What is a "short scale" guitar? What is a "12-fret guitar"? Are they the same?

Admittedly, this was something even I was confused about early on.  For a while, I was incorrectly referring to 12-fret guitars as "short scale" guitars, assuming they were one-in-the-same.

In fact, a guitar's scale length and its number of frets are mutually exclusive.  (Just because a guitar only has 12 frets, doesn't mean it's a short scale, and vice-versa.)

How to cheat at playing the guitar!

The easiest way to play the guitar, period.

Review: Recording King "Dirty Thirties" RPH-05 Parlor Guitar

The Recording King "Dirty Thirties" RPH-05 is an AMAZING, amazing guitar for the price.

I love bang-for-the-buck guitars

I've been on a bit of a guitar-buying kick lately.  When it comes to a really good-quality instrument at a low price, I have a tough time saying no.  (I've actually written an entire post on my affinity for budget instruments.)

Guitars have such a wide variety of shapes, styles, and sounds, that it's tough to limit yourself to just one.  As a [mediocre] slack-key player, having multiple guitars is also convenient because I can leave them in different tunings, and simply pick up the guitar for the song I want to play.  (Something I wouldn't have the luxury of doing with higher-priced guitars.)

Here is my humble collection of bang-for-buck guitars I've collected along the way: