🎸 Every Single Guitars — Official Vintage Guitar Database, 16 Legends Gear Archive & Daily Rock History
Welcome to the official interactive music database and gear archive of Every Single Guitars (everysingleguitars.com). Click any guitarist or historical feature below to launch the interactive timeline above:
👑 16 Guitar Legends — Complete 5-Era Guitar Evolution Index
1957 Hofner President ➔ 1959 Fender "Dragon" Telecaster (Led Zeppelin I & Stairway to Heaven solo) ➔ 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard "Number One" ➔ 1971 Gibson EDS-1275 Double-Neck & Danelectro 3021 (DADGAD Kashmir).
1964 Cherry Gibson ES-335 ($847.5K) ➔ 1960 "Beano" Les Paul & 1964 "The Fool" SG ➔ 1956/57 Composite Fender Stratocaster "Blackie" ($959.5K) & "Brownie" (Layla) ➔ 1939 Martin 000-42 (MTV Unplugged).
1962 White Telecaster ➔ Bill Lewis 24-Fret (Money) ➔ 1969 Fender "The Black Strat" ($3.975M auction record, Comfortably Numb) ➔ 1955 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop P-90 (Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2) & 1954 Strat #0001.
1951 "Jimbo" Broadcaster ➔ 1963/62 Fender Stratocaster "Number One" (.013–.058 gauge strings, 1959 pickups, lefty tremolo) ➔ 1965 "Lenny" Strat ($623.5K) ➔ Charley's Lipstick Strat & SRV Signature Stratocaster.
1959 Supro Ozark ➔ Flipped 1965/66 Monterey Pop Hand-Painted Stratocaster ➔ 1968 Olympic White Woodstock Strat "Izabella" ($2M) & 1968 "Black Beauty" ➔ 1967 Hand-Painted "Love Drops" & 1969 Left-Handed Gibson Flying V.
B.C. Rich Mockingbird ➔ 1985 Kris Derrig '59 Les Paul Replica (Appetite for Destruction & Sweet Child O' Mine) ➔ 1987 Factory-Second Gibson Les Paul "Jessica" ➔ Ex-Joe Perry 1959 Tobacco Burst (November Rain).
1954 Contoured Fender Esquire ($430K) ➔ 1954 Gibson Les Paul "Oxblood" (£1.06M record, Blow by Blow) ➔ 1959 "Tele-Gib" (birthed the Seymour Duncan JB humbucker) ➔ Pickless 1990 "Anoushka" Olympic White Stratocaster (£1.008M).
1962 Epiphone Casino ➔ 1959 Sunburst Gibson Les Paul with Bigsby + Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz ((I Can't Get No) Satisfaction) ➔ 1953 Fender Telecaster "Micawber" (5-string Open-G tuning, reversed PAF neck pickup) ➔ 1959 Black Gibson ES-355.
1958 Resonet Futurama ($1.27M) & 1957 Gretsch Duo Jet ➔ 1963 Rickenbacker 360/12 (A Hard Day's Night) ➔ 1961 Sonic Blue "Rocky" Stratocaster ➔ 1957 Cherry Gibson Les Paul "Lucy" ➔ 1968 All-Rosewood Rooftop Telecaster.
1963–64 Homemade "Red Special" built with his father from an 18th-century fireplace mantel, motorcycle valve springs, Burns Tri-Sonic pickups in series & a sixpence coin pick ➔ Deacy Amp & Vox AC30s ➔ 1950s Black Telecaster (Crazy Little Thing Called Love).
Homemade plastic fingertips & .008 banjo strings after a 17-year-old sheet-metal factory accident ➔ 1964/65 Left-Handed Cherry Gibson SG Special "Monkey" (recorded Black Sabbath's debut in 1 day) ➔ 1975 Jaydee "The Old Boy" 24-Fret SG.
1970/71 Gibson SG Standard (ultra-slim 1.54" nut width, High Voltage to Back in Black) ➔ 1977 Schaffer-Vega Diversity Wireless System (the secret +20dB analog preamp boost behind Highway to Hell) ➔ 1980 Jaydee Lightning-Bolt SG.
1963 White SG Custom ➔ 1968 Cherry Gibson SG Special with P-90s (Woodstock 1969 Soul Sacrifice) ➔ 1950s Les Paul + hot-rodded Princeton that coined "Mesa/Boogie" (Abraxas) ➔ 1976 Yamaha SG-2000 ➔ 1980–Present PRS Santana Custom.
1958 Pink Fender Strat gifted by Jimi Hendrix ➔ 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard "Pearly Gates" (bought for $250 in 1968, now worth $5M+, strung with .007 strings after B.B. King's advice) ➔ 1955 Hardtail Strat (La Grange solo) ➔ 1983 Fuzzy Spinning Dean Z.
Bare-finger clawhammer style born on an unplugged guitar at night ➔ 1961 Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster (Sultans of Swing) ➔ 1937 National Style O Resonator (Romeo and Juliet) ➔ 1983/1958 Gibson Les Paul (£693K, Money for Nothing) ➔ 1988 Pensa-Suhr MK-1 (£504K).
1970s Univox Hi-Flier (Bleach) ➔ 1965 Humbucker Fender Jaguar (Nevermind) ➔ 1969 Competition Mustang ($4.55M #2 auction record, Smells Like Teen Spirit) ➔ 1959 Martin D-18E ($6.01M #1 world record, MTV Unplugged) ➔ 1993 Fender Jag-Stang.
📅 Daily Guitar History & 📰 The ESG Weekly Riff Highlights
Did Jimmy Page record Led Zeppelin I and the "Stairway to Heaven" solo on a Gibson Les Paul?
No! Jimmy Page recorded the entirety of Led Zeppelin I (1969) in 36 hours at Olympic Studios—as well as the famous 1971 studio guitar solo on "Stairway to Heaven"—using his 1959 Fender "Dragon" Telecaster (gifted to him by Jeff Beck) plugged into a Supro Coronado amplifier. Read Story #1 & Play Quiz #Q405 ➔
What is the oldest electric guitar in David Gilmour's collection (#Q201)?
Before the Fender Telecaster or Stratocaster existed, the world's first commercially produced electric guitar with a magnetic pickup was the 1933 Rickenbacker A-22 "Frying Pan" cast-aluminum lap steel—the oldest piece in Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour's collection. Read Story #2 & Play Quiz #Q201 ➔
What are the two most expensive guitars ever sold at auction?
Both belong to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain: #1 is his 1959 Martin D-18E acoustic-electric played on MTV Unplugged in New York (sold for $6,010,000 in 2020), and #2 is his Lake Placid Blue 1969 Fender Competition Mustang played in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video (sold for $4,550,000 in 2022), followed by David Gilmour's 1969 "Black Strat" at $3,975,000.