Hello and welcome to Mark's Guitars. When I was 15 years old I began a very short and moderately successful string of guitar lessons. While a less than mediocre student of the lesson content I managed to keep the interest in the music I loved and the instrument I loved and have been playing guitar ever since. It was at that starting point though that I made the decision to “play” left handed. As a full blown lefty in every other aspect of my life, with the curious exception of Frisbee throwing, this was a decision that made sense at the time. It was also a decision that in the year 1978 (having played for a year on my “righty strung lefty” Japanese Arita acoustic) made finding a true left-handed guitar in the sleepy little hamlet of Freehold New Jersey impossible. 
So at the advice of my Father, who at the time was commuting daily to New York City, I went to work with him one day to check out all of the music stores on 48th street. Back in 1978 48th street was “the place” to buy a guitar. Best selection of stores, best selection of prices, and to me the only selection of left handed guitars. 
This is not entirely true and to be fair Guitar Trader of Redbank NJ (long since gone) had three left handed Les Pauls, the cheapest of which was $650. All of them out of my price range at the time. 
My trip to New York was successful and on 12/22/78 my $450 yielded me a brand new 1977 left handed Fender Stratocaster with (tolex case). Even then it was not uncommon to buy a “brand new” left handed guitar that was a year or two old in the shop. I still have that guitar today though over the years I have changed the various parts that broke or wore out. I didn’t have the guitar home for a week before I put a Dimarzio  FAT-Strat pick-up in the lead position. Why ? Because everybody else did.! 
Having played and collected lefty guitars over the years I have come to appreciate all of the stories, quirks, legends and rumors surrounding the guitar and it’s evolution but even more interesting to me are those involving the left handed guitars. The cheap ones, the unobtainable ones etc. Along those lines I have learned a thing or two about the unique world of the left handed guitar. Some of those things are obvious and some maybe not so obvious. I will try to share some of those things through this web site.
I may take the liberty of including other interests of mine as well in this web page but for the most part it is my goal to share my left handed experiences with the rest of the guitar loving world. I hope you enjoy my web page.

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    This page was last updated on 02/02/09.

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