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Joined:
July 2024
Posts: 22
| I was just cleaning up and I found an old photo of my first guitar. Now I’ve got that nostalgic twinge.
Did anyone here wind up with it? You can tell I was a little overprotective of it by my fitting of an unnecessary pickguard on it.
I bought this 1117-4 in 1978 or 79 at Sam Goody’s in the Monmouth Mall in NJ and decided it needed a better home around 2007 or so and sold it on eBay. If I remember correctly it went back east somewhere.
So I thought it would be fun to see what others had for their first guitar and if they still have it or just have the memory of it.
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Joined:
February 2016
Posts: 1802
Location: When?? | Stella/Harmony with burst finish - brand new with case. I was age 8 or 9, and it is long gone.
(about the only thing that remains from those days is my talent to play)
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Joined:
July 2005
Posts: 3410
Location: GA USA | My brother gave me his Yamaha FG-200 in 1980. A good and inexpensive guitar. 20 or so years later I gave it to my brother's son. He turned out to be a good musician. Hopefully it's still around somewhere. |
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Joined:
October 2014
Posts: 270
| My first guitar was a Sears Silvertone acoustic steel string, circa 1963, that's long gone. My second guitar is a 1966 nylon classical guitar with maple back and neck made by Helmut Hanika that I bought in Germany for $55. I still have it but it's neck has bowed over the years so it's a bit difficult to play. I didn't realize at the time but I see now that Hanika is a pretty decent maker. |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 5330
Location: Cicero, NY | Great topic. First one here was a guitar that my parents picked up at a local music store that (I learned later) sold nothing but overpriced junk but, in defense of my parents, neither were musically inclined and just wanted something inexpensive to see if I would "stick with it for more than two weeks" which, admittedly, was probably my MO at 10 years old or so. The git could not possibly have cost them $100. Took lessons for a couple of weeks at that same music store and learned that a 10 year old had no where near the hand strength to hold down the hanger wire strings that were probably 3" off the fretboard of that guitar so in the closet it went. A few years went by and the now 16 year old, who was working hard and bringing in a few bucks, bought his second one, an Ibanez 335 style cheapie, for maybe $250 and my playing days were off and running. Ended up trading that in for my first Ovation and, while I bought others, I didn't sell that one until a friend here wanted it for his mom (it was nylon string). Owned it for maybe 35 years or more. Now I only own three O's, one Tak and an electric Frankenstein that is parts of every maker on the planet and still doesn't work worth a shite (but it's fun to play around with building just the same) so I think I'm holding the GAS disease in check somewhat well in comparison to some others here.  |
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Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 596
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA | Hello, Everyone,
My first wooden guitar was a 1966 Simpson-Sears catalogue (Sears-Roebuck in the USA) "Silverstone" branded student/parlor size acoustic 6-string with a bridge that moved everywhere, and a neck that could be used for archery in a pinch. I later got a big Martin-clone RAVEN, (similar to their D-28.), and I saw my first OVATION guitar on the cover of GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE#2, in my local high school library in 1969. The librarian was my English teacher, and he gave me the magazine with Glen Campbell playing his first model signature guitar on the cover!! I thought to myself, "WOW!! What kind of guitar is that? Is it made from fibreglass? WHERE CAN I GET ONE?" Within a year, a friend of my brother got one, (a Standard Balladeer acoustic), because they were being sold through pharmacy franchises here in CANADA at the time. I got to play it for 10 days, while he was staying at our farmhouse during his parents' divorce. I later got a Custom Balladeer 1612-4, around 1980, my first, but not my last OVATION. I've had 5 since then.
Mike S.
Ottawa, ON.,
CANADA
Edited by Mike S. 2024-07-11 12:27 AM
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Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12755
Location: Boise, Idaho | My first was a Univox semi-hollow body that I bought from a friend in college. He needed $100 for school and tried to sell it and his Fender amp. I didn't play guitar and didn't know anything about them, so I offered him $35 for the guitar and case. Later, I found out what the amp was worth and tried to buy it, but he wasn't desperate anymore. I had to shim the bolt-on neck to lower the strings a half inch and it played pretty well. I used my younger brother's abandoned lesson books to start, but mostly played by ear and learned from friends. It was the early 70s and everyone but me was in a band.
In 1977 I sold it and a WahWah pedal for $125 to put towards the $245 cost of a new 1976 Ovation Matrix I played at our wedding. Still have the Matrix and wife. I looked for a Univox replacement for awhile, but I'm down to 19 Ovations, not playing much and really need to start downsizing again so I don't have to do a fire sale when they put me in the nursing home. |
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Joined:
May 2011
Posts: 755
Location: Muenster/Germany | My first guitar was not mine, my cousin got it 1968 as a christmas present from his father (a reddish cheap nylonstring) but he was not interested. But we often met and I started fooling around with it and learned to play (today I know it was tuned in an open E minor chord). Later than I was tought how to tune it right
and I could convince my father to buy me one of my own, this was a nice Höfner Nylonstring with solid top with which I learned the first 100 or so songs. I sold it because I NEEDED the second : a Höfner 12 string and the rest is history, over 150 guitars since then) |
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Joined:
May 2006
Posts: 4226
Location: Steeler Nation, Hudson Valley Contingent | My father gave me $75 to buy my first guitar, a used Kay. I used it to teach myself basic chords and learn a few songs: Dixieland Delight, A Horse With No Name, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, etc.; not to mention a few songs my folk group did in church. I played it for about six or eight months before I spotted a natural finish Celebrity in a local music shop. That well-worn Celeb is still in the family and living with my nephew, half-a-dozen finish cracks and all. |
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Joined:
February 2003
Posts: 17
Location: Arkansas, U.S.A. | My first guitar was a Maruha folk-classic that I got for Christmas, 1965. Mom and Dad bought it at the Yokohama Navy Exchange for all of $15. I goofed around with it but never did learn to play until years later. My Brother and I took lessons at a little music store in South Windsor, CT in 1969/70, but that only lasted a few months and neither of us learned anything. One thing, though. The shop was an Ovation dealer, and we loved Glen Campbell, so we used to lust after those new roundbacks! It wasn't until we moved to Arkansas and a friend from Jr. High showed me some guitar chords. I used the Maruha until I got my first good guitar, a 1960 Gretsch Anniversary. My Brother bought an Ovation Pacemaker 12 string to learn on. |
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Joined:
June 2020
Posts: 110
| My first guitar was a no name nylon string. After this one many have come and gone, but Ovations have always been high on my list. First O was a nylon Celebrity, now I am a mid age guy and last year have been able to afford an Adamas 1687-8 GT, the guitar I have been dreaming of for 32 years.
Still love nylon Ovations, so I also have two Classic 1613. |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 4043
Location: Utah | The very first guitar was a toy almost, something very cheap from Sears or Woolworths. That was followed in 1969 by a Yamaha red label FG110 at $75, which was a lot of money back then. I still have it and play it, though it is kept in a low tension tuning since the neck needs a reset. |
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First Guitar
