Right now I own 3 six string flattops, a Seymour Duncan pickup and a 1990s Fender practice amp.
The oldest guitar is a 1965 Gibson LGO, which was surely their cheapest guitar, selling at just under $100. It is all mahogany, with a very nice rosewood fretboard.
The binding is faux tortise. The matching pick guard is missing. The original case is, unfortunately, heavily cat-scratched.
It is ladder framed, so it is loud but the sound is not very bright. It’s kind of a mellow jazz guitar. I put Rotomatics on it in 1976. They don’t have the right washers, but I’ll put some chrome ones on it when it next gets restrung.
In 1973 I got it in trade it for a well used vacuum tube oscilloscope from the 1950s, that cost only $20.
That oscilloscope would be hopelessly obsolete, and was even then, but a guitar is never obsolete. That Gibson is worth $1500 today.
I have a Japanese Aria model A662. I believe this is from 1973 based on the serial. While the mahogany Gibson is a ladder frame guitar and sounds jazzy, the Aria is a fan-framed guitar with a spruce top and it sounds much more like a Martin.
It’s not in great shape, with missing fretboard inlays and various dings and dents, but it still sounds marvelous. It has that crisp bright spruce top sound.
This was a gift from a friend who is a professional guitarist, but who I met because of skateboarding on the silverfish forum. It has been played heavily and it shows it.
From what I see online it’s probably not worth more than a couple hundred dollars, even though it is a pre-Korean vintage and definitely of Japanese manufacture.
This 1990 Avilla is Korean, and it is my nicest, cleanest guitar.
It’s because it was purchased new. It was for my wife who took about three lessons and then put it down forever, because she has stubby little fingers and she bought a guitar with a wide fretboard. Plus she has no patience.
This is probably worth a couple hundred dollars because it still in perfect shape.
None of these guitars are getting played right now because I am busy working all the time on my car.
But the truth is that, although I would like to buy myself an electric guitar, I am really a bass player. And by that I mean, in high school I played the classic double bass.
I only took up the guitar because I didn’t wanna lug that monster around with me. I still don’t, which is why I will probably buy an electric bass.