Guitar Story #1: Teisco EP
Details
- Guitar: Teisco EP-something?
- Year Purchased: 1976 (or so)
- Price Paid: $20.00 ($90.97 in 2021 dollars)
- Notes: 1960s Made in Japan 2 pickup, semi-hollow sunburst
It must have been 8th grade when the wanting for a guitar reached peak want. A kid in my class mentioned in passing that there was a guitar in the pawn shop next to the junior high school. On lunch break he and I shot over to the shop to check it out. There it hung – a stunning cherry sunburst double cutaway 2-pickup semi-hollow Teisco. The shop owner let me pull it down to check it out. He even plugged it in for me (into a refrigerator sized Gibson solid state amplifier). I don’t recall what I played – I didn’t even know any chords – but I do to this day recall that the electric clang of the stings sent chills up my spine. The tag dangling from the tuning peg read: $20.00. I handed the guitar back to the shop owner, thanked him and immediately starting compiling ways to raise $20.00.
I don’t know what I did but somehow I managed to raise the dough and the very next day I returned to the shop with a crisp $20.00 bill and came home with that guitar. I was in love. It would be many months before I could string enough chords together to create anything resembling a song but that little guitar and I spent nearly every waking moment together. The following Christmas I received my first amplifier. A little solid state Sears beauty with tremolo and I was hooked for life.
That guitar, like so many other guitarist’s first guitars, had horribly high action making it perfect for weeding out the true guitar players from the posers – if you could learn on that thing you were dedicated enough to be a full-fledged guitarist!
I don’t know how long I stuck with that Teisco but I’d bet it was a full year or more. As time marches on I’ve seen these Teiscos rise significantly in price. There is a pretty active collector base for these funky little things. For a little perspective: $20.00 in 1976 is equal to $90.97 in 2021 dollars.