27 years ago today the first issue of your favorite guitar mag came off the presses of a weekly newspaper in New Salem, North Dakota, a town 25 miles west of Vintage Guitar’s world headquarters in Bismarck. Publisher Alan Greenwood drove out late that Friday afternoon, after finishing up at his regular full-time job, and loaded the whole 3,000 piece print run in the trunk of his car. At 8 pages, the debut issue didn’t take up a lot of room! With no subscribers and very little advertising, that first issue (then called The Music Trader) was distributed at a handful of music stores in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa.

CLICK HERE to view the complete first issue of The Music Trader.