Your dirt cheap guitar stories.

CeeJay · February 2020

Yamaha Pacifica 112 for £50 a few months back. Does that qualify?
Plan was to modify and sell on. I rather liked it when finished so I kept it.

poopot · February 2020

A few years back I was in a shop when an old girl walked in with her dead husbands guitar... a really nice sunburst ‘63... all original and well looked after..

guy behind the counter had a look and knowing full well what it was said it wasn’t worth much and offered her £100!!!!!

She was about to take the offer when myself and a pal jumped in and told her exactly what she had and also exactly where to go to get the right price!...

scumbag behind the counter was very upset!!!!!

gilby · February 2020

poopot said:

A few years back I was in a shop when an old girl walked in with her dead husbands guitar... a really nice sunburst ‘63... all original and well looked after..

guy behind the counter had a look and knowing full well what it was said it wasn’t worth much and offered her £100!!!!!

She was about to take the offer when myself and a pal jumped in and told her exactly what she had and also exactly where to go to get the right price!...

scumbag behind the counter was very upset!!!!!

Good for you

hyperfee · February 2020

I recently acquired a Sunn Mustang (which, confusingly is a s-type, not like a Fender Mustang!). I actually got it for free although you can pick them up cheap. I believe mine is a 1991 model which was made in India but there is little information on how the Serial No. system works. The moment I picked it up I felt it had a quality to it. I've since found out that the word is they are of a really good quality and when set up rival the current Mexican series strats. I've not played my Gibson Les Paul since getting it so that should go to show what I think!

Balrog68 · February 2020

I bought a Tokai Strat, brand new in about 1983 for £99 an sold it several years later for £400. It was good but I've never understood why some like them so much.

Fuengi · February 2020

Bought this off Gumtree a few years ago for £10. The strings had not been changed for over 25 years and it was absolutely filthy.

Cleaned up if though. It's a early 70s Kiso Suzuki Takeharu.

NickL · February 2020

MagicPigDetective said:

My first guitar was an Encore Strat. I learnt to play on it between age 15 to 18 in the mid 90’s. The thing is, I had no idea about guitars or set ups at the time, so have no idea if now if it was any good. Were they all a croc of shit or what?

I had one of those around the same time -annoyingly traded a Sunn Mustang that needed a truss rod adjustment for it, but didn't know better in those pre-internet days. It's still lying around at my parents' house and I gave it a setup recently out of curiosity. While at least the neck is straight and it intonates OK, the tuners are rough, the soft nylon nut was never any good when I had it though my superglue bodge is still holding up, and the bridge block is made of such cheap metal that it's disintegrated where the arm screws in. I think the modern equivalent starter model would be better.

clarkefan · February 2020

Donkey's years ago I had to sell my only guitar to pay the rent. I asked a drummer friend to ask his band mates if they had anything for cheap available. Next day he rocked up with a Hohner Strat, for free, from his guitarist band member. He'd been in the same place and a bloke had given it to him on condition he only get rid of it to help someone out. He gave it to me on the same condition.

I played it for about 3 years until I could afford a Squier.

30 years later I got it back from sitting in my brother's loft for 20 years, I was going to clean it up and put it on Gumtree for free or something, find someone who needed it.

But in the meantime it had taken a lot of knocks and the neck was badly damaged. It wasn't worth fixing and I binned it.

Still bothers me.

57Deluxe · February 2020

won an ebay auction for this when they were punted out new starting at 99p in 2007. Cos it was silver, no-one bid on this one, but delivery was £15.50 from Germany though (rip off!)

Probably the best sounding guitar I own and has a lovely neck, action, weight and resonance and PUPs that do all you ask. At the time, I had just bought a new £2k Gibson 335 that I lusted after for years... sadly for the 335 - this is a better guitar and gets played all the time!

Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/03/81/dc/0381dc41a4864c77cae7e079222b8f9c.jpg

thegummy · February 2020

poopot said:

A few years back I was in a shop when an old girl walked in with her dead husbands guitar... a really nice sunburst ‘63... all original and well looked after..

guy behind the counter had a look and knowing full well what it was said it wasn’t worth much and offered her £100!!!!!

She was about to take the offer when myself and a pal jumped in and told her exactly what she had and also exactly where to go to get the right price!...

scumbag behind the counter was very upset!!!!!

Good on you, dunno how you could have stopped yourself at just that.

If I was you and remembered I would be naming and shaming, if not on this forum then at least somewhere.

JohnCordy · February 2020

This was £20...

AntonHunter · February 2020

martin8708 said:

I answered an old fashioned classified add in our local rag a few years ago , somebody was selling off their deceased fathers music gear , all stashed in a static caravan in the back garden .
Under a pile of cables and shopping bags of leads lay a Squier Strat , the guy wanted £50 for the guitar . I bought a few old no-name speaker cabs and leads and he included the Strat for £100 in total
That JV Strat is the best Strat I have ever owned , sold off my Custom shops as I just stopped playing them , best £50 I have ever spent .

Mine's a similar story, except my uncle was tasked with finding me a guitar when i started learning at 12 years old, got a Squier Strat and Squier amp together for £100, pretty beaten up finish, but played alright. Turns out years later when I take it for a set up, it's a JV series. 15 year old me didn't believe the guy when he said "people are looking for these", but 36 year old me is never parting with it. Spent a couple of hundred quid on new hardware and new frets a couple of years back and absolutely love it. Especially enjoy the looks of disdain from people who think they know what "Squier" equals, much like my 15 year old self...

(Still got the amp too, it's knackered)

jeztone2 · February 2020

A friend owns an old Hofner F hole acoustic from the 1960’s which he bought for a tenner and a bag of weed some years ago.

AdrianW · February 2020

What about a Columbus Les Paul Sunburst copy £35 in 1976, still rockin! Tried a genuine LP but just didn't seem that much better for the price

cpcompany · February 2020

Someone left a Kramer super strat and guitar stand in the rubbish collection of my apartment block when I lived in Osaka. I hadn’t played guitar for years and it got my interest back. I am still the shittest guitarist you will hear in your life mind.

Ad for proper bargains , I’ve never had one unfortunately. I’ve let a fender p bass and a fender strat plus go ridiculously cheap though which still boils my piss.

YellowLedBetterMan · February 2020

So. My story has just begun.

I picked up a Pacifica on eBay for £48 today. It looks battered but as long as it works, I don't mind.

I intend to use it as a fixer-upper project to learn how to do basic guitar maintenance tasks, like polishing frets and soldering.

MagicPigDetective · February 2020

NickL said:

MagicPigDetective said:

My first guitar was an Encore Strat. I learnt to play on it between age 15 to 18 in the mid 90’s. The thing is, I had no idea about guitars or set ups at the time, so have no idea if now if it was any good. Were they all a croc of shit or what?

I had one of those around the same time -annoyingly traded a Sunn Mustang that needed a truss rod adjustment for it, but didn't know better in those pre-internet days. It's still lying around at my parents' house and I gave it a setup recently out of curiosity. While at least the neck is straight and it intonates OK, the tuners are rough, the soft nylon nut was never any good when I had it though my superglue bodge is still holding up, and the bridge block is made of such cheap metal that it's disintegrated where the arm screws in. I think the modern equivalent starter model would be better.

Interesting, as I suspected, I learnt to play on an awful guitar. Perhaps battling through that and sticking was character building!

Stuckfast · February 2020

I have an old Kay through-neck bass that I got in a trade for something I didn't pay for, so I guess it was free. It's very beaten up and the pickups are too high, but it's no longer possible to get a screwdriver to bite on the crosshead screws that lower them.

Oh, and my friend threw in his Rhodes piano when I bought an organ off him.

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