Earliest recollections of guitar shops

[Billyboygretsch]

My first guitar was purchased from a music shop in Enfield Church St. It was a single cutaway acoustic Egmond 1959.cant remember the shop name
Berry Pianos Green Lanes Harringey 2 pick up blonde Hofner bass. 1960. Later that year bought a Vibra Artiste
I remember taking the tube to Tottenham Court Road walking down Charing Cross Road.
Lou Macaris gazed in the window for half an hour bit further along Selmer wow ! Onto Denmark St. I'm not going home. I wondered if sex would be as good as this.
A few years later became very pally with the Guys from Orange in Denmark St as I had access to many vintage guitars.

What great days of discovery

[Mike Honey]

Yes, i bought my first guitar from Berry's, but the Edmonton branch. Later on I used to play truant from school (not advised!!) and go up west to gaze in the guitar shops. i remember in Selmers one day trading' licks',( though they werent called that then!) with Tony Hicks of the Hollies. Saw most of the big names in the shops (but never any of the Shadows)

mike

[dave robinson]

My earliest recollection of seeing an electric guitar was at Philip Cann's down by the market on Dixon Lane in Sheffield, a red and black Rosseti Lucky Seven, then a little later there was an identical green and black one. Then a friend turned up with a white one and I thought at the time that all electric guitars looked like this, until I saw some others in Milners on Howard Street, Burns, Framus, Futurama, Hofner, Vox etc and then Cranes on Lady's Bridge had even more, but Wilson Pecks in the tow centre began to stock the Gibson range too. Of course all of these were well out of my reach and the first Fender Stratocaster I saw in a shop window blew me away and that was on a Sunday day trip to Bridlington of all places. It was a red one like Hank's, with a rosewood fingerboard and that was the summer of 1963. My friend and I stood and gazed at it for hours, as it slowly turned around on it's display pedestal in the window. It read ' Fender Stratocaster with synchronised tremolo - as used by Hank B Marvin of The Shadows 160gns' .
After that there were Fender guitars appearing in the Sheffield shops, notably the new Bradley's store and Cranes, but they were invariably White or Sunburst, never red. There was a couple of light blue ones, one of which I would become the owner of a little later, trading my Vox Duotone for it with it's original purchaser. Happy days.

[StuartD]

It was Kitchens in Leeds for me. They had a revolving stand in the window and it had a red Strat just like Hank's on it. I remember a red Jazz Bass too. Then one day i went to look in the window - you were told to get out if you ventured in- and there was a Burns Marvin on the stand!! It just looked amazing.

Soon though i discovered Scheerers in Leeds and I started going there. A much more friendlier shop!!

[MikeAB]

Ogling the guitars when buying 45's in Delmars in Potters Bar - 'I could play one of those' I thought to myself at the time (1960-62). The jury is still out on that!

[Billyboygretsch]

I think Rose Morris were in Shaftesbury Ave.? I can remember wandering up there in 1962 and seeing the 4 four pick up Bison in the centre of the window. I knew someone who worked at a music publisher. He played with someone who worked in the shop. I got to hold it and plug it in then didn't know what to do. What a feeling

[JimTidmarsh]

Berrys!!!!!
Yes, my parents bought me my first electric guitar, a Top Twenty, in Berrys in Walthamstow. Over the following years I made many trips there for strings, sheet music etc.!!
Happy days!

[Billyboygretsch]

Those early days most of the shops seemed to stock a variety of instruments. In many the electric guitars were stuck away in some corner with no one knowing much about them. We were always being told to turn down. It took about 20 mins to get to TCR on the tube. That was a different kettle of fish loads of guitars and noise but blokes telling you to get out or don't touch. The only pick up I ever saw was a de Armond to fit onto an acoustic.

[Tigerdaisy]

My first guitar was a cheap acoustic bought in a junk arcade in Kingston Upon Thames for £2.00...this was probably around 1960. I remember using a bit of meccano attached to the tailpiece as a tremelo arm- didn't work too well...

[Tone]

It was Kitchens in Leeds for me. They had a revolving stand in the window and it had a red Strat just like Hank's on it. I remember a red Jazz Bass too. Then one day i went to look in the window - you were told to get out if you ventured in- and there was a Burns Marvin on the stand!! It just looked amazing.

Soon though i discovered Scheerers in Leeds and I started going there. A much more friendlier shop!!

Ah, yes! I remember very well that revoving stand with the Strats in Kitchens. I used to stand outside nearly every day in my lunch hour drooling at them (I never dared to go inside). I don't recall seeing a red Strat, though. The ones I remember were sunburst or Daphne Blue and the prices were about 155 gns so, as a very junior clerk earning £6 per week, they might as well have been on the moon. This was in 1961/62.

Some time later I did buy my first electric from Kitchens, a s/h Hofner V2 in Hofner's equivalent of Fiesta Red. Much more affordable than a Strat but I always wondered why I didn't sound like Hank!

Cheers.

Tony