First off, I started playing guitar in 1993. I was listening to a lot of music (mostly heavy and trash metal) and I thought it might be cool to play some songs. I quickly got hooked and started writing songs with a few friends. We then started a band and played together for almost ten years.
The first guitar I got was a BC Rich Warlock. Sounded great, played like shit!!
But still, it was my main guitar. I only had a 20 watts practice amp and needed something to play along with the guys so I looked into the local classified to try and find something cheap. I found somebody who was selling a Peavey Studio Pro 50 for about a 100$. I got there with a buddy of mine who knew a lot more than I did at the time about music stuff and looked at the amp. The guy also had three Boss pedals (distortion, phaser and 5 band eq) and a crappy guitar with no string, the bridge and tailpiece on the ground beside it and about an inch (I might be exaggerating a bit) of crap on top of the fret board, we couldn’t even see the wood underneath. I negotiated the amp and pedals and then my friend told the guy he did not need his guitar anymore anyways so he just might give it to me... and he agreed. He told us it was a 1973 El Dégas guitar with DiMarzio pick-ups and that he was the second owner. So I came back home with that guitar. I then put it in the corner and did not touch it for maybe about 6 months. I was told by my friend’s brother that El Dégas guitars were cheap knock-offs made out of plywood. Then, one night I had absolutely nothing to do, I started giving it a little attention. I cleaned the fret board, put on some strings and tried playing it. The action was good but that guitar did not kept in tune at all. I had to tune it (and not just a little, it was completely off) about every five minutes!!! I put it back in the corner and did not touch it again for about another year. In the meantime, I bought another guitar, to replace the crappy BC Rich: a Jackson Kelly. That guitar was playing very well but I had a hard time getting a decent sound out of it. Sigh... bad karma I guess.
But anyways, that one became my main guitar and I kept the other for different tuning live purposes. As you can imagine, I got tired of playing that BC Rich and thought it would be nice to have another secondary live guitar. Since I did not have any money, I remembered I had that piece of crap sitting in the corner doing nothing. So I took it to the local tech to see if he could get something out of it. He changed the bridge, tailpiece and tuners, made all necessary adjustments and gave it back to me. I tried it right away and was blown away!! What a great guitar it was. The action was just perfect, the sound was excellent and it kept its tuning!!! The sound was in fact so good that it became my main studio guitar.
The only reason it was not my main live guitar is the weight. That tech told me that because of the chips in the paint he could see the wood it was made off: mahogany body and neck. He also knew at that time that early El Dégas were pretty good guitars especially if made in Japan. This one was. 
I’ve been playing it since then and tried to find some info on the internet about it, that’s how I stumbled upon the forum. Even nowadays, when I sit down to record something, I do some axe and pick-up tests (I record different combinations of guitar and pick-ups and then listen to the different recordings to determine which combination is the best for the song) and that freaking guitar almost always wins!! Even that buddy of mine from back then, who still think those El Dégas are piece of shit, picks it out of the other ones I have. Almost every time!!
Well, that was the story I wanted to share. How a guitar I got for free became the one I’ve used the most for about two decades! I hope I did not bore you too much. And now, the pics:
I might try and track some live photos from back then with me playing it later.
