What was your first electric guitar?

DocNrock

Master Member
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4,295
I'd be interested to know who started with what.  Think waaay back.

Mine was a Sears, yes, Sears, SG copy I got for my birthday from my grandparents.  I think it cost $69.  They saw the page folded over in the Sears catalog.
 
This exact model and matching amp.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Teisco-Del-Rey-Guitar-mdl-ET-2004-nice_W0QQitemZ180248206703QQihZ008QQcategoryZ2384QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Two weeks later I got a $19.99 Radio Shack fuzzbox.
 
It was only about 5 years ago... a Peavey Raptor EXP Plus, $140 new.  (HSS 2-knob strat copy)  I also got (and still have) a Peavey Rage 158, $60 used.  (15-watt solid state combo)  It actually has a nice clean sound.  The distortion sounds like... transistors.

My second electric was my first Warmoth!  I also logged about 1 year playing guitars at stores in the intervening 5 years... but not any more, they just make me miss my Warmoth!
 
For a few years I played only acoustic. So my first electric, when the day came, was nicer than the average firstie... fender highway 1 strat. It's done me well in the past but I cannot get it to sound good to my ears anymore.
 
The first was a red "student guitar".  The only words on the thing were "made in korea".  Talk about No-Name.  Two years later I got a very used, pre-lawsuit Ibanez LP copy that I knida wish I still had. 
 
1979/80 Epiphone Wilshire (still have it) Sunn Coliseum head and cab (traded for early 70's Peavy Classic 2x12 tube /solid state). I still have this amp and it still sounds great. Has a solid state pre-amp and 2 6L6 power amp section.

Brian
 
I still have my first guitar. It's a teensy little classical acoustic my aunt had in the 70's. I found it when I was helping her move, and it was just sitting in a case with a bunch of peace stickers and other such things. I asked her how long it had been there and she said "Oh! I forgot I had that thing!". Well, she gave it to me as long as I promised to take care of it. :) It has no names anywhere on it.....so I have no idea what in the world it is  :laughing7:
 
In 1972 I traded about $80 of dirt weed for a '59 Fender Musicmaster in original tweed case and a matching tweed Champ amp.
 
My first one was an old 70's Japanese SG Copy! It should still be somewhere in my parents home..
 
From age 7 to about 14 it was a nylon string student guitar.
@ 14 for Christmas I got my first electric, a Gemco special.
@ 16 I built my first mahogany solid body & attached a vintage Danelectro neck to it.
That became my primary guitar until Christmas 1983 when I received an Ibanez Rocket Roll II cherry sunburst V with the Hard Rocker Pro trem.  That was a killer instrument.
From there, I had countless Ibanez's, RG550's, Radius's, RG370EX, 1981 Ibanez Destroyer, Jackson Soloists, Ibanez RG320, Ibanez RG7620, ESP/LTD's, PRS CE3 Bolt-on, Peavey Nitro, Several Fender Strats, & I've been playing the TFS6 for almost 12 years.

I've assembled several Warmoth strats & soloists for customers when I lived in the SF Bay Area & did repair work & some tech work on the side from the day job I had back then.  That was in the early 90's.
 
Oh you had to ask...  1985, "Hondo" Pressboard Special.  Or, PS, or Piece of Sh....  This thing was crap.  I got a Fender Contemporary about 3 years later and made a quantum leap in playing because it had a reasonable neck on it.  Why I still have the Hondo, I dunno.  Honestly, I don't know why.
My_First_Hondo-1.jpg


Patrick

 
How about a pair..73 Bradley SG and a 73 Bradley EB-3.

Check out the "Lets Boogie" blacklight poster ...Those were the days.

bradleyguitars.jpg


Cheers.
 
Hondo II "Les Paul" copy...£65 at the time (c. 1977)
Ply body, one (DiMarzio!) pickup (with coil tap mini switch).
Sunburst finish, trans red on the sides (showing the ply construction!)
Bolt on neck made of some sort of wood (I think), cheap tuners.

BUT, it was my first electric and I thought it was ace!
It was also the subject (victim?) of my first attempts at a fret dress and set up  :doh:
 
silvertone harmony from sears strat type body two pickups. spruo amp with two tens.
 
Wishing to start out with my "dream machine" - I drug my folks to a local store to sign for my loan on a used Fender P-Bass at the start of Summer, 1967. Had just gotten a job, and worked all summer to pay  that candy apple red beauty off - then add a used blonde Fender Bassman amp. Got my first car in the Fall - 16 & cool :guitaristgif:
 
Hohner professional strat style guitar HSS for X-mas when I was 12.   

The guitar actually had a coil tap switch, which of course I didn't realize till years later what it was.  Oh well..... I sold it when I was 14 to buy a Gibson, which I sold when I was 16 or 17 to buy my Ibanez.

I don't really miss it at all... I miss the gibson though. :)

erik
 
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