Cheap starter electric for 9 year old nephew

If you want so go fender style, I’d suggest squire, especially since they make a smaller scale version which will definitely be helpful for such a young learner whose hands haven’t finished growing.

If you want an LP style, Agile is your best bet. You can probably find an AL-2500 or AL-3000 for around $250.

I’ve never played a Harley Benton, but a friend of mine loves the tele he bought from them. He’s been buying a lot of their stuff lately and has gotten sold on the brand.

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Yeah I gave him my laney cub with a peavy 2x12 with greenbacks in it.

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I'm not real well versed on amps. Does that have some effects built in? Kids love the effects.

I vote Squier too. Look for the models that are made in Indonesia, I've found those to be consistently better than the MICs, which are fine in their own right.

I have two Indonesians in my shop that serve as demo hosts for my handwound in-house strat and tele pickups. Squiers are typically a good set-up away and a tad of bench TLC away from being real winners.

I could go on tour or to a recording session with mine and do justice to whatever style or genre I was tasked with.

Your nephew if he sticks with it will NEVER outgrow the Squier ... he'll upgrade it and tailor it more to his tastes as he gets better.

For amps, I recommend a fender mustang ii. It's a perfect little solid state amp for beginners and comes loaded with tons of effects to play with. It's loud enough for small gigs and can be quiet enough to play in a bedroom. It also can be played through headphones. Probably the perfect amp for a beginner.

Went ahead and got him a squire affinity strat. I think it was like 229 new. He has a good amp already, so he should be good to go.

That's a good choice as well. I'm 60 years old and the "cheap" guitars today are so much better than what I grew up with.

The main thing with the new cheap guitars is maybe investing in a good set of tuners, maybe upgraded pickups, and definitely get it set up properly.

What sucks is I had several set of tuners from my american strats and a loaded pickguard with fat 50s that got left behind when Hurricane Sally destroyed the house I was renting. I wish I could get back in there, so I could get those and my Gibson and taylor guitar cases, but sadly an oak tree is sitting in the den and I can't get to them..

another thing I thought (although I know you said he has an amp) for beginners are those trainer things. I had one back in the day when they had the cd version and you plug the guitar in and it has a bunch of effects and you can play with the cd and loop certain parts and speed it up and slow it down. You might could have recorded too if I'm not mistaken. I think they still make them but not with CD players but rather MP3 players.

Edit: just found them online. Tascam is the brand and I guess this is a current generation of the device.

Trainer

It'll probably be a while before he is doing much bending, maybe by then it will be worn in. If not, you can stick another neck on it pretty easy.