My first guitar was one of those legendary acoustics with 3/4″ action, outfitted with heavy gauge (one gauge only) Black Diamond strings.  I was seven.  My teacher, an authoritarian Austrian gentleman, insisted I practice 1 hour a night.  I did.  I cried.  My fingers bled.  I was so happy, somewhat later, when someone ordered a Gibson ES-225, returned it to the store, and it became mine, outfitted with flatwound strings, of course, and a factory Bigsby.  So, it might surprise you to learn that I hated that guitar.  I hated those P-90 pickups.  I hated the ugly sunburst.  I was so glad when the neck twisted and I got rid of it.  So, it might not surprise you to learn that I’m not fond of thinlines.  Even when they’re as cool as the Yamaha SA-15.

It’s no wonder Yamaha produced some cool guitars.  Yamaha may be Japan’s oldest manufacturer of Western-style musical instruments.  In 1887, Torakusu Yamaha developed a reed organ in Hamamatsu, Japan, starting a factory the following year. In around 1900 Yamaha began making pianos and those were the primary musical instruments the company would be known for thereafter, although Yamaha would later branch out into electronic organs and wind instruments (not to mention motorcycles, vacation resorts, lifestyle products, and semiconductors!).  

It appears that Yamaha began selling Yamaha acoustic guitars in around 1946, but there’s some buzz out there that those might have actually been re-branded Suzuki products.  Yamaha developed the “Dynamic Guitar” probably during the 1950s.  These were similar to a Harmony “Convertible” guitar I once got from Montgomery Ward as a kid, meant to be strung either nylon or steel.  Yamaha Dynamics are way better than most other acoustic guitars made in Japan at the time.

In 1960 Yamaha established Yamaha International Corporation in Los Angeles, creating probably the first American beach-head for a Japanese musical instrument company.  This was still primarily for selling pianos, but it would include guitars once Yamaha decided to export those.

Picture: 1968 Yamaha SA-15

1966 seems to have been the seminal year for guitar-making.  That year they brought the Spanish luthier Eduardo Ferrer to redesign their classical guitars.  Yamaha also introduced its FG line of steel-string guitars.  And its first solidbody electric guitars, the SG-2 and SG-3.  I’ve always suspected that the SG-1 was earlier, but that’s not the party line.  Oh, and their first amplifiers.

I’m not sure that Yamaha exported its earliest electric guitars, at least, to the U.S.  Acoustics may have preceded electrics.  I don’t recall seeing any Yamaha electrics during the 1960s, but then I was living out in “fly-over country” back then.  I have a Yamaha catalog that was sold as being from 1966, but the code on the back is “692” and the Japanese, being a generally meticulous race, often coded their periodicals and that would make it a 1969 catalog.  The electric guitars feature in it are all “semi-acoustics” and, since those were not introduced until 1968, that reinforces the later date.

In any case, the electrics in that ’69 catalog include 3 equal cutaway guitars (SA-50, SA-30, SA-20), one bass version (SA-70), a full-body single-cutaway jazz box (AE-11), and two versions of their asymmetrical thinlines, the SA-15D and SA-15, seen here.

While Yamaha’s acoustic guitars were pretty conventional, these electric guitars show Yamaha’s penchant for distinctive design.  The equal-cutaway models are not just Gibson clones, but have classy squared-off cutaway horns.  And the asymmetrical 15s…well, I think these are splendid!  

The extended lower horn of these guitars reflects a particularly Japanese obsession with everything Ventures.  The Ventures toured Japan early in their careers and Japanese fans loved them.  When Flower Power eclipsed the Ventures’ Surf sound, they were able to keep their careers alive on the strength of their fans in Japan.  This meant, of course, a love of the Mosrite Ventures guitars, which was, after all, just a Fender Stratocaster flipped over!

The SA-15 was a little more conservative take on Yamaha’s iconic ‘60s solidbody, the SG-7, itself inspired by the Mosrite.  The SA-15 and SA-15D mainly differed only in trim.  The SA-15 seen here was the plainer, with an unbound rosewood fingerboard and dot inlays.  The SA-15D had a bound fingerboard with top-edge-inlaid markers (a la Gretsch) and special checkerboard top binding.  The pickups were “noise-free high-sensitivity type”…with “high-performance anisotropic ferrite magnet and pole-piece,” with two volumes and two tones on a threeway switch.  Basic.  Decent.  Great for playing “Walk, Don’t Run!”

I was glad to see my old Gibson ES-225 leave for someone else.  And I’m still not wild about thinline semi-acoustic guitars.  But if I was a fan, I’d sure prefer to go on stage sporting a Yamaha SA-15 for a couple bars of “Telestar.”

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Eastwood Custom Shop SA-15

The Eastwood SA-15

The new Eastwood Custom Shop SA-15 is a fantastic tribute to the legendary Yamaha SA-15. If you’re not lucky enough to own one of the originals, this new guitar really does a great job a recreating the Yamaha…

Salute to the Ventures: the 1968 Yamaha SA-15 from MyRareGuitars.com

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with accordions, largely due to my forehead-slapping reaction to being forced to watch the Lawrence Welk Champagne Hour as a kid.  Well, “forced” is probably strong, but back then you only had one TV if you were lucky enough to have one at all.  So, smiling accordion players it was if that’s what your parents wanted.  At least the Lennon Sisters were hot.  On the other hand, I’ve also heard solo accordionists playing on street corners of Society Hill in Philly and I confess it was awfully romantic.  In either case, the fact is, you just can’t seem to avoid accordions if you’re going to talk about Italian guitars.

Modern piano accordions were invented in Germany in around 1863 and almost immediately one showed up in Castelfidardo, Italy, on the northwest coast of the Adriatic near the mouth of the Po River.  Castelfidardo has been the accordion capital of the world ever since.  Piano accordions showed up in the U.S. in the early 20^th Century and, like most things, had several waves of popularity.  The biggest came in the early 1950s when young Baby Boomers—my sister was one—caught the accordion bug.  The sudden rage for accordions was huge and Italian Americans who played accordions and were in the music business went nuts starting music schools and ordering accordions from Italian factories that ramped up production big time.  There were huge accordion orchestras of smiling children.  

Then, after a couple of great years, people lost interest, overnight.  My sister’s accordion went into the closet.  Most of the Italian-American accordion concerns entered a period of depression.  Long story short, at the end of the 1950s along came Folk Music and a thirst for guitars.  Italy had a long tradition of guitar-making inherited from Spanish rule for centuries.  A few accordion manufacturers threw their hats into the ring and opened up guitar operations. Oliviero Pigini (EKO guitars) was one.  Other accordion makers partnered with people who knew how to make guitars and exploited their American export relationships to supply guitars where once it was all accordions.

Picture: 1974 JG 300

JG guitars fell into the former bucket.  Finding out about European-made guitars—especially Italian guitars—is not easy if you’re in North America.  Many of the people who were active importing these in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s are no longer with us.  I was fortunate enough to talk with folks at LoDuca Bros. in Milwaukee, who imported EKOs, but by the time I figured the other connections out, the opportunities to recover at least the American side of the story were lost.  Still, not all is hopeless.  If you’re interested in European (especially Italian) guitars, you should bookmark fetishguitars.com.  Run by Jack Marchal and Stefano Aria, this site has been digging into European guitars for some years now.  This site began more like an Italian version of Dan Forte’s old Teisco Del Rey columns in Guitar Player back in the 1970s, viewing these sometimes fruity artifacts with tongue in cheek.  However, as time has passed and they learned more, the approach has become more serious and they now provide some of the best information available on these curiosities.

