anyway, here's some pics of the first one. From what my dad says, it was an old Silvertone and he scratched the logo off the headstock when he was a kid. I dunno the year or the model or have ANY clue at all about the value of it. I don't imagine it's worth more than 20 bucks. If I had to guess, it's maybe a really late 50's or really early 60's (since he was born in '54). If anybody knows what the hell it is, or where I can find out what the hell it is, lemme know, by all means.

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bclaire
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Re: Your first guitar...

Post by bclaire » Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:10 am

groundmeat wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 8:02 pm
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Wow. Made in USA. I wonder who was making it for them. Probably Kay...

groundmeat
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Re: Your first guitar...

Post by groundmeat » Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:34 am

I'm not sure, thats the only markings inside it. If I had a tiny camera on some kinda crookneck thing, I could take pics of the inside of it to show you the construction method of it. It's AWFUL. It's NOT made properly. The wood they used for the top and back is too thick and heavy to ever get a decent sound. The neck joint inside is just... I don't even know how to describe it. "Tragedy" is perhaps a suitable word. :lol:

It's probably a good thing that it was made with the wrong materials. It's kid sized I guess, and so it was built to stand up to the abuse of a destructive little kid. I remember getting mad and swinging it like an axe and smacking my bed mattress with it many times. Or just pretending to be a rock star like Pete Townsend smashing a guitar. A "real" guitar would've broken under that abuse. The cracks in the back are not from such abuse, that's from drying out and splitting while sitting in the dusty closet for the last 20 years.

It's possible it could be something made for Sears & Roebuck. There used to be the old Sears & Roebuck building in East Atlanta. From what my mom told me, her mom used to work there for a time. And from what my dad told me, his family shopped there every now and then when he was little. Today, it's still there, and for a while it operated as Atlanta City Hall East, before they finally sold it to a bunch of dirty hipsters who turned it into Ponce City Market. But I think that's where he said his dad bought it from was the old Sears & Roebuck store in Atlanta. Not sure if Sears themselves actually made it, or maybe Kay or someone else was the builder. From what little I've read about Silvertone and Kay history, it's very confusing and several different companies were making guitars under several different names at different points. Identifying a specific year for some of them based on appearance alone can be as difficult as performing hemorrhoid surgery on yourself with a dental mirror and a butter knife.

You're picturing that now, aren't you. You're welcome.

bclaire
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Re: Your first guitar...

Post by bclaire » Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:11 pm

groundmeat wrote:
Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:34 am
"Tragedy" is perhaps a suitable word. :lol:
Identifying a specific year for some of them based on appearance alone can be as difficult as performing hemorrhoid surgery on yourself with a dental mirror and a butter knife.

You're picturing that now, aren't you. You're welcome.
Thanks for that.

I had a "Fender" 60's acoustic that I think was made by Harmony. Equally unplayable...

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