What Was The Worst Guitar You Ever Owned?

[3rdStone]

I saw this question on another forum and got a good laugh at some of the posts.

What was the worst guitar you ever owned and why? Please be descriptive.

[Fendercrazy]

A mid 80's Kramer Beretta(high end VanHalen model). It was actualy a superb guitar. Out of the 30 or so guitars I've owned, I've never had a bad one. The Baretta was just the least favorite I guess:-)


Stroker!

[Pickdropper]

Mine was also a Kramer. It was my first guitar. A metallic blue Kramer Striker. Even back then I knew the damn thing wouldn't stay in tune. It had a single bridge pickup and an early floyd with no locking nut. I've played worse, but haven't owned worse.

[Jimi D]

Okay, mine's got to be my '98 Epiphone Les Paul... Not really a bad guitar as Epi's go, but I'd bought into the whole "it's a Les Paul" thing but just knew I'd made a mistake like five days after buying it... I sank a pair of Seth Lover's into it but still wasn't happy so pulled the pups and ditched it... The whole experience just left a really bad taste in my mouth...:edr

[burst_king]

I don't buy bad guitars. I've played plenty though, there was this one Yamaha that I played at Berklee last summer. The guy had hidden his stash, screens and all, inside of it. It wreaked like no tomorrow. Then, he empties his bong into the soundhole. Ugh. As a person who doesn't smoke I just couldn't stop laughing.

[tom3k]

Easy - Ovation Deacon solidbody. One of those shark fin shaped deals. I was 16 and it was my second guitar purchase. Super thin neck (i was impressed by those things back then) plastic saddles and (worst of all) frets like on their acousitc models - bending was painful!

Still got it around here somewhere........

[stxrus]

not counting my 1st 2 POS guitars it has to be a mid '60s (don't know the exact year Vox tornado. thick hollow body, single lipstick style p/u, thin tone and a feedback monster from hell.
the 1 advantage to buying it was the owner threw in a vox wah (italian design i was told later) and 2 dallas arbitter fuzzfaces (grey in clolor and colorful to the max tones).
the early skb type plastic hardshell case was a bonus.
the axe got somewhat limited mileage as a player until i bought my 1st strat and lp.
lent it to a friends brother and never got it back. never really cared one way or another.
:stxrus
steve

[Frank_Carr]

My worst was my first, a Sears catalog western style acoustic.

Of those I currently own, I'd say the worst is a Yamaha semi-hollow from the 70's.

[Dale]

Man, I do not even remember what it was. It was an inexpensive acoustic. I was 12 and going to be a rock star. I loved it, and it hated my fingers.

Dale

[TBoneDeluxe]

A Magnum Flying V. Now that was quality! :flush

TBD

[rbisherw]

Ovation Applause acoustic/elec bass. Sounded like a constipated duck(sorry jeff). Plugging it in, only made it worse.

[Gazza]

My first guitar, a crappy fender acoustic.

[SamR]

well I've only owned 1 guitar, my 99-00 epi LP standard. It really isn't a bad guitar, at least to me it isn't, it just needs a fretjob but I'll say it prob will be the worst guitar I own

[Aaron Maxon]

Mine would be the HONDO LP copy I had as a kid.:flush

[DLHelfand]

Not necessarily my worst, but my least favorite, was my Brian Moore C-90P. It had no soul, no mojo whatsoever. I guess I wasn't alone because it was built for an endorser and he didn't like either otherwise I wouldn't have had it.

[stonetone]

... i had the usual crappy acoustic with mile-high action yet no ring whatsoever.
but what really stands out was my first electric, a Kay bass that looked like an SG. it looked to be plywood grain under a weak cherry finish, with those chrome and black vinyl toaster-top pickups, and missing two knobs. the neck was dreadful, i mean you would be amazed.

[Black Bear]

I had an old Del Ray strat copy. Action set at it's lowest to avoid buzz and you coult still drive a van under the strings...

