How long did it take you to get your first Gretsch after you started playing guitar?

[BCRatRod73]

It took me thirty four years. Better late than never, right? 1986. Teenager. Pointy guitars. Floyd Rose. MTV. Hair metal, etc. I’d maybe heard the Gretsch word once in passing at the time. Thankfully my musical tastes have changed since then.

 

[Pemberton]

About 40 years. I always wanted a vintage ‘59 6120 but never could afford one. About a year ago it was high time. Well worth the wait.

 

[Horse Nation]

18 years.

I like Rickenbackers and Fenders, but one day in a Guitar Center I picked up an orange 5120. I'd never played anything like it. I liked everything about it and bought it. Then the goal to get a Falcon began. That only took one year after the buying the 5120.

 

[rake_ether]

3 months. The Electromatic 5420s hanging in the window of my local guitar shop enticed me in but I originally settled for a less expensive Peavey that the owner gave me a great price on.

 

[toddfan]

....about 50 years.

 

[Robbie]

45 years

 

[Emergence]

There was no money for a Gretsch while I was in high school and college in the ‘60s. Then I took an extended break from playing to focus on my career and raise a family. I came back to guitar about 15 years ago, first on an Ovation acoustic I brought up from the basement and then on a Telecaster I won on an eBay auction. After two years of that I got my 6118T Annie. I wondered why I got it. Managing a guitar with a mud switch and individual volume controls that rolled off high frequencies faster than loudness was a challenge. I might have sold it but never got the right offer. That’s a good thing. All Annie needed was an equalizer to get rid of the mud and improve clarity and me to learn how to manage a complicated guitar, pedal, and amp, a Boogie. She’s now #1. So how long is that? Two years plus ten years of struggle? Does it matter? Time is emergent anyway… from the space time matrix where gravity lives.

 

[mister rain]

28 years? 30 years?

 

[BCRatRod73]

About 40 years. I always wanted a vintage ‘59 6120 but never could afford one. About a year ago it was high time. Well worth the wait.

View attachment 186667

That’s a nice 6120.

 

[Pemberton]

That’s a nice 6120.

Thanks!

 

[Dana Rudd]

Took me a grand total of 58 years, I now have 10 of them.

 

[MrWookiee]

My Gretsch was my first guitar.

 

[Lou Coppolino]

I got a 1955 Gretsch Country Club in Cadillac Green in 1984.

Paid $150.00 for it.

Traded it soon after for a Gibson CS Les Paul Custom.

Wish I still had the CC.

So, it was 26 years.

 

[BCRatRod73]

My Gretsch was my first guitar.

Great way to start off.

 

[Mr Swisher]

22 years

 

[Baba Joe]

Probably about a year and a half. I remember wanting a single pickup Corvette when I started playing but my parents said no because they didn’t think that I would stay with it . Then about a year and a half later I joined a band and bought my 1965 Tennessean in 1967. Quit playing (they were right) a couple of years later but kept the Tenny. Forty years later I started again and still have it today along with several other Gretsches.

 

[Bumble 57]

Two months. 8 months ago I bought a Squier strat to start learning on. I was curious about semi- hollow bodies and saw a g2655 o on Sweetwater’s site and that was it. Had to get it and I love that damn guitar more than I like most people!

 

[Duo Slinger]

Nine months, but a Gretsch was the goal from the beginning. I knew I wanted an orange G5420, I knew it somewhere deep down when I kept looking at the model online a year before I even started playing the guitar. Furthermore, it was my first real guitar. My first guitar, the learner I had before I convinced my parents to combine my Christmas and birthday money for a used G5420 was a crappy little beater acoustic I got off of Amazon. For that reason, my Gretsch is my first "real" guitar, and first electric.

 

[capnhiho]

Took me a grand total of 58 years, I now have 10 of them.

58 years here as well. I only have two (modded Electromatics) but they’re precious!

 

[Bob Perrone]

I finally got my Country Gentleman 56 years after starting my guitar playing obsession. It was worth the wait and the patience saving for that beauty