I always knew that JG guitars were made in Europe, but I also thought they were also sold primarily in Europe.  Turns out I was wrong on the latter point.  According to Fetishguitars.com JG guitars were made for Giulietti & Son Accordion Co. of New York City.  The company had been founded by the accordionist Luigi Giulietti in 1923 sourcing his accordions from the Serranelli factory in Italy.  Upon Luigi’s passing in 1950, the shop was taken over his son Julio, who changes accordion supplier to Zerosette.  Zerosette had been founded after World War II by 7 partners with experience in making accordions and remains a major accordion manufacturer.  With the rise of the guitar beginning in the late 1950s, Zerosette decided to open a guitar-making arm.

I don’t know if Zerosette ever made acoustic guitars, like Pigini/EKO did.  However, when the demand for electric guitar began to pick up in the early 1960s, Zerosette became a major Italian supplier.  Brands produced at Zerosette you may know include Goya (for Hershman), Contessa (Höhner), and Sano, among others.  

Zerosette produced JG and Juliett guitars for Julio Giulietti’s shop in New York.  The JG 300 seen here has no serial number and is impossible to date.  However, during the 1960s most Italian guitars looked like 1960s guitars.  This has the smack of being a Les Paul copy.  By the end of the 1960s most European guitars had been eclipsed by Japanese guitars, so not many were being sold in North America.  The copying of American guitar designs by Japanese makers didn’t begin until 1969.  European guitar-makers also indulged in copying American designs, but their copies tended to be more in the nature of “inspirations” rather than attempts to make close reproductions, as the Japanese did.  

I suspect that this is an early 1970s guitar.  It still has the ‘60s-style Van Ghent tuners.  Overall, the workmanships is quite good and this plays and sounds very nicely.  Controls are two volumes and two tones run through a master volume, with is a little odd.  It’s not a professional instrument like a Les Paul, but it looks very cool.  As far as I can tell, these probably did not receive very wide distribution, probably about as much as Giulietti accordions!  Still, it’s orange and pretty unusual!  I think I’m going to strap it on, put on my widest, toothiest smile…and think about the Lennon Sisters.

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Mama’s Got a Squeezebox (Again): the 1974 JG 300 from MyRareGuitars.com

Most guitars first speak to me as visual works of art.  The color, the shape, or some sort of unique design.  Or it might be an interesting, obscure brand.  Rarely has the sound of the guitar been the calling card, but that was the case with this 1984 Aria Pro II RS Series Rev-Sound RS-Esprit.  (Don’tcha love those long names!)

Actually, when you look at the RS-Esprit, it has remarkable elegant lines.  It’s got a down-sized body that’s obviously Strat-style, but svelt, balanced, modern.  No doubt the color caused this flower to shrink somewhat.  When you look closely, the metallic greenish turquoise color (officially “Phantom Blue”) is pretty nifty, but across a room, it looks kind of “blah.”  The black pickups disappear into the shadows.  Still, there was something about this guitar that drew me to it.

Now, when the attraction of a guitar is primarily visual, I usually don’t care what the sound is going to be like.  After all, when you factor in an amp and effects, you can make any guitar sound like whatever you want as long as the electronics work.  But for some reason this guitar wanted me to plug it in.  I’m not sure what the “Rev” in Rev Sound is supposed to mean, but if it’s “reverse,” that sure makes sense!  This guitar lives in that out-of-phase world of between the pickups on a Fender Stratocaster.  This guitar is all about shades of twang!  I don’t know about you, but for me those in-between positions are why I’d play a Stratocaster.  I know I’m not alone on that one.  This guitar sounds out-of-phase in single-coil mode, and is still slightly funky in humbucker mode.

1984 Aria Pro II RS Series Rev Sound RS-E CU-tile

The existence of the Aria Pro II Rev-Sounds derives from the conclusion of the “Copy Era” of the 1970s.  By around 1968-69 Japanese guitar-makers had hit on a strategy of making less-expensive copies of popular American guitar models as a way of increasing market share in the U.S.  It worked like a charm.  By the mid-1970s American manufacturers—especially Gibson—were annoyed, to understate the issue.  In 1977, Norlin (the parent of Gibson) filed suit against Elger Guitars (the American subsidiary of Hoshino/Ibanez) in Philadelphia Federal Court claiming “trademark infringement” over headstock shape copying.  Nevermind that Ibanez had changed its heads in 1976.  Japanese makers agreed to cease and desist and in 1978 a new breed of Japanese electric guitars began to appear.  In many ways the cure was worse than the disease, because the new Japanese guitars were original designs built even better, and they continued to grab even more market share than before.  Think Ibanez Studio and Musician guitars.

Aria, which had originally initiated the “Copy Era,” lagged slightly behind, but in 1979 introduced a slew of new electric guitar series, including the unique Rev-Sounds, the 850 and 750.  The idea behind the Rev-Sounds was to use 3 single coil pickups, but with only the front and back hot, the center being a “dummy” coil that could be switched into active status to go from “single-coil” to “humbucker.”  The initial Rev-Sounds were sort of frumpy takes on Ibanez’s Musicians, a little more pointy.  The RS-850 was active while the RS-750 was a passive version.

The RS-Esprit was a much trimmed down version of the active RS-850 that debuted in 1984.  This has an alder body with a bolt-on neck featuring a “smooth joint” heel, a sort of clumsy compromise between a regular heel and the “heelless” designs of guitars like B.C. Rich.  The controls are a 3-say switch with two mini-toggles that activate the center dummy pickup in humbucker mode for front and back.  The knobs are master volume and two tones.  There’s also a little red light to indicate that your battery is still working.  The Act 3 locking vibrato system was similar to some Kahler systems that didn’t make you clip off the ball-end to load the strings.

I’ve always thought these were made by Matsumoku—in which Aria had a financial interest and which made numerous Aria guitars—however, I’m not so sure any more.  It certainly has a Matsumoku feel.  However, as a Trading Company, Aria had other factories from which to source its guitars.  This very well could have been made by another factory.

In any case, this is a really fun guitar to play, with a fully professional feel.  It’s not the most versatile guitar, but then with an amp and effects…  I don’t know if the RS-Esprit is particularly rare, but these were made for little over a year at a time when Japanese guitars were still imported in relatively small lots.  You rarely see these come up for sale, and I’m inclined to think they are.  These were made just before Japanese guitars came out from the shadow of post-World-War-II disdain.

Between new guitars and vintage guitars, guitar players have a gazillion choices these days.  But there are unique, fascinating guitars out there like the Aria Pro II RS-Esprit worth seeking out.  I’ve always been glad I heard this guitar’s siren call.

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

1984 Aria Pro II RS Series Rev Sound RS-Esprit from MyRareGuitars.com

Before we start a fight, let’s be clear: we LOVE Mosrite here at My Rare Guitars, as Mike himself made clear in previous blogs. They sound amazing, look beautiful, and are some of the most iconic and unique guitars ever made. From a collector’s point of view, it’s a no-brainer: if you can find and afford an original, vintage Mosrite, you should just go for it!