[LHakim]

Worst guitar I ever owned was an early Fender Mustang. Oh wait....Am I allowed to say that on a forum named Fender????

[Gizmo59]

The worst brand name guitar I ever owned was a Gretsch Anniversary model that my dad talked me into buying(I wanted a Fender mustang). The neck was warped, the p/u's sucked, it squealed like a pig & worst of all it smelled like someone had vomited beer into the soundhole. I got rid of it fast. Never did get a mustang.

[Sonar]

Worst was the '73/'74 Fender Stratocaster hardtail I bought new from Chuck Levins Washingon Music Center.

Incredibly heavy ash body (natural color) covered in a thick poly soup. Maple neck I hated SO quickly.

I wanted a hardtail because I was playing Gibsons so frequently that I thought it might be "closer" somehow.

It then became a "slide" designated guitar only for several weeks, but lost that slot to the old faithful '68 SG rather quickly.

I believe that guitar was around the shortest period of time of ANY guitar I've ever owned.

[tom3k]

Hey, that sound's like mine! any idea where it was until say the fall of '78?

[Butch Snyder]

When I first started playing in 1979, my dad gave me this Kingston solidbody. It was one of those little "student" electric guitars with 3 pickups, a checkerboard pickuguard and action so high it would have been a slide player's dream.

Along the lines of this one...



Yuck. I then saved my X-Mas money and bought a Global LP copy from JCPenney. It was 3-tone sunburst and pretty lame. I refinished it natural and slapped a Duncan JB in it. That made it tolerable.

[3rdStone]

Butch, thanks for the picture. That is one gnarly-lookin' guitar! Did ya' ever get your dad back for that one?

[sundaypunch]

Bought a Yamaha SC300T at age 15. A weird looking Strat copy with 3-singles (I couldn't afford the Fender). Even more humiliating is that I routed it with a chisel for a Carvin humbucker. At least I learned my lesson on this one as opposed to an old Strat or something.

[Jimi's Bolero]

I had a sunburst '59 Les Paul once.


piece of junk......:P

[Rockman60]

That's an easy one.
I should have known better.
Very, very expensive custom made by Hamer in 1979 and when I hang it on me, the head moved town plus my pick always got stuck in the middle pick up....
I had lots of trouble trading it later on. A good friend from a great store in Ventura,CA finally had the nerves and I traded it for Gibson ES 175 (what a difference in styles here, eh?)

And only because I wanted to have something difference.
BTW I am, and always have been, a Rock'n Roll - R&B singer.
That guitar didn't go down too well around me.
You learn as you go along, I guess.

[Don]

I bought a an American made '57 reissue Strat new back in '86.
It sucked.
It had really lifeless, dark tone and a hump in the neck.
I never really wondered why it sat in the store for a very long time before I got it.
I got a great deal too. They were glad to get rid of it.
I was so excited. It was my first Strat and I really didn't know what to look for in a Strat.

By the way, I am in no way putting down these guitars in general, just describing my own stupidity in getting to excited about a guitar to judge it objectively.

I've had about 8 Strats since then (I own 2 now) and they've all sounded different and I have loved them all.

[Cogs]

Too many to remember. In the '80s & early '90s the QC of the reissue Strats was poor, but I was too stupid to figure that out. I'd play a nice RI, & then buy the first one I saw that was for sale. My CS Homer was a turd; way too heavy & lacquered up like a redwood coffee table from the '70s. Had a '74 LP that was the worst "good" guitar I think I've ever played.

[Jim Shine]

A 1976 Gibson Les Paul Standard. Pancake body with maple neck (still had a rosewood fretboard). Weighed a tone and sounded like crap.

[Cogs]

Well, at lest their QC was consistent between '74-'76! :lol2

[lightningboy]

i would have to say a sears model my parents bought me when i was young the frets were to long and every time you slid your hand down the neck you would slice any one of your 4 fingers.
thank god they returned that piece of crap.