Well the stories about Yamaha 12 strings took me back a few years. I won't provide pictures but I will "tell"
Growing up there was almost always a guitar in our house, but nobody ever played except me. I started dragging an old parlor model around when I was about 7 or 8, picking out children's melodies on the two remaining strings. A neighbor lady heard me and through her, the guitar got new strings and set up to properly play, and many bleeding fingers later I learned a tune or two.
My second guitar came the Christmas I turned 12, or maybe 13. Mother worked at Sears and had ordered it and hid it behind an old upright piano. I opened it on Christmas morning to a broken neck. It took a few days to get a replacement, but at least I got to pick it out. It was Black with white pick guard, looked like a Tele.
I never really took to the electric. My interests were more country and folk style music so I continued to play that old parlor.
One day I was walking down the street in a nearby town and saw a display of acoustic guitars in an appliance store window. Not sure how it happened, but I ended up trading off that Silvertone for a Yamaha 12 string. What a nightmare, trying to tune that thing. I recall playing in a talent show and a local radio personality was mc-ing. He was asked to do a song and came to me to borrow the 12 string. Might have been the only time it was ever in perfect tune. That was my first, decent quality, acoustic guitar.
Later I saw Waylon Jennings, I think on Hee Haw. He was playing a Fender Villager 12 string. Still in high school I rushed off to find one and again made a trade at a music store that would support my needs for many years after, until the internet, owners death, and his families greed, put them out of business. The Fender wasn't as good as the Yamaha, but it was cool. That Fender was stolen in the late 70's.
It was a year after I graduated high school before I got a new acoustic six string. A Gibson J40, still have it, a little worn and many times repaired. That was the guitar I started my bar career with.
In 1973 I had been playing full time in bars and motel lounges for a while and bought my first Martin. A new D-41. $1000 then. A beautiful thing but in all honesty a terrible guitar. I played it in spite of it's shortcomings for quite a few years, carried it to every creek bank in KY and thoroughly enjoyed it. I recall getting a call one morning in '79 to be reminded I had a lunch date with a waitress from the bar where I was playing. We met in town at this little 2nd floor diner and took a table at a window overlooking Main Street. As I was taking in the view I noticed that Martin case still in the bed of my truck. Must have been a little forgetful the night before, ..... the lunch date and the guitar.
That guitar has been back to Martin once, and to authorized repair shops on a couple of other occasions. It has never tuned properly, intonation has always been off. I still have it and it has a lifetime warranty. Keep saying I'm going to send it back one more time to see if they can make it properly playable before I die, but they are a hard company to get warranty work out of.
One of my more memorable guitars was a 1950's Martin D-28 owned by Tony Rice. When he left JD Crowe in 1975 to go play with David Grisman, he needed money and I bought the guitar he had played for many years before he acquired the Clarence White herring bone. The guitar I bought is Pictured on this album cover. Kept that for 23 years, I think, and eventually traded it for a more playable '52 or '53 D-18. Still have it but don't play it much. I have on occasion loaned it to Bluegrass players.
In the early 90's I got involved in the Pawn business. I had already amassed a small collection of guitars, but that business offered opportunities that I couldn't pass up and the collection grew.
I have at least one guitar from every decade from the 30's on and from many different makers like Martin, Gibson, Yamaha, Taylor, Guild, Gretsch, Epiphone, Sigma, Collings, Waterloo, Alvarez Yari, Harmony, Recording King, Fender, Blueridge, Bourgeois, plus a couple with no name or numbers on them. I am sure I am forgetting some. There are also a couple of Homer Ledford mandolins, a resonator, a fiddle or two, and a uke or two that I don't play, but I can make noise with them.
My favorite instrument? The one that is in my hands. During this period of staying home I have spent a considerable amount of time with the Taylor GS mini, but I'm not prejudiced, if the mood calls for different tone I reach for something else.
Oh, I do have an old Yamaha 12 string, purchased in memory of the first, but rarely played. I keep a beautiful, old sunburst Kalamazoo MI. Epiphone FT85 Serenader 12 string handy here, if the mood strikes.
O..
