Worst guitar you've owned

bgmartinsbridge

As it's Friday 13th just thinking about the worst guitars I've owned. 

Mine was a USA Standard Strat 1988 with an EE serial number, apparently an American import model.

I'd been playing for about three years, swapped my 1989 Gibson Sg Special for it.

I literally gave up playing for over 5 years - I blame the strat for being an absolute brick. 

sofasteve

Satellite strat copy in black. Got it  from hands music in Kingston 1988 for I think 85 pounds. It had no redeming features whatsoever. Swapped for a CSL Les Paul copy which was a great improvement.

zedhex

Shergold Masquerader. My first electric guitar sometime in the mid-70s.  Just horrible.

HAL9000

Watkins Rapier. Weapons-grade crapness.

Sassafras

A late 60s Strat with a very heavy body and a warped neck.
Pickups weren't much cop either.

Jason

Either my first or second guitars, Hondo II LP Custom, then a Columbus LP, neither would stay in tune and had terrible action

Fishboy7

I don't think I've had anything terrible 

Cheapest guitar was a early 90s Washburn PRS copy thing with a Floyd and EMG copies (.... model was RS8V apparently) - but I did really like it at the time 

Gassage

For the price- a Martin EC signature. Stiff, lifeless, dull.

thecolourbox

Yamaha Pacifica 012

Switch625

thecolourbox said:

Yamaha Pacifica 012

Really, why?

punchesjudy

Epiphone Les Paul Jr from the early 2000s. Neck was like an elastic band. Terrible thing. 

Stevepage

Ibanez USA Custom RG.

Bought it as it was a particular model/graphic that I wanted for years. Turns up, rust on every piece of metal, never stayed in tune, pickups were awful and the neck wasn't original (It was sold as original).

I tried to keep it and change certain things but it was so bad that I sold it on 3 weeks after getting it. 

ICBM

The only guitar I've ever ordered from new.

A Rickenbacker 425V63 reissue - I'd always wanted one, and when they made a limited run of them in 1999 I ordered one via the shop I worked for. The shop also ordered a 450 for their own stock. When they arrived, the 450 was clearly by far the better guitar, and I should have bought that instead, but I really really wanted the 425, so I went through with the original deal. They quickly sold the 450, so I couldn't change my mind.

Mistake. It had a weird nasal tonality that really annoyed me - I tried different pickups, a Rick High-Gain and even a Gibson P100 (which fits inside a Rick Toaster cover if you shave a bit off the edges of the bobbin!), but it still sounded nearly as bad. I even put a Bigsby on it in the vain hope that it would change the natural sound of the guitar, but it didn't... it must have just had some sort of odd resonance that gave it that sound.

But it did look really cool.

thecolourbox

Switch625 said:

thecolourbox said:

Yamaha Pacifica 012

Really, why?

It was probably just the one I got. But the neck was scratchy, wouldnt stay in tune, and the pickups for noisy ( I already had big noise problems at my house, but this one really took it to the next level).

I must have caught a bad one

axisus

I've never bought any garbage, but my least fave guitar ever was a Sigma acoustic decades ago. Played very nicely in the shop but in my naivety at the time I didn't realise that it was downtuned. Got it home, tuned it up and it was horrible to play, nothing like as nice as when the strings had less tension.

Never made that mistake again!

merlin

Woolies "Audition" made by Teisco. My first guitar. Swapped it fairly quickly for a Columbus 335 a-like. Also terrible. 

Sassafras

Gassage said:

For the price- a Martin EC signature. Stiff, lifeless, dull.

I found the same.
Maybe you have to play them hard for 30 years or so for the wood to loosen up a bit.

Bennyboy-UK

Brand new Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro in about 1994. It looked fantastic, and was really well made and well finished, played very nicely - nice case - compact which I like in guitars.

The problem was the sound of thing - it had horrible very noticeable overtones in every pickup selection position (Kent Armstrong Pickups).

Tried everything we could think of working with the shop we bought it from (Music City in Worcester), checked all the wiring. Simplified the wiring to replace the 3 way rotary with a treble roll off (tone control) - no improvement.

The final thing that was tried was to replace the pickups with new Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates and Custom Custom to see if it was something inherent with the Kent Armstrongs - microphonic or duff examples, or if they were just crap pickups- but sadly no improvement.

...and the very clever Wiliknson Trem was practically impossible to get set up with the off centre drum in the rear cover

Real shame because on paper it was the perfect guitar - gave up on it as a bad job in the end - something wrong going on in there somehow - a mystery.

Ended trading it for a 6 bolt Music Man Silhouette - which was a just great guitar - and a model I've had several of over the years.

That experience put me off Eggles ever since rightly or wrongly.

Bennyboy-UK

ICBM said:

The only guitar I've ever ordered from new.

A Rickenbacker 425V63 reissue - I'd always wanted one, and when they made a limited run of them in 1999 I ordered one via the shop I worked for. The shop also ordered a 450 for their own stock. When they arrived, the 450 was clearly by far the better guitar, and I should have bought that instead, but I really really wanted the 425, so I went through with the original deal. They quickly sold the 450, so I couldn't change my mind.

Mistake. It had a weird nasal tonality that really annoyed me - I tried different pickups, a Rick High-Gain and even a Gibson P100 (which fits inside a Rick Toaster cover if you shave a bit off the edges of the bobbin!), but it still sounded nearly as bad. I even put a Bigsby on it in the vain hope that it would change the natural sound of the guitar, but it didn't... it must have just had some sort of odd resonance that gave it that sound.

But it did look really cool.

Thats really similar to my experience (above) with that Berlin Pro - weird!

Stuckfast

merlin said:

Woolies "Audition" made by Teisco.  

I had one of those, ended up putting it in a skip.

Also a no-name copy of John Lennon's Rickenbacker that I bought off eBay. Absolute shite, but because it looked like John Lennon's Rickenbacker someone paid a couple of hundred quid for it when I put it back on eBay.

DB1

merlin said:

Woolies "Audition" made by Teisco. My first guitar. Swapped it fairly quickly for a Columbus 335 a-like. Also terrible. 

Oh yes, the Columbus 335. I placed a sales ad for it on here a while ago and, surprisingly it didn't sell. I still have the bloody thing. We place it outside the front door every Hallowe'en to scare the kids away.

For anyone interested in these vile piles of old tat carefully crafted fine Japanese vintage guitars, here it is.

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/153423/1960s-70s-columbus-es-335-style-guitar-needs-sympathetic-weird-new-owner#latest