But we all live in the real world, and from a musician point of view, things get a little bit more complicated… and vintage may not be convenient, nor necessarily mean better.

Over the years, there’s been many variations of the Mosrite models: from the Univox guitars in the 70’s, to 80’s and 90’s replicas branded Mosrite, besides other brands making their own versions of the classic design, to varying degrees of success (Hallmark guitars, Danelectro and others).

The thirst for Mosrite guitars has been there for many years – not just because of the Ventures surf-music connection, but also due to it’s connection to seminal rock bands such as The Stooges (Dave Alexander played a Mosrite bass), MC5 (Fred “Sonic” Smith) and, especially, the Ramones (Mosrite was *the* Johnny Ramone guitar).

Fred “Sonic” Smith and his Mosrite

The first problem regarding Mosrite is precisely that – most musicians inspired by those artists, who want to actually rock out onstage, wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) really choose a vintage Mosrite to play. After all, Mosrites are too rare, too expensive for actual rock gigs, now! So no wonder so many copies have proliferated.

And then, there’s the other, more pressing question: were the original Mosrites actually that good?

Some well-known Mosrite issues

Vintage Mosrite guitar

While there’s no question about the build quality of the original Mosrite guitars, and even less doubts about their amazing sound, there WERE some issues which have bothered many players over the years.

Basically, the Mosrite neck were quite idiosyncratic and a big barrier for many, many players who’d otherwise love the guitar: tiny frets, and very thin necks very narrow at the nut – which quite a few players could enjoy but not all – especially if playing lead.

The frets, though, were definitely a big issue. We’ve heard of people who bought original Mosrites and decided to actually re-fret them! Just imagine – you buy a rare, expensive vintage guitar, and feel the urge to actually change its specs – and, by making it not all-original anymore, devaluating the guitar. 

Yep, that’s how bad some people didn’t like those frets.

It’s important to note this because, lo and behold, not even The Ventures were too keen on them! Despite their association with Mosrite (after all, mk I model was called “The Ventures”) they actually preferred to use Fender guitars in the studio, and used Mosrites live just because of their contracts.

The Ventures… and their Fenders!

According to an old blog post we found:

“…remember, it was the Ventures that really started using stringbending….and try to bend a string on an orignal model…there is no fret to use…It’s all but filed off… They had specifically asked that the Mosrite necks have the same frets and feel as their favorite Jazzmaster, Stratocaster and PBass.”

Another interesting thing about Mosrites: they didn’t have a nut!

Mosrite headstock

Instead, Mosrite guitars have a  zero fret that acts as a nut, and behind it, they feature a metallic string slide device to keep the strings in place. Looks weird but, apparently, is a very clever design that helps with the intonation.

Vintage 1964 Mosrite bridge

Another interesting detail is that Mosrites used a roller bridge, not too dissimilar to a tune-o-matic, but the saddles were actually little wheels that would allow for smooth tuning and smooth tremolo action. However, some players say that  that some of them had issues where the bottom of the saddle didn’t conform to the bridge plate, and would cause buzzing – some players would then put a small and thin piece of felt under the saddle!

All told – everything does seem to show that, for such an expensive piece of rock history, the Mosrites (or some of them) did have playability issues most people shelling out thousands of bucks, today, would rather avoid…

Are Eastwood Sidejacks Better Than Mosrite?

Eastwood Sidejack DLX

Now… here’s the million dollar question: are the new Eastwood Sidejack guitars actually better than the legendary Mosrite guitars? As the recent Re-Inventing The Past: From Mosrite to Sidejack blog says, there’s little doubt that the Sidejacks are, today, more popular than the original Mosrites ever were.

Over the past few years, other brands have also jumped on the Mosrite bandwagon,such as Hallmark and Danelectro, who also makes popular Mosrite-style guitars – the Danelectro 64 and Danelectro 66 models, which also look great, though yet again featuring their own take on the famous Mosrite look.

For instance, both the Danelectro 64 and Danelectro 66 feature lipstick-style bridge humbuckers, which can put some players off, as it deviates quite a bit from the original Mosrite look (though it could, of course, appeal to other players who want that kind of tone). They have a less Mosrite-ish headstock, but, on the other hand, have zero fret and Mosrite trem, which some hardcore Mosrite fans might appreciate. 

Mosrite, Danelectro or Eastwood Sidejack?

It’s the same old story – to each their own. Even though Mosrites are legendary, and sound great, not everyone will actually enjoy playing one. Meanwhile, some players will prefer the Mosrite features of the Danos, while others will prefer the different Mosrite features of the Sidejacks, especially of the new Sidejack Pro DLX.

Eastwood Sidejack Pro DLX… find out more

Right now, there’s no question that the Eastwood Sidejacks are the leading models keeping the Mosrite flame alive: they’re not “reissues” or replicas of the Mosrite, but modern, updated tributes to the original.

They definitely feel more playable, and feature a more familar jazzmaster-style tremolo,  besides adjustable bridge. So, while not 100% like an original Mosrite, the Sidejacks are the true heirs, keeping the Mosrite cult alive – and doing it the RIGHT way: by being used by lots of bands who really love to rock out!

While not quite as well-known as the Jazzmaster (yet?), the Sidejack is equally suitable for surf music, punk or indie rock. For fans of the P-90 sound, simply an amazing choice.

Now… better than a Mosrite? Only YOU can tell, really, if you ever have the chance to compare both. Everyone will have their own opinions… but I know which one I’d rather take to my next gig!

Mosrite vs. Sidejack: Which One Is Better? from MyRareGuitars.com

Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead, one of the players who discovered the joys of a Teisco offset – she plays the bass version of the TG-64, the TB-64 now being resurrected by Eastwood. VIEW INFO

Don’t get us wrong – we love a good Jazzmaster, Jaguar or Mustang. Fender was and still is the big daddy of the offset guitars. But if familiarity doesn’t always have to bring contempt, on the other hand many of us prefer guitars with that little spark of mystery, which add to an unique touch when you’re on stage, or simply helps making it more interesting to play. That’s why a few lucky guitarists can’t help but loving their rare, 1960’s Teisco TG-64. Let’s be honest, it has a certain mojo lacking in modern-day Jazzmasters!

The Forgotten Offset Classic?

While its shape is familar, it’s all about those other details: three single coil pickups stripy scratchplate, push buttons and that cut-out handle on the body – what’s it all about? One of those features no one really needs, but which in fact looks pretty cool. It was the Sixties, after all, and who knows what the designers were smoking, then!

Original Teisco TG-64

The thing about Teisco guitars, is that they were unashamedly cheap knock offs of bigger brands such as Fender – but with enough personality to stand out on their own. They were never meant to be GREAT guitars, but put them through a valve amp and a good fuzz pedal, and it could be the coolest thing ever.  Originally unpopular offset models such as the Jazzmaster and Jaguar were affordable, and for this reason rediscovered in the Seventies by Punk and New Wave acts, but as soon as they became a staple in 90s alt-rock, thanks to Nirvana, Sonic Youth and others, they became prized commodities – and, somewhere along the way, lost just a little bit of their “cool” factor (for all it’s worth!).

