If you have never bought an electric guitar before you will be forgiven for being confused.  There are so many different styles, brands and prices you will start to wonder what the difference between them all is.  Hopefully this article will help you understand a little bit better.

There are countless brands of electric guitar and some of them have been around for decades whilst others are new-comers to the market.  The best known and most respected guitar brands include Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, PRS and Ibanez.  There are plenty more however these are the most recognizable ones.

The problem is that these brands are so well known and sought after that the prices for these guitars are pretty high.  The starting price is normally about £500 and a lot of beginners simply don’t want to spend the money for them. 

This is why you will see guitar shops full of guitars by less-established brands such as Maestro, Epoch and Rockburn.  They are perfectly good guitars for those who are just starting out and don’t even know whether they will be any good at playing the guitar.

The problem with buying a cheap guitar is that they don’t hold their value.  As soon as you walk out of the shop with your brand new guitar costing £150 you will struggle to get half that amount if you went to resell it. 

However with a quality brand guitar you will find the price dips initially but will then start to climb up.  Once it gets to about 20 years old you will discover that it’s now collectible and therefore worth even more than the equivalent brand new guitar.

Unfortunately there is the added confusion that Fender also has a range of cheap guitars called Squire.  Although they have the Fender brand on it, they are still lumped in with the “cheap” brands and won’t go up in value.  The same goes for the Yamaha Pacifica guitar, however you do get a lot of guitar your money.

Ultimately you need to decide what’s more important to you as a guitarist.  Is it to have a quality but expensive guitar which will work as a good investment or a cheap guitar that will never go up in value?

If you want to get the best of both worlds you always elect to buy a quality second hand guitar that’s a few years old.  This way you will be buying it at the cheapest price and when you go to resell it you should be able to get your money back or even make a profit.