I've been playing awhile, and have a '52 American Vintage Reissue tele that was recently in the shop to have a refret. I didn't have a spare electric and was going nuts without one, so I picked up a 50 dollar MIK strat off of Craig's List. It's fantastic, I like it much better than the tele. It's got the mojo, and beats all the MIA and MIJ strats I've owned, hands down. It's my favorite.
Has anyone else ever had this experience; owning expensive guitars and this little el-cheapo becomes your fav? It's kind of weird... :?
I have a Martin acoustic and this little $85 made in Romania acoustic. I LUV the little guitar; it's really easy to play. doesn't sound nearly as good, but when I want to learn something new I use the little one.
My first ever guitar cost me £35 ($70ish), I've still got it now and it's still my favourite :)
It's a Kay ET200 as far as I can tell from the guitar itself (model number on the back, faded Kaye logo on the front - seems obvious enough!), but it's not that simple. Seems like Kay and Teisco are the same company from vague details on the net, and they're identical in style, but the Teisco ET200 doesn't look like my guitar :roll:
I saw some old ugly Teisco at GC for big time money recently. $600.
I have a Crafter acoustic guitar (made in Korea) that I got for $200 that is just fantastic. I don't think Crafter guitars are usually that cheap but I did buy it in Russia! Anyways, it sounds much better than the $600+ Seagull guitars that my friends own, and it plays better.
The action was really high when I got it but knowing nothing about guitar I thought it was normal. Needless to say when I got the action fixed suddenly I could play much better and could do bar chords overnight.
Point of the story is: Russia is a good place to buy guitars. Or I got extremely lucky!
I saw some old ugly Teisco at GC for big time money recently. $600.
Yeah, they've produced some real monsters :wink:
Yep,
I have a custom made for me Tom Buckel Electric, Maple top, Mahogany body, Tiger stripe maple neck with a ebony fretboard and 24 frets, also has 2 DiMarzio super distortion pickups with phase in or out taps. Gold nut and gold plated bridge and tailpiece. Jumbo frets and a custom radius and taper. Heelless set neck, Schaller tuners and burl face on headstock. A truly nice example of luthery at it's best. This guitar has been appraised at over $5000.00.
In the other corner....
While I was in a used CD store in Pittsburgh I noticed that they had some really cheap used guitars in the corner. Peeking out of the usual selection of badly made knockoff copies of badly made copies of the everpresent strat designs, I noticed a DeArmond Jetstar for $100.00. Head stock says DeArmond by Guild. Back of neck under the serial number it says Crafted in Korea. A huge two piece mahogany body with a clubby mahogany neck that is fast and straight. Two MIA DeArmond gold top humbucker pickups that weren't aligned with the strings. I picked up the guitar because I was going to rob the pickups to put in my Epiphone Supernova.
Getting the guitar home I was really surprised how well it played, I knew that the pickups would be good, they are kinda like a cross between Gretsch humbuckers and Gibbys. On this guitar they really sound good, I've been playing this guitar more often than my Buckel! It's just got a really cool sound all its own, great for blues and classic rock! Besides, it has a really cool and different shape, think a cross between a reverse Firebird and a Gretsch Cadillac like Billy Gibbons now plays!
Every day I'm finding out more and more that the difference in the quality between guitars is not always about the price or name brand, it's getting harder and harder every day to buy a really bad guitar and the great thing about this is more and more people, irregardless of their skill, have access to instruments that keep them playing, And that is a very good thing! :D
When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming......
like the passengers in his car.
I got an Agile AL2000 Gold Top with P90's that I paid $159 for that sees more action than my two Gibson Les Pauls. :? Oh gee! There it is in my avitar. :lol:
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
My cousin bought one of those cheapie Harmony/Sears acoustic archtops that were around in the 60s/70s and never really played it. Just hung on his wall. One day he asked me if I wanted it, and I accepted. Didn't have a need for it or even any desire to play it. I had a Les Paul, so it was interesting to have another archtop even though it was hollowbody, no cutout or anything really desireable about it.
Being left-handed, first thing I did was reverse the strings, do a little nut slot thing on it, try to get the floating bridge angled correctly - the stuff lefties do when they're presented with a righty guitar.
But it was one of those 'one things leads to another' things. Didn't like the openback tuners so I put on some Gotohs (this was back in the late 70s so the Gotohs were pretty cheap), and then I decided to make a lefty copy of the righty floating pickguard out of wood.
That looked pretty cool.
I found a white plastic covered singlecoil pup from a Jazzmaster and since those pups were so thin (height-wise) it seemed to slip right under the strings near the neck with no problem.
That went on, bolted right to the top.
Then a volume control on the pickguard.
Basically it was an ongoing project guitar. It turned into my favorite 'writing' guitar. I even started taking it around to jams to play loud rock stuff with. Even with just the one pup and no cutout, it was fun doing the Steve Howe stuff.
Lots of feedback though, it being completely hollowbody. I found yards of that cloth-like foam packing material and stuffed the thing solid with it and it behaved pretty nicely after that.
It cost me basically nothing. Wrote some cool songs on it, had some good jams, even made an appearance on an LP a band I was with did back in '79 or so, but it got destroyed in a car accident in 85 or so.
Wish I still had it.
Several months ago I picked up a new US standard strat. I wish I had got my head out of my..you know what and waited. I recently laid my hands on a MIM strat. The quality of wood for the neck was far superior and had a thicker rosewood fretboard. The frets were also done very well if not better than the american made. I could have saved a bunch of money, put some locking tuners on, a set of Kinman pickups that I have been drooling over, and had money left over.
To be honest I don't know how I fell into this trap of "name brand + american made = best quality". I ought to know better because for that very reason I used to own Electra guitars which I wish I had never traded off.
i've always nto cared about made in america guitars... yea they are great the real difference in them is MIA guitars have Fender noiseless pickups and MIM do not.... well the new ones do. I own a MIM sunburst tele, i added graphtec saddles and nut, dimarzio chopper pup, new pickguard, and lower action its great fast and easy to play... i have my very first electric a Squier Strat, black with vintage maple neck... (only added texas special pickups to it).... i played it the othere day for the hell of it and i pulled of more licks and tricks with it then i can even think about on my good guitar.
No matter where you go.... There You are! Law of Location
