Just need my $80 pawnshop guitar

[nowgibson]

No scoffing here just enjoying how my playing has improved since the last time I played my Martin. Play if you got em!

[fazool]

So....I had this exact same guitar (OM8ce).

When I was considering coming back to guitar playing I wanted a cedar topped guitar but gave myself a $300-400 budget just to "test the waters" and see if I really wanted to play again.

I bought one of these and it turned me back on to playing.

My only two complaints were:

1) the setup was not perfect and the #1 E string fell off the fretboard too easily and 2) I thought the faux abalone was a little too gaudy for my tastes

But......

a great guitar and I would be happy to have another

And, like I said it got me back into playing.

[H165]

This is exactly how I got my moniker on this forum. I've owned about 150 pre-1970 Martins, not to mention scores of other guitars. My go-to guitar is a modified-to-my-preferences Harmony H165 (US$100).

[rmyAddison]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi nowgibson

No.

But I don't begrudge you the experience.

A great answer, to each their own.

I started out on a $50 brand X acoustic, still made music, but.........

it took decades to get what I have in life, nothing wrong with fine things either, especially musical instruments...........

[Pickcity]

I played a Greg Bennett jumbo (J2) for several years. It was my backup guitar and a regular player at home. It had Grovers and was extremely well made, all around. I paid $180, installed a used pickup myself, and played a lot of tunes with that guitar. Why did I get rid of it? Because I'm a moron.

My best friend is a solid professional guitar player and he has a Greg Bennett dread that he has played for many years. It is the only acoustic guitar he owns.

Greg Bennett guitars are highly underrated, IMO.

[Greg Ballantyne]

How can your favorite guitar not be your daily player, rather than your daily player becoming your favorite? The whole dynamic makes no sense.....

My favorite guitar is ALWAYS my daily player.....couldn't be any other way.....

[Rmz76]

Originally Posted by nowgibson

For the past year or more been just playing my Samich Greg Bennett series OM18CE with a cedar top/hog backnsides. Only cost me $80 and came with a hsc/grover tuners/cutaway, fishman classic 4 electronics. Comes right down to it I've grown to really enjoy playing and writing on this guitar, so much so that I don't play my nicer ones. Anyone else find this to be true that your daily player becomes your favorite no matter the cost?

I have had a similar experience with a $100 Pawn shop guitar.

I have a 95' Vantage acoustic that I picked up at a Pawn Shop for $100. The guitar is a D18 copy with a Takamine style headstock. I bought it as a fixer upper and potential beater if I decided to keep it. It's turned out to be a really great guitar that feels and sounds as if it should have cost quite a bit more. In fact I listed it for sale and ended up delisting it realizing how much I'd miss it.

I did some research on the model and found it's original list price around $500. The year after it came out, one of the guitar magazines rated it as one of the top 10 Acoustic guitar buys under $1000.. Side note: Like so many brands, Vantage guitars were also produced by Samick. I know a lot of people hate Samick and I'm not a fan of some of their history with labor practices (can't recall if it was Samick or Cort that got in trouble). I think they have cracked out a diamonds over the years.

[SouthpawJeff]

I bought a Yamaha FG335 for IIRC about $120 roughly 20 years ago. I've been on and off playing guitar for almost 3 decades and so it was good enough for the occasional use it got. Then a couple years back I decided I was actually going to start learning how to play. That was when I became frustrated with the high action and went out and bought a used Taylor 114 that played sooooo much better. I also read up a lot on guitar construction in that time period and decided to use the Yamaha as a learning project. I cut the neck off, flattened the fret board, (it had a slight bow in the upper feet area), re-fretted and bolted back on. I replaced the bridge with one I made, refinished and re-assembled. It now plays significantly better than the Taylor and gets the most use! It's not perfect though, has a bit of buzzing on the A string so I think I got a bit too tight when filing the nut. Since I didn't destroy it and it actually plays I'm also going to replace the bridge pins and tuners soon when I remake that nut.

It's a cheap guitar with a plywood top, but it plays so nicely now that I think it will be a favorite for a while.

Jeff

[nowgibson]

Originally Posted by Pickcity

I played a Greg Bennett jumbo (J2) for several years. It was my backup guitar and a regular player at home. It had Grovers and was extremely well made, all around. I paid $180, installed a used pickup myself, and played a lot of tunes with that guitar. Why did I get rid of it? Because I'm a moron.

My best friend is a solid professional guitar player and he has a Greg Bennett dread that he has played for many years. It is the only acoustic guitar he owns.

Greg Bennett guitars are highly underrated, IMO.

Maynot be everyones cup of tea but GB's have something to them, glad to hear others enjoy them. I have not seen another locally either if our guitars could talk!

[TBman]

I have guitars that range from $99 (classical) to $2,300. I play them all. I'll usually pick the guitar to play based on what I'm going to work on. For just relaxation and fun noodling I pick a guitar at random.