Owning a Teisco TG-64 is a bit like owning a Jazzmaster back in 1976 – because it’s still an odd and rather cool choice, not seen too often. Some of the people who’ve used one recently include Blonde Redhead and Conor Oberst. But this model is still not the easiest to find! This is perhaps the coolest of all non-Fender offset guitars, and certainly a “forgotten classic”!

Conor Oberst and his Teisco TG-64

Eastwood Custom TG-64 Monkey Grip

It’s great news that Eastwood Custom are planning to reissue the Teisco TG-64. The plan is to make it even better than the original, but still quite affordable. While in the past Teisco were cool but cheap guitars, the new ones are of much better quality. If you’re looking for a cool alternative to a Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster that really stands out, maybe the new Eastwood Custom TG-64 will do the trick for you.

Eastwood Custom TG-64 Monkey Grip

At the moment guitarists have to pledge a small amount to guarantee theirs… if you’re interested, hurry up, because opportunity ends TODAY (17th November)

VIEW EASTWOOD TG-64 PAGE FOR INFO

Eastwood Custom TB-64 Monkey Grip

Teisco TB-64… new Eastwood custom project. Find out more

The Teisco TB-64 looks very closely to the TG-64, but with a few differences besides the longer scale: a more “Fender-y” headstock, different neck joint and a vibrato arm closer to the edge of the body. Yes, it might’ve been inspired – in principle – on the Fender Bass VI but, frankly, has quite a marked difference… and, dare we say, looks much better?

Eastwood launched a custom shop project to reissue the TB-64, ending on April 20, 2017. They’ve successfully crowdfunded the TG-64 and it looks likely the TB-64 will also get made… but the best way to make sure this happens, and to guarantee yours, is of course to help crowdfunding and leave your pledge, too!

VIEW EASTWOOD TB-64 PAGE FOR INFO

Watch: Teisco TG-64 Demo

Forgotten Offset Guitars: Teisco TG-64 from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar

Japanese guitar makers made their names by emulating their competition largely for the American market. That strategy ultimately led to copy guitars, of which this is vaguely an example, although reflective of the peculiarities of Japanese aesthetics.

“Lutes,” in which family guitars reside, made their way pretty much everywhere in antiquity, including Japan, which favors the samisen. The first Europeans to “discover” Japan were the Portuguese, who were granted favored trading status by the Emperor. With the caveat that they couldn’t enter Japan proper, lest they pollute the sacred culture. They had to do their business from Okinawa.

Whether the Portuguese ever brought guitars with them is unknown, but Commodore Perry and the Americans certainly did when they arrived in 1853 on a mission to horn in on the Portuguese monopoly. Perry plied the Japanese ministers with tons of champagne and put on several blackface minstrel shows that featured both guitars and banjos. Perhaps it was the affinity between whiteface kabuki theater and the sailors’ burnt cork (more likely it was the huge stores of bubbly), but in any case Perry returned in 1854 with an open trade agreement with Japan.

Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar

No, the Japanese didn’t convert to playing guitars (or banjos) on the spot. In fact, Westernization didn’t really begin until the 1920s. One of the main vectors was Hawaiian music. This was big in the U.S. from the early 20th Century on, but it really wasn’t coming to Japan from the Continental U.S. There was a huge Japanese population living in Hawaii and the taste for Hawaiian music—admittedly informed by American (and, ironically, Portuguese!!) influences—came from the original source in Hawaii. It was also in the 1920s that Andres Segovia toured Japan, igniting a passionate embrace of classical guitar playing. And, the 1920s saw the triumph of radio, so all sorts of Western music became available.

The problem was that Japanese music had not yet adopted the “tempered” scale that Western music has used since the 18th Century. That style makes minor compromises in the mathematical intervals of the modes codified by Pythagoras. In the old system you could play in maybe 1 or 2 modes during a piece, but any further modulation sounded out of tune, because it was. By “tempering” those scales, you can essentially switch from any key to another at any time. Anyhow, this process of adopting the tempered scale began in the 1920s, with a lot of interesting hybrid music being created. And making it possible to adopt Western instruments, such as the guitar and Hawaiian guitar…especially once it was electrified in the early 1930s.

Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar

Guyatone was one of the earliest guitar manufacturers in Japan, having begun making electric Hawaiian lap steels in 1933. It was founded by Mitsuo Matsuki and Atsuo Kaneko (who would later found Teisco after the War).

Once Japanese guitar-makers entered the American market, they kind of gravitated naturally toward the copy strategy. First they produced guitars vaguely based on Fender’s Jazzmaster/Jaguar. Soon in the trenches with European makers, they began to emulate them (think Burns Bison). Then, The Ventures, having grown a bit stale in the U.S., began to tour Japan. The went over extremely well and acquired a legion of lifetime fans. By around the time this guitar was made, various Japanese makers were producing loose Mosrite inspirations. Or “copies,” if you like.

Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar

This 1967 Guyatone LG-160T is actually pretty sophisticated. The body is mahogany, and features a German carve relief, like a Mosrite. Pairing two single-coil pickups back at the bridge, like a humbucker, emulates Guyatone’s domestic competition Yamaha. These two pickups can function as a humbucker or, using the sliding switch, one single-coil. Ain’t no DiMarzio but pretty clever. This bridge actually has roller saddles to make the vibrato very effective.

By 1969 the true “copy era” had been launched with the first Les Paul and Tele copies, however crude at first.

When you first glimpse this guitar, it looks like a somewhat awkward Mosrite copy. Gaze a bit longer and it almost takes on the look of a Japanese orthographic character. Elegant, not so ugly. Consider it more and your heart begins to warm toward it’s symmetrical asymmetry for sure! Beautiful!

The copy strategy was good marketing (and helped learning to come more quickly), but it tended to obscure how much Japanese culture—how much whiteface kabuki—really contributed to the guitar equation.

Ugly Mugs No. 3: Walk, Don’t Run (Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar

Now, the Burns Flyte is definitely a step up from the Tux-master, but not such a very big one. James Ormston Burns (1925-1998) began designing guitars in around 1958 when he made a short scale Supersound guitar for the musician Ike Isaacs. In 1959 Burns teamed up with Henry Weill to form the Burns-Weill company, producing the rather ungainly forebears of last month’s featured Tux-master. Burns and Weills apparently weren’t a match made in heaven and they had parted ways before the year was out. In 1960 Burns struck out on his own, founding Burns London Ltd. And putting out what’s now a legendary line of soldibody electric guitars.

Probably the most famous feature on Burns guitars of the 1960s was the setting called “Wild Dog” on the Bison and some other models. I can remember not being able to wait to plug in mine when I got it. Wild Dog!! A snarl? Growl? Sharp bark? Imagine my disappointment when I learned that Wild Dog was simply a somewhat weak phase-reversal effect like you get in-between pickups on a Strat! Now there was the marketing department run amok!

Burns guitars quickly won the hearts of British guitar players…there were, indeed, few other quality options. Plus, they arrived at just about the time that teenagers were trading in their Skiffle washboards for their first electric guitars in order to play that new music from the Colonies.

Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar

Meanwhile, in the former Colonies, guitars—especially electrics—had become hot commodities among the young. And there were lots of young folks, the Post-War Baby Boomers, hitting the right age to become a “market.” Savvy businessmen wanted in on the gold mine. Companies as diverse as Norlin (a brewing conglomerate) and CBS (TV, movies, and records) started buying guitar companies (Gibson and Fender, respectively).

