Buy a left handed electric guitar at Zzounds and save!
If you’re a left-handed guitar player like me who cannot play right-handed guitar like many lefties can, finding a left handed guitar is an exercise in frustration. Most brick and mortar music stores carry maybe one or two left-handed electric guitars and perhaps one or two left handed acoustic guitars. If trying a guitar before buying it isn’t a priority, then there’s more success to be had browsing an online music store like Musician’s Friend, Guitar Center, or Zzounds.
Then there’s selection. Right-handed guitar players have a wide variety of guitar models to choose from, while we lefties have but a select few. Adding insult to injury, some guitar manufacturers raise the price on whatever left handed guitars they do offer.
One option lefties have is to restring a right handed guitar and play it left handed. You can learn more by going here: How To Play a Right Handed Guitar Left Handed
So what choices do left handed guitars players have when it comes to electric guitars?
Fender left-handed electric guitars: A non-USA left-handed Fender Stratocaster is the most likely left handed guitar you’ll come across in a brick and mortar music store, or a Squier. As I mentioned, my first guitar was a used left handed Fender Telecaster, which are fairly common as left handed guitars go. As far as the American-made. models, you have a standard American Telecaster and a standard American Strat plus a handful of vintage models. Models like the VG Stratocaster and the HSS Stratocaster are right-handed models only. The nice thing about Fender is there is no price difference between right and left handed guitars.
Epiphone electric guitars: Epiphone is pretty good about putting out left handed models. You can buy a couple of Epiphone Les Paul models, the G-400, the Epiphone Sheraton II and the Epiphone Dot.
Gibson electric guitars: Gibson offers left handed versions of the Les Paul Standard, Les Paul traditional and Les Paul Studio as well as some custom models. You can also get a left-handed Gibson SG Standard and a couple of reissues. Sadly, you will pay extra for left handed models. And some of the cooler guitars like the EDS-1275 Doubleneck are not sold left-handed. If you want to be the left handed Jimmy Page, sorry.
Beyond those three, Ibanez, Hamer, Jackson, Gretsch, Guild, Taylo, Paul Reed Smith, and Schecter offer several left handed electric guitar models, but they aren’t many places that sell them. And again, the model selection is a fraction of what’s available to right-handed guitar players.
What I finally did was go the custom guitar route. I own a left handed Carvin SC-90 electric guitar and a left-handed Carvin AC375 . Carvin’s custom guitars are affordable, high quality and enjoy a fantastic reputation. The downer is it takes up to eight weeks to get your guitar and the first time you play it is when you receive it, so there’s a chance you won’t know until then if you like the guitar or not. However, custom guitars can get quite expensive, and you’d have to be a rock start to get Gibson or Fender to make a custom guitar to spec for you. Not to mention you’d have a rock star’s wealth to buy it. But you can also can a high-quality custom guitar for a good price. Plus, it’s kind of cool knowing that your guitar is literally one of a kind.
So you have options when buying a left-handed electric guitar, but not as many. Online music stores are your best bet in terms of finding thre greatest selection of left handed guitars. The reality is unless moms and dads start producing more lefties, there just aren’t enough of us out there to justify a company producing more left-handed guitars. It just isn’t right.
