Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm sure we all know brands like Gibson, Fender, Ibanez, the works. Those brands that come with a legend attached to their name and I'm sure we all worked towards owning a guitar made by one of those brands. Let's talk about the times we actually succeeded and got to own one of those big brand made guitars.

My First Fender
Was a Candy Apple Red Japanese Telecaster. I bought it used on my eighteenth birthday in 1994. It was a fifties reissue model with a maple neck and a one piece white pickguard, it was a lovely guitar that because of poverty of being a college student, I had to sell it and I still miss that guitar.

My First Gibson
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/guitarman91/Nighthawk.jpg
Was a 1993 Nighthawk special in cherry red. It was a cool guitar with a slick playability plus I was so stoked because it was my very first Gibson. But the sound was a dissapointment. I had the three pickup model and neither the single coil settings or the Humbucker setting had that magical "It" It wasn't until I bought my second Gibson (an SG) when I found out for myself how a Gibson SHOULD sound because that one had the magical "IT" in all the sounds I get from it. I sold my Nighthawk but every so now and then I see it resurface on auction sites going from owner to owner, I guess a lot of people found out about that guitar that it doesn't have that Magical "It" in it's sound.

My first 'real' bass:


I got this through the local music store, who were selling it for the original owner via consignment.
I painted houses all summer to pay for it, still have it & will never sell it.
It had the original RIC flats on it when I got it in 1986, but I changed to rounds shortly after.

She plays beautifully & always has, and has never had a truss rod adjustment since leaving the factory in 1976.

My 4003, which is now the v68 bass. Words can't even describe how I felt when I got that.

My first real guitar was an '05 360V64 (in '05). Before that I had a $100 electric and a $200 acoustic.

Would that be '95, Noel?

My first 'real' bass was a late '60s to early '70s Fender Jazz Bass I got for $175.00 in '72.

That got traded in '73 for my first Rickenbacker, a '67 4005WB, which I still have.

My first and only Gibson I bought new in '77, was a Ripper. I never got comfortable with the neck so I traded that to someone for a '72 Telecaster Bass, which I added a RIC hi-gain pickup to near the bridge.

The first Yamaha I got in '87 while living in L.A.; it was a headless BX-5 5 string bass (I now have the 4 string version, the BX-1).

My first Alembic was a '87 Persuader with P/J style pickups; I got that in '91.

My first ZON, a Sonus 5 Special, was purchased in '97 after getting tired of my two Alembics (I bought an '84 Exploiter in '96) never staying in tune!

I had a 5 string Rick Turner Renaissance RB5FL that I got in Arizona in '01, the neck on that was too large to play for an extended time so it went away and I eventually got the 4 string model, the RB4FL.

I have several Ricks (plus others now gone) now and have or had two other Zons and four other Fenders over the years.

My first 'real' guitar is my 2006 360/12 FG, and before that, if it counts, my Epiphone Korean Casino.

Based on my CAsino... oh Yeah! IT COUNTS!

my first big name guitar was my first guitar period. A Gibson SG Special my parents helped me buy after learning all the chords on my dads acoustic

After four years with a Japanese Hofner Beatle bass clone (and after breaking its neck at the nut), I got a "real" bass, my '72 Rickenbacker 4001 Mapleglo. I tried to refinish it myself (none too good), then last year had Paul Wilczynski (JingleJangle) do a proper refinish of it after Ted Staberow stripped it and redressed and refretted the fingerboard. Here are before and after shots. Of course, I still have it.

My second guitar, my 1967 Gibson ES-335TDC, was my first 'real' guitar:



I bought this from a music store that had it on consignment from the original owner in 1969. I paid installments from my meager income from my paper route. I still own it to this day, and I'll never sell it.

Those ES-335s play so well...the best way I can describe it is that it feels like your whole body resonates when you play it. Awesome guitar.

Another chap who didn't sell his 335!

My first "proper" guitar bought second hand for £100 (two and a half months wages) in the early seventies...

I scrapped the car, sold the guitar, but I still have the girl!

Good thinking!

My first bass was a memphis P-copy that I paid $19 for from a friend of mine after I had quit being a drummer (16 years). After figuring out that I could at least play Judas Priest and AC/DC, I bought a 99 MIA Fender Jazz, Ash body with a cream finish that let the wood grain bleed through. It was gorgeous and I wish I had held on to it. The girl I sold it to still has it and sends me pictures of it quite often. My attempts to buy it back from her have been fruitless.

My first real drum set was a Pearl 9pc double bass kit with the shiny chrome shells.