Cheap Guitars
(and some not-so-cheap)
I recently realized that, over the years, I have obtained (and gotten rid of) quite a few guitars. I never really thought about it. While not actually a serious collector, I guess I could qualify as a very minor one. The theme being: "affordable" since my skills do not justify a significant investment. Haha.
I started playing guitar when I was 13. My parents bought me a cheap little Suzuki nylon-string instrument. It was OK to learn on, and I took some lessons from a guy who had a jumbo Guild dreadnaught (with heavy gauge strings, no less) that I lusted after. But way out of my price range. I was learning fingerpicking and folkie-type stuff, some of which I can still remember.
When I was 15 and earned some summer job money, I bought a Kent "Copa" guitar at a local music shop for about $100 (which was a lot of money in those days). I wanted to play rock'n'roll, but I did not have an amplifier, so I made do by ripping apart my family's ancient Philco console radio (it dated back to the 1930's). Interestingly, it could really scream - I got some heavy-duty distortion out of that thing! Eventually, I got tired of the guitar and gave it away to a cousin.
I wish I had kept the guitar - nowadays, it is considered a "vintage" Japanese instrument. Interestingly - this exact same model guitar was used by Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison when they started the Velvet Underground!! Here is a link to a video of a guy demoing one of these (including a really bad Who imitation).
A 1964 Kent Copa guitar from Japan just like the one I had
It had a whammy bar, a rosewood fingerboard a plastic bridge and crappy tuners
Sterling Morrison with a Kent Copa
When I went off to college, I was really broke, but a friend said he had a line on some cheap acoustic guitars he could get for $30, so I bought one. It was the sort of guitar you take camping and don't care what happens to it. It was OK for banging out singalongs in the dorm. I don't even know what happened to it. I think it disintegrated and went in the trash.
Then my wife got interested in lessons, so she got a "Picadore" acoustic for around $100 which was actually a factory second rebranded Sigma which Martin Guitar imported from Japan. We still have it and it is still playable.
My favorite all-time guitar was a mahogany Martin 0-17 from the 1930s that was gifted to me by a friend as a wedding present. He had acquired it while in college, but it was in bad shape. Fortunately, I was working with a guy (business partner in a startup engineering firm) who was friends with the Martin family. I took the guitar to the factory in Nazareth PA (we lived in Bethlehem PA at the time) and they reworked it as best they could and did not charge me anything. It was a joy to play. Sadly, we had an overheating condition in our house one winter - the furnace got stuck on while we were away - and the guitar cracked all around the bout because the wood was so dry. It became the property of the insurance company. I miss it.
Here is a photo of the enigmatic, late Leon Redbone playing the identical model.
1930s Martin 0-17 & Leon Redbone
American Standard Strat
I did not play much until the late '80s when I decided to get my first real quality guitar, so I invested in a new Fender Stratocaster - American Standard. I think I paid $450 for it in 1988. I sold it a few years ago for more than I paid for it - around $600, although it was pristine. I had a used Peavy Backstage amp and for a while a Zoom effects pedal to noodle around with. It looked identical to this one - which is selling on Reverb for $1900!!! Arghhh!
I got the 12-string bug, having listened to Leo Kottke for many years, so I bought a Taylor 150 dreadnaught like this one. I found it to be pretty unplayable - partly due to a lack of hand strength. But I was also unhappy with the action, so I took it back to the shop where I bought it and the guy said - "Oh the neck needs to be reset". Ok - it turned out Taylor did this under warranty - but it took a local luthier a couple of months to fix it. I had pretty much lost interest after a couple of years, so I sold it at the same shop along with the Strat on consignment. I got back most of what I had paid for it so not a great loss, money wise. I learned that 12-strings were not my thing and that I should stick to badly playing 6 strings, which are challenging enough.
Taylor 12-String Dreadnaught
Having sold off most of the guitars and having time in retirement, I wanted to get another cheap guitar for fun. I found an interesting Ibanez acoustic-electric at a local Guitar Center for about $300. It was nice looking and had some exotic wood in the construction. Still have it and it is easy to play.
Ibanez Acoustic-Electric
Firefly 335 in Red
More recently, I got the jazz bug. So I wanted another cheap guitar, of course! I had read a lot of buzz on the internet about Firefly guitars. These are made in China and very cheap, but the buzz has created a sort of viral demand for the guitars and they are almost always out of stock on Amazon - they sell out as soon as they get them. Why? Because they are good value for the money and production numbers are low. Not great instruments and they often have quality issues, but a lot of people buy them and do upgrades or tweaks to improve them. If you buy one on Amazon and get a bad example, you can return it.
I managed to get one for $190 shipped - this is a red copy of a Gibson 335 (hilariously referred to as a Chibson). How on earth these can be built and sold at this price point is a mystery - one wonders if slave labor might be involved, which would be bad karma. This is not a true jazz guitar, but the humbuckers can get a pretty good sound.
I was pretty lucky in the quality department - the finish is very good and the neck is straight but it needs a little fretwork - there are a couple of high ones and the ends are sharp. I have a set of guitar files, so I will soon attack the guitar with them. Meanwhile, it is pretty playable, enough so that I can teach myself some jazz chords.
I have a small Ibanez practice amp to play through and still have a Peavy Backstage Plus for when I am alone in the house (which is not often Haha).
My next brilliant move in the cheapo category was to get an effects pedal box. This is a Flamma FX100 box with about 200 presets, most of which are unusable. But there are a few good ones, including vintage amp and cab models, so for $117, I could not resist (the price has since gone up - you can see it here on Amazon). It can do a decent job of getting some mellow jazz sounds out of the Firefly. The pedal can be useful for volume control but can be programmed for other effects like wah. It also has a looper for self-accompanying and can be hooked up to a computer for programming the FX. I would say that the sounds are not pro-level quality, but for a budget box, not terrible either.