Into the corporate feeding frenzy jumped the Baldwin Piano and Organ Company. At least it was in the musical instrument business to begin with! Initially Baldwin was a bidder for Fender, but lost out to CBS. On the rebound, Baldwin set its eyes on Burns of London and in 1965 began importing Baldwin-badged versions of Jim Burns’ guitars.

However, Baldwin’s affair with Burns was relatively short-lived. In 1966 Baldwin struck a deal to purchase Gretsch and they proved to be much better sellers in the U.S. marketplace. Baldwin held on to the Burns property until closing it down in 1970.

Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar

Burns wasn’t through with guitars yet. From 1969 to 1973 Burns manufactured Hayman guitars for the music distributor Dallas-Arbiter. As part of the agreement, Jim Burns couldn’t use the Burns of London name, but somehow Burns UK was acceptable and Burns resumed making guitar in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1974. Which brings us to the Flyte.

The Flyte—originally supposed to be the Concorde (or Conchorde)—coincided with the debut of supersonic aviation. Hence the swept-wing appearance. If you appreciated weird guitarflesh, this should tickle your fancy. I keep looking at it it just keeps getting weirder, and in an especially good way! Those pickups are called Mach One Humbusters. The Dynamic Tension bridge is pretty interesting…well, no, it’s not. It’s just weird. Indeed, much like Hayman guitars before it, Flytes were well made and pretty unremarkable except for the eccentric appearance.

Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar

Apparently, Burns UK Flytes were played by so-called Glam Rockers like the band Slade and Mark Bolan (who made a career of eccentric guitars, among other things). Wikipedia lists other Flyte players, but I’ve never heard of any of them, not that that signifies anything. But, you have to stretch to find Flyte fans; they never did take off.

This guitar is #172. I have no idea how many Flytes were produced, but I suspect production quantities were not enormous. They were only made for about 2 years. In around 1977 Burns UK introduced the Mirage to replace the Flyte, with re-designed Mach Two pickups. Burns UK then bit the dust.

Jim Burns gave guitars one more go with the oddly named enterprise “Jim Burns Actualizers Ltd.” From 1979-83, but that met with even less success than Burns UK and the Flyte.

Still, you have to give Burns high marks for chutzpah and if your taste, like mine, runs to the unusual, you should be sure to catch a Flyte the next time one come your way!

Ugly Mugs No. 2: Under the Radar (Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1983 Jolana Diamant I Electric Guitar

The short story, of course, is that Russia became Communist after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Fast forward to 1941 and the German Nazi army invades Russia, get’s stalled at Leningrad (St. Petersburg), and the Russian counter-assault commences. The Allies invade Sicily and Normandy. In 1945 everyone meets up in Berlin and Hitler eats a bullet. The victors divide the spoils, with Russia getting control of the Eastern half of Germany (and Berlin), as well as pretty much everything to the east of that. The Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and the Iron Curtain are created and more than 30 years of Communist rule ensues in those areas. Can you say “Cold War?”

Now, you could probably construct an argument about how the Cold War ultimately affected American popular music, but I won’t try. What I find more interesting is that a whole bunch of traditionally guitar-making regions in Europe ended up under Communist rule. Markneukirchen, probably the greatest center of German lutherie, ended up just a few miles over the border in East Germany. Similar areas in nearby Czechoslovakia also ended up in Communist hands, including that where the Jolana company that made the Diamant I seen here was located.

I don’t know about you but I didn’t grow up withCommunist Guitars on my mind. I just knew they wanted to drop an A-bomb on us. As with all of history, reality and geo-politics operate in totally separate realms! Thank goodness.

Vintage 1983 Jolana Diamant I Electric Guitar

Definitive information on Jolana guitars is hard to obtain, even though the brand was one of the most successful in the Eastern Bloc. If you search online, you will actually learn that Jolana guitars represent a pretty heroic story of a man, Josef Ruzicka (1928-2004), who bucked the official Communist dictum that electric guitars represented rock and roll and the decadent Capitalism that music stood for. In around 1953 Ruzicka built his first electric Hawaiian guitar (about as decadent a Capitalistic rock and roll tool as I can imagine, eh?). Thereafter followed some Strat-style guitars, eventually leading to a guitar factory which ended up in Horavice and guitars named for—if Google Translate can be properly translated!—Josef’s daughter Jolana.

Just when the Diamant Les Paul version appeared is a bit murky. If you asked me, I’d say around 1972, but other sources online claim that the Diamant appeared in 1979, with the upscale Diamant I, as seen here, debuting in 1983. This may be true. One curious phenomenon you’ll encounter in online accounts of Jolana and other Soviet-era guitars is a profound inferiority complex that disparages the quality of these instruments. Indeed, as someone with no youthful experience (and an awful lot of aged experience!) with these guitar, I find this surprising. I have not found Eastern European guitars to be particularly different from guitars produced in Western Europe, and the workmanship is generally speaking quite good. Would this hold its own head-to-head with a Gibson Les Paul? No. But neither would a Crucianelli or a Framus or a Hagstrom.

That said, I have noticed that I consistently date Eastern Bloc guitars as being much earlier than they actually were. I’ll eye-ball a guitar and say “1968” when it turns out to be 1979. What appears to be the situation is that Soviet-era guitars aren’t so much badly made as they are really out of date, anachronisms! As if the makers are all at least 10 years behind their Western counterparts! Anachronism shouldn’t be confused with shoddy quality. But then again, if you’re 15 and those were the only guitars you could get, you might see “old fashioned” as a “quality” issue.

Vintage 1983 Jolana Diamant I Electric Guitar

In any case, this is a well made little Les Paul copy. The body is maple with a thick, about ¾” thick carved European spruce top. There’s binding and the fit and finish aren’t bad. These humbuckers ain’t DiMarzios, but they’re serviceable. If online sources are to be believed, this particular guitar is quite rare based on the finish. The vast majority (“90%”) are supposed to have been black, with the rest finished in red, and only a very few done in sunburst, as seen here. It would be hard to judge here in the Western Hemisphere because as far as I know none were ever exported to these parts and you almost never see any—black, red, or sunburst—on vintage guitar dealer lists.

According to some online sources, the Jolana factory produced some guitars branded as Futurama and exported to the UK, where they were played by the likes of George Harrison, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton, presumably before they could afford more expensive guitars. Most sources have Jolana shutting down in 1989, about the time that the Iron Curtain came crashing down to end the Cold War, though one source claims to have a 1991 Jolana.

But just when you think the Cold War and Jolana guitars are gone for good, Vladimir Putin chomps off a bit of Ukraine and the NBE Corp. in the Czech Republic announced the return of Jolana guitars. I don’t know if the Cold War has returned (I hope not), and I haven’t seen any new Jolana guitars, but these old ones, Communist overtones and anachronisms included, are pretty interesting artifacts of a time when a guitar like this Diamant I was unknown to those of us raised under Capitalistic Decadance!

Communist Guitars (Vintage 1983 Jolana Diamant I Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar

This Tux-master actually comes with a pretty impressive pedigree. In 1959 the legendary guitar-designer (and notoriously bad businessman) Jim Burns hooked up with a German chap named Henry Weill to build a line of Burns-Weill electric solidbody guitars built in London. Weills was reportedly the electronics expert. This partnership lasted less than a year and it’s pretty hard to find examples. However, it’s pretty reasonable to speculate that Burns and Weill met more than once over many more than one pint! Then they retired to a band saw to reshape some firewood. These were truly Bizarro guitars, squarish angular monsters all off-balance!

