your first time with electric

[Woko]

Just said hello to a new member of the forum who as just bought his first electric guitar.

Just got me thinking about the my first electric guitar.

It was a top twenty (that was what it was called) guitar it was made in Japan crap by todays standard but fantastic compered to the £6.99 Spanish acoustic I was playing at the time.

This was a long time ago say 1975 or so.

So folks what was your first and when.

[JefferySmith]

I learned on a 1930's Sears flattop guitar with a picture stenciled on the top. My first electric was in 1964, a loaner Gibson Firebird (cherry, 3 PUP, Maestro vibrola, gold hardware) while I waited for a year for my $349 Gibson ES 335-TD to arrive.

 

To keep this on topic, my electric Epiphones ALL have nicer workmanship than that ES 335. I think they were making too many too fast to keep up with the demand. Those were the years when the only American electrics to speak of were Gibson, Epiphone, Gretsch, and Fender. Rickenbacker was still too new to that market, though my grandmother had a Rickenbacker lap steel.

[charlie brown]

I learned on a 1930's Sears flattop guitar with a picture stenciled on the top. My first electric was in 1964' date=' a loaner Gibson Firebird (cherry, 3 PUP, Maestro vibrola, gold hardware) while I waited for a year for my $349 Gibson ES 335-TD to arrive.

 

To keep this on topic, my electric Epiphones ALL have nicer workmanship than that ES 335. I think they were making too many too fast to keep up with the demand. Those were the years when the only American electrics to speak of were Gibson, Epiphone, Gretsch, and Fender. Rickenbacker was still too new to that market, though my grandmother had a Rickenbacker lap steel.[/quote']

 

 

Hmmmm....well, since Rickenbacker (essentially) invented the modern electric guitar into mass production (1932)...I think the biggest problem, for them was keeping up with demand, especially after "The Beatles" appeared on Ed Sullivan. Fender might have been more well known, as was Gibson and Gretsch, probably? But, I believe, Rickenbacker has been in the Electric Guitar market longer.

They have never been a company who has a short waiting period. I think the current wait, for most popular models is 12-18 months(?) unless you are lucky enough to find one "in stock!"

 

Current Epiphones, are some of the best "Bang for the buck," you can get...even with the odd QC problems, now and then. That happens, to the best of companies...even Gibson! ;>)

 

CB

[charlie brown]

To answer the question, though...my first electric guitar was a brand new 1964 Fender Stratocaster...3-tone

sunburst, with rosewood fingerboard. I still have it! It was a birthday present, from my Mom...on my 14th

birthday. I've been offered a pile of money for it, but...It's the one guitar I own, that I would never part with.

 

CB

[Guitar Chico]

Well quite honestly I got my first electric a few months ago. It's just a cheap little strat copy but I love it. If there was a fire in my house it would be the first thing I grab.

 

GC

[JefferySmith]

 

 

Hmmmm....well' date=' since Rickenbacker (essentially) invented the modern electric guitar into mass production (1932)...I think the biggest problem, for them was keeping up with demand, especially after "The Beatles" appeared on Ed Sullivan. Fender might have been more well known, as was Gibson and Gretsch, probably? But, I believe, Rickenbacker has been in the Electric Guitar market longer.

They have never been a company who has a short waiting period. I think the current wait, for most popular models is 12-18 months(?) unless you are lucky enough to find one "in stock!"

 

Current Epiphones, are some of the best "Bang for the buck," you can get...even with the odd QC problems, now and then. That happens, to the best of companies...even Gibson! ;>)

 

CB[/quote']

They (Rickenbackers) hadn't gotten generally "accepted" and didn't start showing up in San Diego's big music stores (Ace Music and Apex Music) until a while after the Beatles and Byrds started showing up with them. The lead player in my band bought one (like George Harrison's, only 6 string). I thought it was awful. I didn't like the pinkish red color, and the fretboard appeared to be varnished. It set him back $400, which was more than Gibbys were going for at the time.

 

I haven't seen the QC control problems on my Epis, but have read about them on Harmony Central.

[MacBratt]

 

 

Hmmmm....well' date=' since Rickenbacker (essentially) invented the modern electric guitar into mass production (1932)...I think the biggest problem, for them was keeping up with demand, especially after "The Beatles" appeared on Ed Sullivan. Fender might have been more well known, as was Gibson and Gretsch, probably? But, I believe, Rickenbacker has been in the Electric Guitar market longer.

They have never been a company who has a short waiting period. I think the current wait, for most popular models is 12-18 months(?) unless you are lucky enough to find one "in stock!"

 

Current Epiphones, are some of the best "Bang for the buck," you can get...even with the odd QC problems, now and then. That happens, to the best of companies...even Gibson! ;>)

 

CB[/quote']

 

I think you should double your estimates on the Rickenbackers. (2 to 4 years)

 

However, in defense of the original poster, at the end of the 50's start of the 60's Rickenbackers weren't that popular, John Lennon got his 325 cheap because they couldn't sell it in Germany! I bet without that Rick they would be out of business now. And even so, Gibson & Epiphone have a much longer history in guitar making.

 

Oh yeah, and my first "electric" guitar was a Morris ES-175D which I played more without amplifier than with .... Bought it second hand (minus pickguard, which is being fitted about now). Second was a Rickenbacker 340FG - only one I could lay my hands on. This year I bought my third : Casino Elitist (and this month, a 1967 Hofner Senator, a Jonhson stratlike, a Tele-kit, an Action strat, a Yako strat and last but certainly not least a Peerles Epiphone Dot).

[Charles Obscure]

My first electric was a white Gibson Sonex Deluxe. It was pretty nice at the time, but after I bought a Strat I got rid of it in a heartbeat.

[The_Sentry]

*queues the Madonna music*

[johntrem]

In the summer of 1966, I mowed a lot of lawns and saved enough money for my first guitar; ordered from a J.C. Penney catalog. It was a single cutaway, single pickup archtop semi-hollow, sunburst finish. It cost $29.99. I went with a semi-hollow rather than a solid body because I knew I'd have to mow a lot more lawns for a decent amp. The guitar had no name on the headstock so I had no idea what it was. I sold it to a friend when I bought a Kalamazoo KG2A, SG-type in 1969. It was maybe eight years ago that I finally found out what that first guitar was. Turns out it was a Kay, the model known as a Speed Demon. I still have the Kalamazoo, but I wish I still had that first guitar.

[Gashole]

My first was some heinous creation from sears back in 1986. It was wretched, but it took me a little while to realize it. When I did, I turned that quickly into a Hondo Les Paul copy, and shortly after that, because my powers of crap estimation were growing, I ditched it and turned that into an Ovation Viper soldi body electric...and I wish I still had that one! That was more guitar than I realized as a kid.

[jcwillow777]

My first guitar was ordered out of a J.C. Penney's catalog too. I saved for mine from a paper route. I got a solid body, two tone, black to red in center, triple pickup with a Strat type body - it was a Pencrest. I think they were humbuckers, but I can't remember for sure. I remember paying $69 for it, with case, in '64. I don't know who actually made it for Penny's.