Tell me about your first good guitar

[JJeweler]

1963, I was a 5’4” chubby junior in high school, a dreadnaught was just too big. The man in the guitar store recommended a sweet little 1960 Gibson LG3 that he had just taken in on trade. For $100. I walked out with the guitar and a hard case. She’s had a long life, been down some rough roads, and has the scars to prove it. She is still the best sounding guitar I own. I play her almost every day.

[frenchie]

A 1980 (could be 1978) Daion 78 Heritage. I had seen a guy on UK TV playing a similar Daion and loved the styling. I saw this one in Len Stiles music shop in Lewisham in February 1982 for £130 S/H and had to have it. I still have do. It's never needed any adjustments, sounds fabulous and still regularly played.

[ssstewart]

after playing tuba, then classical guitar ( crappy dept store ones) then a couple yammy acoustics, my Dad got me a 57 hollow-body for my 15th birthday. I played the heck out of that guitar and worshipped it, that was my first "good guitar"

[fitness1]

Electric - '78 USA B.C. Rich Mockingbird....

which I sold in '82 to buy my first good acoustic - Yairi DY62C.

[catdaddy]

Got a new Gibson Hummingbird 54 years ago. Still love playing it.

[Zissou Intern]

I made a 4.5 hour drive to the Denver-Boulder area to find a Martin. I was smitten with a D18V at Wildwood in Louisville. After playing it for over an hour, I just didn't like the 1 11/16" nut. Then owner Steve Meseple, asked what guitar I owned. I told him is was a Seagull S6, and he told me that had a wider neck. I didn't know anything about spec's like that back then.

Steve then handed me a D18VMS 12 fretter with a 1 3/4" neck. I loved the tone and liked the extra fretboard real estate, but it was out of my price range. So laid down every penny I had, and put it on layaway. I drove back down to the Front Range to pick it up a month later.

In the end the Martin neck profile was too full for me. I traded that 12 fretter for a Huss and Dalton TDM. Now days, I love full profile necks, and I'd like to have that D18VMS back.

[Mr Bill]

I started learning on a Harmony that my parents bought for my brother, who they figured had talent. He was never interested in playing, so I 'annexed' it from him.

Couple years later I went off to college, and bought a Ventura 12 string. I developed some strong left-hand fingers playing that thing! I couldn't afford strings very often, so I eventually played it as a six string after the octave strings started breaking.

After two years of college, I bought a new D-28 that had been in a local shop for a couple of years and nobody had wanted it. 53 years later, I still have it.

My heroes played Martins, so it was only natural to get one. I had some college loan money left over and that's what I used to pay for it. $435 with case.

I know, I know - I shoulda bought a dozen of them.

[Xinzheng]

A 1978 Guild D-50 NT. I still regret selling it about twelve years ago.

[6L6]

1962 Gibson J-50 that I bought in 1966 from a fellow college student.

He had just flunked out and received his draft notice for Vietnam. He was splitting for Canada and selling all his (few) possessions to raise cash. I got the guitar cheap and it was my only acoustic until 1976 when I bought a new Martin HD-28.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

It must be related to the average age of AGF members, but I too purchased a Ovation Balladeer as a first "good" acoustic guitar.

Indeed. In 1962 my first was a Sears Bargain Basement return a perfectly horrible Silvertone that would not stay in tune at all, even while tuning
It almost caused me to give up on guitar completely

[Humbuster]

after assaulting an Ibanez Concord for many years...came across a Gibson Gospel in a small shop in South Dakota. Wife was in a good mood that day and that Gibson found a home. Was the beginning of a long appreciation of Gibsons from Montana. *



* + the occasional Guild.

[rule18]

My first "good" guitar was an 1981-ish Yamaha 12 string with a burst top (model number escapes me because I didn't care back then). My first really good guitar was a 2000 714ce.

[Glennwillow]

My first really good guitar was a 1967 Martin D-35. I pretty much paid my way through college to become an engineer, so I never had money to spend on anything except my education. I certainly don't regret that.

However, I really wanted a really good guitar. When I turned 21 my dad took me into downtown Cleveland (OH) where they were having a 40%-off-list Martin sale. This was the spring of 1969. I tried a bunch of guitars -- a D-18, D-28, and then a D-35. We all agreed, including the store owner, that for my kind of playing the D-35 was the winner, though it was more expensive than the other models by a little. But my dad bought the guitar anyway. It cost him an entire paycheck.

I still have that guitar. It was a huge gift.

- Glenn

[tinnitus]

I'd already plowed through decades of electric guitars, amps and basses when I decided my only acoustic guitar, a plywood acoustic Madiera (Guild knockoff) had no tone no matter how I strung it. It was a slick player but it sounded dead.

Left the house with "Gibson/Martin" money in my pocket and visited several shops to play everything I could put my hands on. Found a beautiful Larrivée C-03 with a gorgeous tone that made everybody rave for 20 years until I finally sold it in (quasi) despair.

In those two decades I acquired other acoustics that all played wonderfully once I got them set up the way I prefer (for aggressive rock/blues with a flat pick). Sadly, I finally realized the Larrivée was user-unfriendly for my purposes. Between narrow string spacing at the nut and saddle, and a weird, flat-ish compound fretboard radius, I made more mistakes on that guitar than anything else I played.

Among other intricate tunes/passages (for me anyway), the intro/outro to Castles Made of Sand always resulted in annoying clumsy mistakes. It's possible I was just psyching myself out, but it was a consistent and inevitable pattern. I sold that one and never looked back.

No regrets, it was a valuable lesson for me regarding what kind of general characteristics and setup work best in my hands. If I find another sweet sounding Larrivée that handles more like my current 4 warhorses, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

[Rosette]

My first good one was a used Santa Cruz F Model purchased about 10 years ago. I still have it and I still love it. I bought it after years of playing budget Gibson and Takamine acoustics.