According to online sources (meaning cross your fingers and hope), one of their models was called the Fenton, and that became the source of name of the new company re-formed by Weill in 1960, Fenton-Weill. Whether or not there was a person named Fenton remains one of guitardom’s unsolved mysteries.

Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar

Regarding this Fenton-Weill guitar I have in my notes that it was a re-design of the Burns-Weill RP2G guitar model but I have no idea how I arrived at such a conclusion. I don’t need to point out this guitar’s ungainly aspects! That anteater snout headstock, the small, asymmetrical body.

To be fair, this guitar actually has some innovative features. For one thing, the neck is glued in and has a heelless design to improve access up the neck. This is at least a decade in advance of the appearance of that design feature in the U.S. Also, the weird paint job, with the shaded black-burst, was at least 25 years ahead of its time, such aesthetics not appearing until the mid-1980s.

Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar

Actually, this guitar isn’t entirely “stock.” The bridge is a Gotoh replacement and the 3-way switch and jack are not original. However, this kind of fits with the gestalt of Fenton-Weills. That’s because Henry Weill was also an early pioneer in sourcing parts from Japan, as it turns out (if online sources are to be believed). Apparently Weill bought pre-assembled pickguards, with pickups and wiring, from Guyatone. Reportedly, Henry “tweaked” them, but the electronics are Japanese. Online rumors suggest that Weill didn’t do the wood-work either. Necks are supposed to have come from Germany. Thus, the presence of a Gotoh bridge doesn’t violate the spirit of the law.

Like most ugly-duckling guitars, this actually plays and sounds pretty well. The original Featherlite vibrato is great for your rendition of Apache or Walk, Don’t Run. I suspect you wouldn’t want to be seen strapping this on for a heavy metal gig, but it does have a cool surf vibe.

When Burns and Weill split in 1959, Weill continued to make guitars badged Weill-London. These seem to be even rarer than Burns-Weill guitars. I couldn’t find a single online image of one, but they no doubt continued the same aesthetic. The Fenton-Weill brand was in play at least by 1963. Weill had his own factory by this time and was also producing amplifiers, plus reportedly producing guitars for Hohner and Selmer.

Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar

If you Google-Image Fenton-Weill guitars you’ll get a range of designs that include the square Bizarros some vaguely Supro-ish LPs, a kind of Alamo Jazzmaster thing, and these skinny anteater whatever-they-ares. Some have bolt-on necks, many are set-necks like this. Guitars and basses. The black-bursty finish touches are fairly tyoical.

Fenton-Weills seem to have come in a plethora of model names, “-master” being favored, including Dualmaster and Twinmaster. Minor details differ between models. Consistency was no hobgoblin for Fenton-Weill!

Alas, Henry Weill doesn’t appear to have been much better at business than Jim Burns and in 1965 the Fenton-Weill company was history, imploding in bankruptcy.

I can’t be certain when this guitar was made, but the window is pretty tight: the widest being 1960-65, with 1962-65 being more likely.

Today, sourcing parts from foreign lands is common practice. It was novel when this guitar was made, as were many of the other features. The awkward design, however, is completely original and completely…ugly! So ugly you gotta love it! I know I do…

Ugly Mugs No. 1 (Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

Now that Japanese guitars are too expensive to import into the U.S.—and now that most folks understand how good Japanese guitars could be (with a good set-up)—it’s not uncommon for eBay auctions to feature “MIJ” as a positive selling point. And, now that large-scale guitar-making—except for the highest quality custom shop work—has pretty much left Korea, for a combination of economic and political reasons, attitudes are being adjusted once again. Turns out the Koreans had also gotten pretty good a making guitars. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time that “MIK” will become another compelling sales factor when you’re shopping for guitars.

Dean guitars were the brainchild of suburban Chicago native Dean Zelinsky who started building the now legendary upscale, hybrid “Gibson copies” in the late 1970s, like the folks at nearby and contemporary Hamer partly in response to the perceived inattention to quality at Gibson at the time, and partly because Zelinsky liked Explorers and Vees and was annoyed that Gibson didn’t make any fancy flamed-top versions. The former reason might be a debatable point, but there’s no question that those early Deans were darned good guitars.

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

Indeed, players thought Deans were so good they were highly successful and the company quickly expanded its offerings. Unable to keep up with demand, Dean inevitably—like virtually everyone else, in time—turned to Japan for help. In 1983, with Guitar Player Magazine doing cover stories on the return of the Strat, Dean came up with it’s own take on a Fender with its first “Super-Strat,” the Bel Aire, one of the first guitars (there are competing candidates) to sport the now-ubiquitous h/s/s pickup configuration. The Bel Aire had a neck and hardware imported from ESP in Japan, though final assembly continued to be Stateside. By 1985 Dean Hollywoods were made in Japan by ESP.

By the end of 1985 Dean had also inked a deal to bring in Dean Autographs, like the one seen here, made in Korea. I’m actually not sure who made these guitars. Even though Korea had (and has) a number of guitar factories, most OEM work was done by either Samick or Cort and the odds are that the Autographs came from one or the other.

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

So, get over any contemporary reservations about Korean guitars and look at this with a modern eye, and you have to admit it’s pretty snappy! I’ve never been a fan of black guitars but make the black super-high-gloss, add a white lacquered fingerboard, and slap a mirror on the front and you have my attention. In addition to having the usual Super-Strat features, this also has a neck-tilt adjustment feature to let you fine-tune your action without taking everything apart. A lot of people obsess over pickups, which I’ve never really understood. Almost no one plays an electric guitar through a solid-state amp set to give clean, neutral sound, which is the principal way you’d get to hear mainly pure pickup. Color your sound with a tube amp, pump up the bass, or, horrors, shoot the signal through a distortion pedal with a touch of reverb, like most of us do, and as long as you’re getting some output it doesn’t really matter what pickups you have. You’re going to color the sound electronically. I’m sure that’ll rile some folks. Whether you agree with this last point or not, the Dean Autograph holds up as a swell, classy shred machine.

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

This guitar has a serial number of 8700430. Since the Autographs were made from 1985-87, I presume the “87” is date encoding. I have no idea if these are relatively rare or common. They don’t come up for sale that often, but that many not mean much. I suspect it’s a lot like 1960s Japanese guitars. They weren’t that rare (although less plentiful than most of us think), but no one ever imagined they’d be collectible in the future, so few people held onto them. By the time Zelinsky got into Korean-made guitars, he’d grown tired of the guitar biz and he shuttered the original Dean doors in 1990, off to make furniture.

Dean guitars are back in business, of course, and apparently doing well, including some made in the U.S.A. again. The more I see, the less I know I can predict about how things will eventually turn out. If my wife wouldn’t kill me, I’d start squirreling away some of those Chinese guitars…

Mirror Image Guitars (Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

I finally found my Wild Dog on, of all things, the inventory list of George Gruhn, the eminent Nashville vintage guitar dealer. Now, that may not seem odd to you, but this was a long time ago. Back then finding guitars was done by eagerly getting the first printing of the Trading Times, a weekly newsprint want-ad rag that was published all over the country in localized versions. If you’re one of those young-uns who walks around with your nose in a smart-phone, “want-ads” were notices you paid to put in the paper if you had something to sell. EBay didn’t exist. Only Al Gore used the Internet. George’s list wasn’t in the Trading Times, but in Vintage Guitar Magazine, which was the Trading Times for old guitar junkies.

