I played ‘Asian junk’ for many years, and got enormous pleasure from those guitars. I’m fortunate, in my dotage, to be able to afford high-end American and hand-built Irish guitars but, apart from feeding my own ego, do they give me any more pleasure than my Tanglewood, Yamahas, etc. did at the time I owned them? Probably not. And I certainly worry about them more than I did when I was playing ‘Asian junk’.

My first guitar (in 1961) was a £3/17s/6d no-name ‘Spanish’ guitar with a tail-piece, steel strings, and a 1/2” 12th-fret action, bought for me by my dad from our local electrical/record shop on 20 weeks HP - virtually unplayable above the third fret. I loved it so much I hardly ever put it down, even took it to play on the crapper. And it gave me a real appreciation of those ‘better’ guitars that came along much, much later.

Happy daze! ;-)