What is the cheapest guitar you bought?

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: gillymor
Date: 03 Feb 25 - 12:51 PM

It was a small plywood Harmony that played okay. I traded a full ounce of potent Columbian pot for it, about $20 worth. It got me started.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: GUEST,Fred
Date: 03 Feb 25 - 02:59 PM

Ray, even though mine was hard to play, I stuck with it, it wasn't until 1965 that I had enough to look at guitars costing more :)
Fred

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Feb 25 - 04:00 PM

£5 for a nylon strung Hohner

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 03 Feb 25 - 04:53 PM

6 pounds, for a classical guitar that was left handed, but wrongly stringed right handed, back in the sixties

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 03 Feb 25 - 05:26 PM

I bought a steel-strung Hohner for £75 in the early 1990s: it did me well and had a nice tone. Eventually gave it away to a friend's grandson for the cost of a new set of machine-heads.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: GUEST,PHJim
Date: 03 Feb 25 - 05:56 PM

In 1960, I paid $75 for a 2 year old Goya M-26. It had a flame maple back and sides and a solid spruce sunburst top. I sold it about five or six years later and always regretted it.
I found another 1958 M-26 about 25 years ago. It was more than $75, but still very reasonable. I still have it and play it as often as I do my Martin and Gibson guitars.

Goya M-26 - Made in Gothenburg Sweden in 1958

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: GUEST,Fred
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 04:57 AM

I take back what is said about the Kay I had. Yes it was hard to play but it must have had something going for it because I kept it for it because I kept it for five years when I didn't have to.
Cheers
Fred

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: Johnny J
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 07:37 AM

My first guitar was the cheapest.

£20 in the late sixties. Things were cheaper then and the guitar was actually OK although not special.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 08:55 AM

Of the guitars I've bought, the cheapest iirc was an early Japanese twelve-string, bought second-hand so the lass could go on holiday. Had I realised how badly the neck was warped (think: someone tried to wring a banana out like a towel), and that the truss rod nut was seized solid (brass on steel), I wouldn't have wasted the twelve quid.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: The Og
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 10:28 AM

a $10 Stella ...yellow

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: gillymor
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 12:16 PM

I once traded a Pendleton sweater to my brother for a Terada Martin copy. I got a family deal on that one.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 02:40 PM

$14.95 in 1964 at G.Schirmers in NYC. Sold it a year later for $15.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: GUEST,PHJim
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 02:52 PM

About a half century ago, I saw an ad in the Buy& Sell paper for a "192? Martin guitar, worth $1000; asking price $200. Modernly decorated." A bit worried about what "Modernly decorated" meant, I hopped in my car and headed to Toronto to buy the guitar.

When I got there, I saw a guitar with beautiful slab-cut Brazilian back and sides and the ugliest paint job I'd ever seen on the front. It had once had a huge pick guard screwed to the front, but the holes were now filled with what looked like drywall mud. The bridge was not original and had been pulled off by the heavy guage strings that were on it. The photo below shows what someone who didn't know the value of this old O-21 did to it.

tragically modified Martin )-21 from the twenties
I offered the guy $50 for it and he said, "Yes," without taking a breath. I traded it and a bunch of other stuff and some cash for my 1962 D-21 about two weeks later.

The owner of the guitar shop, Ed Dick, told me that he had repaired the guitar and it was now owned by a musician, Wendy, who lived in B.C.
I sent her a photo of what the guitar looked like when I got it and she sent me back a current photo. She loves the guitar in its present condition.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 04:01 PM

the best value guitar i ever bought was a Vintage it cost me 200 about 15years ago and i prefer it to the Fylde which cost8 times that in the 1980s

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 06:27 PM

My parents bought me a $19.95 guitar from Treasure Island (discount arm of JCPenney) that played like a truck back in my mid-teen years when I was teaching myself to play. Next summer I got myself a job so could invest $40 in an f-hole acoustic that had a slightly warped neck.

But the BEST buy I ever got on a guitar was at a yardsale around twenty-five years ago. It was a brand new Chinese-made "Mark II" acoustic and came with a case that wasn't padded. The kid had paid $200 for it and then got it home and realized he'd have to learn to play it because it didn't automatically confer that skill upon purchase. It's got really nice action and a sweet tone, and a neck that's perfect for my small female hand. He sold it to me for $50.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Feb 25 - 07:29 PM

Got one from a charity shop for £3 about ten years ago. Restrung it and kept it for about a year before giving it to another charity shop. Nothing wrong with it but it reminded me how much I hate guitars.

Bought a bansuri for the same price about the same time. Now THAT is something worth keeping.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 06 Feb 25 - 03:40 AM

Two entries here: firstly, my brother found me a Mugen twelve-string for £2 at a car-boot sale. It’s an early Japanese Martin copy, and after a new set of strings and a cog for the tuners, I really cannot imagine that the Martin would sound or play any better.

Secondly, not the cheapest, but I found a Martin D18 at the back of a music shop. It was covered with dust, had professionally repaired damage to the back, and showed signs that someone had opened a can of beer too close to it (at least, I hope that’s what it was!) It sounded completely dead, but I took a chance and bought it as it was half the price of a ‘respectable ’ one. Luckily a set of new strings and a set-up brought it to life, and it has been much admired ever since.

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Feb 25 - 04:40 AM

Jack, why do you hate guitars

Subject: RE: What is the cheapest guitar you bought?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 25 - 06:40 AM

Many years ago, I was given an acoustic cello guitar. A relative had found it outside a house, tossed out with the trash. I installed new machine heads, a bridge + a set of strings and play it to this day. Though not fantastic, it definitely has a sound of its own..
Cost = the price of the hardware and strings . A bargain!