Anyhow, I got this 1965 Baldwin-Burns Jazz Split-Sound from George Gruhn for what I thought was a high price at the time, but it was a relative bargain at Gruhn’s because this was the time when everyone was still looking for vintage Strats and Les Pauls (before they cost 5 to 6 figures), not Baldwin-Burns guitars. So, this wasn’t on the radar at the time. Except for someone like me. There’s a reason I’m billed as “The Different Strummer.”

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

Baldwin-Burns guitars are part of the madness that was the 1960s guitar industry. Baby Boomers like me liked guitars and corporations with money started buying up guitar manufacturers. CBS and Fender, Norlin and Gibson, etc., etc. Among the early suitors for Fender was the Baldwin Piano and Organ company of Cincinnati. When Fender went on the block in 1965 due to Leo’s health problems, Baldwin tried to buy the company. CBS outbid them and that was that. At the same time, Burns of London, owned by Jim Burns, was having financial difficulties. Burns was more guitar “genius” than business wizard. The plan was to import Burns-designed and produced guitars carrying the Baldwin name. The first units began to arrive in late 1965 and this was a very early arrival of the Jazz Split-Sound model.

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

Actually, this is pretty interesting in a number of dimensions. First of all, it’s a “Strat” configuration, although pretty liberally interpreted, with “notes” of the Burns Bison. Back in the mid-‘60s Fender’s top guitars were the Jazzmaster and Jaguar, which were most copied by both European and Japanese manufacturers. It’s early because of the head, which became a scroll design in mid-1966. Like I said, Jim Burns was a pretty good guitar designer and this has one of his Series 2 adjustable vibratos. The pickups are a pretty interesting take on a humbucker, really kind of a hybrid, with offset coils and poles. This is, no doubt, the origin of the “Split-Sound” nomination. These are pretty cool, because the “Split-Sound” meant that the neck coils captured the bass strings and the bridge coils got the trebles. I’m not really sure you can hear the subtleties, but it’s dang cool none-the-less.

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

The “Wild Dog” setting is, well, underwhelming. It’s basically an out-of-phase sound like you get in the in-between positions on a Strat, but the pickups aren’t really as hot as a Strat’s, so, while it’s cool—and pretty innovative—in a ’60s guitar, it’s really no big whoop. But good marketing!

This is, for the times, a professional grade instrument, on a par with Fender or Gibson, with an entirely unique feel, of course. Burns doesn’t get the respect he deserves in the American market, and the Baldwin—and later Ampeg—monikers didn’t help with credibility, given the consumer illusion that a brand name had to equate with the manufacturer. Which it almost never has.

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

Despite all the technical features that make this guitar desirable, there really isn’t any “Wild Dog” there. Maybe compared to a Kay or a Harmony electric. And to get Wild Dog out of a Strat, you needed toothpicks. Nada on Gibsons.

That the “Wild Dog” setting was kind of disappointing doesn’t diminish the coolness of this guitar, but it certainly wasn’t what I expected. More like “Big Whoop.” But pretty good marketing!

The Lure of the Wild Dog (Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

Actually, the name of this guitar does provide something of a clue to its vintage: a Bunker Astral Series Sunstar. Far out, man. Shades of Star Trek. The Astral Series was the brainchild of Dave Bunker, a luthier whose name you may not know, but whose work you just may have encountered. Dave was born out in Washington State in 1935 and by the 1950s was playing guitar. Back then the legendary Jimmy Webster was touring the country promoting Gretsch guitars. Webster was one of the modern pioneers of two-handed tapping and the technique was a revelation to Bunker, who adopted it as his own.

Bunker became a teacher and began working on designing a double-necked tapping guitar, which he called the Duo-Lectar. This was the beginning of a long line of inventions intended to improve the performance of guitars. Dave actually build around 50 Duo-Lectars in the early 1960s. In 1964 Dave became part of a pop trio with two lovely sister singers and toured with them, playing Las Vegas and cruise ships.

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

Apparently Bunker had time to keep refining his guitar ideas and in around 1966 or so (he doesn’t remember exactly) he introduces the Astral Series guitars. Described as “The Guitar of Tomorrow,” for once the hype was right on. Basically this is a central core so beloved by tappers with two detachable wings or pods to give it guitar dimensions. The original idea was that you could get different looking pods and change the look of your guitar.

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

Alright, we’re are already in Klingon territory for 1966…or even today. But a core body with detachable pods is, in the end, largely a matter of carpentry. BUT, Dave had already developed his “tension-less neck.” Dave had found that he got dead spots where the truss rod was anchored, around the 10th fret. This led to his routing a channel in the neck where he placed a metal reinforcement rod that attached to plates at the body and the neck at the nut. This carried all tension and allowed the neck to fully resonate. This design also meant tuners had to be put tuners down at the bottom instead of the head. His Magnum pickups had individual poles hand wound with high impedance wire around a vertical Alnico V magnet. Each string had its own vertically and horizontally adjustable bridge/saddle, plus an additional microtuner that Bunker neglected to patent. If this looks like what showed up later on Floyd Roses, well, ask Dave what he thinks about that.

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

What all this means is that this guitar was way ahead of its times, probably sporting more technical innovations than any other guitar I can think of in 1966.

I’ve guessed at 1968 as the date of this guitar. Its serial number is #4001, but that doesn’t mean it’s the 4,001st guitar he made. If there’s any rhyme or reason to his numbering, I don’t know it. His main production was done from 1966-1970, though you could still get one as late as 1974, when he began offering DiMarzio options. Plus, it’s entirely possible those later ones were unsold stock. This came in an original hardshell case with a foam padding that had turned to an annoying power. When asked about it, Dave just said, “Yeah, we had some problems with that early on.”

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

Dave continued performing and making guitars, coming up with more innovations. If that tension-less neck idea rings a bell, that’s probably because it came back to life in 1990 when Bunker became the “B” in PBC guitars, P being John Pearce and C being Paul Chernay. They set up a manufacturing facility in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, and began producing a line of mostly pretty high-end guitars. They were pretty well received, although somewhat eccentric in shapes, although I don’t think they sold all that well. Bunker met Jim Donahue, who was doing design work at Hoshino USA down in Bensalem, PA, and Ibanez contracted with PBC to make its USA Custom USRG Series in 1994. Ibanez liked the guitars and wanted to expand the relationship, but Bunker’s partner declined. Ibanez USRGs ceased production in 1996 and PBC promptly went out of business. I remember when leftover PBC stock flooded the Philly market, but I thought the prices too high and didn’t pick one up. Another of those “shoulda” moments, since they run about twice the sale price these days, if you can find one.

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

Dave Bunker still makes and sells guitars. He has an ad in the current Vintage Guitar Magazine.

