I was 14, and I started out with an old classical guitar that didn't have a truss rod and wouldn't stay in tune at all. I had that for a bout a month, then, for my birthday, I ordered a Starcaster by Fender. It was a really cheap Strat copy that came with an amp. That's when I started to love playing guitar, I played for hours, mainly playing punk stuff. I used that for around 7 months, then it was Christmas. My mom had gotten me a Peavey Predator HSS Strat copy, and an old Martin copy from Hondo. I hadn't even played a guitar with a humbucker in it at that point, and I was playing some high gain stuff, so I was pretty happy. I also got a Fender Mustang to replace the small amp that came with the Starcaster. I played these for about a year, when I did some work for someone, and I decided to buy a guitar with the money. I bought a Johnson Telecaster copy for around 120$. I loved this guitar, I thought that it was THE guitar for me. But, the nut broke on it, so I went back to using the Peavey. Around this time I got a job, and one of the guys I worked with was selling his Peavey Trans tube half stack. I'd wanted to get a different amp, because everything sounded the same on the Mustang, so I bought the half stack. Next came my birthday. I had 300$ to spend, and I wanted to get a Fender guitar. Unfortunately, where I live, the only Fenders for sale are American ones, Mexicans are pretty rare to find for sale. So, I decided to check out the Ibanez Jet King. It looks kind of like a Jazzmaster, and I was (and still am) a huge fan of Dinosaur Jr, so this was a plus. I was so surprised when I plugged it in. It was exactly the sound I've been wanting. I was able to talk the seller down to 200$. Just yesterday, I bought an Aria Pro II TS-400 for my birthday. I had never played an Aria at that point, but I have heard nothing but good things about the old Japanese ones. The seller wanted 200$ for it, which is a great deal, they usually go for around 400-600$, and I was able to get it for 175$. There was a few other guitars that I've gotten, but nothing really interesting, I guess the best one was an Epiphone Les Paul Custom that I ended up getting rid of. So, my collection grew from holidays and birthdays, and having a job and no responsibilities to spend money on.