What was your first Acoustic Guitar ?

[Brewdude]

First acoustic was a Bruno Ventura Classical nylon string I bought to learn Flamenco on back around '68 or so. Still have it. Cheap guitar but sounds pretty good.

Got my first steel string acoustic a few years later. Think it was a Takamine. Within a month the saddle separated from the body and I returned it. Got me a Tama dread which I still have and play daily.

[pondcaster]

Was and still is a '74 Yamaha FG-160.

Don't play it much as I used to but it sounds like a dream.

Action about an 1/2 inch off fretboard! Never had a case. Rock solid.

Poor Man's Martin, indeed.

[jefsut]

Originally Posted by jwj4856

My first acoustic was in 1963, it was a mahogany silvertone from Sears and Roebuck, played like crap but I still have it and will keep it till I die.

Yea, I had one of those too. Looked pretty much like this one. Don't know what the hell happened to it, but it wasn't a bad player.

[banjohabit]

a hohner dreadnought, bought new in '77. still got it but the bridge needs regluing. i shaved the neck down after i'd had it a few years, looks funny but it works and feels fine. had to mod it, you know?

[Cameage]

Some kind of Washburn dreadnought. No cutaway, $200 new, played terribly, sounded ok.

[DOGMA Dunn]

1974 Takamine 360s.

[LGOberean]

My first guitar (yes, an acoustic) was not technically mine, but my Dad's. However, it was what I started on and played up until I left home, so I'm counting that one as my first. It was a Harmony Archtone an acoustic archtop jazz guitar. Don't know the exact year. I don’t have any pics of that specific guitar, but here is a pic of one like it.



Furthermore, what I played didn’t have the pickguard, but for a while it did have the mounting bracket, much like the one in this pic.

[davenumber2]

Epiphone PR-150.

[Paul in Colorado]

In 1972 I got credit and bought a new Martin D-18 after playing a friend's at a school function. Mine sounded beautiful, but it never played right. I sent it back to Martin and they planed the fingerboard. It really needed to have the neck reset, but at that time Martin wasn't doing that on warrenty repairs. I played it for years. Finally I bought a little Taylor 512 that plays like a dream and sounds wonderful so I let the Martin go. A few weeks ago I played a D-18 from the same era and it reminded me of why I let it go.

Still, I'd love to have a good playing D-18. Especially for playing in DADGAD.

[P Thought]

I bought a '75 Takamine F-360 new from an advertising client in Concord, California. Plunked on it for 30 years, but finally let one kid too many play it at school, and it picked up a dent the size of a golf ball in the middle of its poor laminated back. I don't have that one any more, but I've been a Takamine nut ever since, and I have several Takamines now.

[Chiogtr4x]

A 1974 Nagoya N-28- a very nice "D-28" copy- it was all laminate but beautiful rosewood. $145!, I bought it new when I was 15 and still have the receipt and catalog! Gave the guitar to an employee in the mid '90's. The bridge had come up and was hard to play (I had another acoustic by then)

[64Strat]

I bought a 1971 Guild D35 new... and still own it today.

Tonally, it is a spectacular dreadnaught.

[Starrman44]

First one that I bought was an Epiphone Masterbuilt that I like pretty well.

The one I started on was my Dad's which was given to him jointly by my Brother and an Uncle. They don't know squat about guitars and they bought a custom made guitar that supposedly was worth $1500 and was marked down to $700. Well, the neck was warped and no truss rod. The action made it feel like you were holding down steel cables with one hand and plucking steel cables with the other. A friend I have who has played for years and years said it was the nicest sounding worst playing guitar he practically had ever seen.

[Bill Ashton]

...an Audition (Woolworth's) slot-headed acoustic which I had until maybe a year ago, when I let the trash-packer take it away The "steel reinforced neck" wasn't reinforcing much any more, even very light strings made her unplayable. Back then (1966?) I eventually got a Fen-Tone pickup for her (still have that!) which got played into a tweed Champ...nope, don't have that either!

[maccaminnie]

Not my guitar but my partners. A MIJ Takeharu WK-65D that he bought in 1976 when he was 17, Gibson Dove copy and its still his only acoustic and I can only discribe it as a freak of nature. You name it this guitar has done it. Its been to thousands of parties, thousands of BBQs and even been to more campfire singalongs in its life and is still in one piece. Its been dropped, kicked, had drunks blokes fall on it and never had to go and have anything fixed and never been in a case, just chucked in the car. All the frets are worn down and it still plays beautifully.
I played it at a gig we did last year and words can,t describe how it sounded thru the P.A. The most amazing guitar I,ve ever played.
It wasn,t until I did some research on it that I discovered that they are a rare guitar and told him that now is the time to start looking after her. Hopefully get her refretted becasue this guitar will never fall apart

[emailhot]

it has been a long, LONG time since i was last here on the TDPRI, but I logged on none the less to see what was going on around here. I have come full circle in my playing and this thread has sure brought back some memories. the first guitar I ever had I recieved as a christmas present in 1982. it was a 3/4 size marlin acoustic. (Marlin, not Martin) I had it for a couple of years when one summer we were on summer vacation and someone broke into our house and stole it. (yes they cleaned out everything, but that wasn't important to me at the time, my guitar was gone) then my stepdad bought me a fullsize dreadnaught to replace it. I could bareley get my arms around it. I don't remember the make of the second one, wish I still had it though. honestly, I wish I still had EVERY guitar I ever owned. I lost my stepdad to a heart attack this past February, and thinking back on all of the memories this thread brought back, I'm just happy he taught me to play. :-)

[A.B.Negative]

My brother got a really nasty Chinese classical with the brand name Parrot on the label. It became mine when I learned more chords than him and he lost interest, but it broke when I hit him with it.

[Mike Bruce]

Mine was a piece of crapola Suzuki 3/4 flattop from the late '60s. Mile high action, lousy tone, and a sort of weird translucent green finish. If I knew then what I know now I might have been able to make it more playable. My older sister let me "borrow" it and I used it until I could afford better. I don't know what happened to it, but I wish I still had it as my sister passed away a few years ago and she's at least partly responsible for me playing guitar at all.

[MickM]

Originally Posted by superchicken_VI

Not coincidentally, it was also my mother's first acoustic guitar. She got it back in the 50s from Sears.

That looks like a Kalamazoo arch top. Gibson's budget line, sold thru places like Sears, Monkey Ward etc. I used to plunk on my step dads identical model to yours. Does yours have a vee shaped neck?

[TeleDrifter]

My first I got from my older sister, it was a japanese copy of a gibson humingbird. The neck was twisted, impossible to tune. But as someone pointed out to me from the substantial wear on the fretboard over the lenght of the neck that whoever owned it must of been a really good player. Wish I still had it just as a wallhanger.....