Dave thought that including PBC and Ibanez production, he’d made around 8,000 guitars. However, if that were true you’d see a heck of a lot more on the market and you hardly ever see them. Maybe their owners just love ‘em too much. This is the only Sunstar I’ve ever seen. Even more amazing since it was produced in the Sixties! Beam me up, Scotty…

To The Stars – And Beyond! (Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

I bought this guitar on eBay in 2000. How could I not? I think the seller was in Houston, and was Asian with not too great English language skills. I asked them what it was and learned it was a Parrot Tirryche made in China. OK. Upon further inquiry I learned that it was also being sold as a Scorpion QueensRyche. Well, a connection with the Scorpions and QueensRyche established an obvious Heavy Metal relationship that made more sense than tropical birds. Indeed, I was told it was made by “Scorpion” in TianJing, China. This is most likely Tianjin, a city immediately to the east of Beijing, essentially a “suburb.”

Now, assuming this is true information, which I have no reason to doubt, it really doesn’t tell us much of anything. Actually, I’ve done some research on the modern Chinese guitar industry and the area east of Beijing is, in fact, one of the regions where guitar-making thrives. (Another is on the mainland across from Hong Kong.) So, assuming this guitar was made in Tianjin, it was made near a modern center of Chinese lutherie. And, in 2000 it was a pretty early example of Chinese product. As we all know, Chinese industrial progress has been extraordinarily swift, and today some decent guitars are being made there.

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

I know that most modern guitars are basically rough-hewn on CNC carving machines. They began to be used in around 1976 pretty much simultaneously by Peavey for its remarkable T-60/T-40 guitars and basses and by FujiGen Gakki in Nagoya, Japan, for Ibanez, Greco and other guitars. And I know CNC machines can do amazing things. But I have no idea what the story is on this Tirryche or whatever it is. I suspect that, coming from back in Ought Zero, it actually may have been carved by hand, not a fancy CNC machine. First of all, the Chinese guitar industry was in its infancy at that time. People were only just beginning to look there for sources. Korea was still the go-to place. With no large-scale production, it’s highly unlikely that “Scorpion” had a CNC machine, or the expertise to program it to make something this complex. Some little old wood-carver supplying someone who assembled the parts and sold them to a trading company is a more likely scenario. If I’m right, this actually becomes a pretty interesting guitar, which it already is intrinsically, if you, like me, like really weird guitars!

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

Indeed, it’s pretty hard to decipher what kind of imagination created this guitar. The Heavy Metallers were partial to odd-shaped guitars, but this? Kiss and the Axe guitar I get. This is like a caricature of a Heavy Metal guitar. Or maybe it’s a guitar modelled after a Chinese orthographical character that represents mental illness. Or the sign of the Year of the Boar. Or some dead Emperor.

You can actually play this guitar, though I’m not sure why you would. I mean, the embarrassment factor alone would argue against breaking this out on stage. Then again, no one else would have one… This is well enough made that you can set it up adequately. Think Korean-made Hondo and you have the guitar space it occupies.

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

Needless to say, neither Parrot Tirryches nor Scorpion QueensRyches hit a home-run. This is the only one I’ve ever seen. Even on eBay at the time (or since, not that I’ve been looking)! This likely was a trial balloon, limited-run guitar designed to test a market that didn’t and doesn’t exist. It can’t hold a candle to a Peavey T-60. Or to most modern Chinese-made guitars. But, if I’m right in my assumptions and conclusions, this is a rare example of product from the early Chinese guitar-making industry, possibly largely hand-made, and, if you’re jealous, go ahead and find another one!

Let me know if you’ve seen anything similar. Like I said, this Parrot Tirryche is one of the rare incidences when I have to cry “Mayday!” I need a storm window.

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! (2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

Carvin guitars, made in Covina, California, are one of the Rodney Dangerfield’s of the American guitar world. They’ve been around as long as Fender. They’re actually still in the family (as I write this, at least!), not passing through various corporate hands or part of a conglomerate family of brands. The company has contributed numerous innovations. These days the guitars reflect a high standard of quality. Yet for some reason Carvin doesn’t spring to most folk’s lips when you bring up the subject of venerable guitar brands.

I confess I was not really much aware of Carvin guitars until I started collecting back in the ‘80s. I probably saw some of their ads in Guitar Player Magazine, but since I wasn’t in the market for an electric guitar, I didn’t pay attention. Plus, I was living in the Great Lakes area and Carvin was out in California. You didn’t see too many Carvins.

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

My first Carvin was a classy 1982 DC-200KI with a body make of figured koa and a heel-less glued-in neck. Very sweet. After that I always kept my eyes peeled for interesting Carvins, and there are plenty.

I found this Carvin SGB-3 languishing in a music shop in Toledo, Ohio, before I knew much about the brand. Turns out this was one of Carvin’s first solidbody guitars, originally introduced in 1955 and offered until 1961.

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

Carvin—the name is a combination of the founder’s sons’ names Carson and Gavin—was started in 1946 when a Hawaiian guitar player from Kansas named Lowell Kiesel moved to L.A. Kiesel began developing an idea for a Bakelite lap steel and introduced the Kiesel lap steel in 1947. These were distributed by Continental, at least. I actually found one of those laps a few years ago. No one knew what it was! (Knowledge is power.) I spoke with one of the younger sons Mark years ago and he recalled assembling those laps in their kitchen. These did well and the Hawaiian line was expanded and they began making Kiesel amps.

The Carvin name appeared in around late 1949 or so. Carvin’s first Spanish electrics were hollowbodies sourced from both Kay and Harmony, with a Carvin pickup mounted on them in California. Until Carvin opened a couple retail outlets in the 1990s, Carvin guitars were always mail-order. Because they used that method of marketing, your guitar was basically custom-made when you placed an order. No dealers to supply, etc. As a result, Carvins have always offered lots of options, so you’re likely to find a lot of variation between examples of the same “model.”

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

As I said, the SBG solidbodies (Solid Body Guitar, SBG) debuted in 1955 with the design you see here, a big slab maple body and a sort of Stratish neck. I love the look, but there’s no way that point on the top side is comfortable to play! The pickups on this guitar are probably not original, although with Carvin’s “customizable” approach, who knows? I don’t know who made them. They look like DeArmonds and have the date Sept. 16, 1957, which DeArmond often did on older pickups. And they sound like DeArmonds, not my favorite units. Anyhow, they’re not stock Carvin pickups but they were probably mounted close to when this guitar was made. This one came with the all-important original hard case AND a Carvin brochure! These don’t have serial numbers yet, so your guess is as good as mine, but they were only made for 6 years. Pretty cool—if basic—guitars!

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

Carvin got a little more hip with a quasi-Jazzmaster style following these first SBGs, but switched to importing parts, briefly bodies made in Japan, then for much of the 1970s made its own Strat-style bodies but outfitted them with Höfner necks from Germany. In 1978 Carvin started making all of its own guitars again, including use of glued-in necks like my DC-200KI.

Fortunately the Plains-states migration into California didn’t yield The Grapes of Wrath for guitars. I’d say both Fender and Carvin are success stories. Carvin just needs a little more respect.

The Other Dust Bowl Ballads (Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

I kind of missed contemporary pop music during the 1970s, with my eyes glued to classical guitar books and my stereo playing old 78 rpm records I found in thrift shops. So, I also missed Veleno guitars, although I did read Guitar Player magazine and thus had a kind of literary idea of what was going on. I probably first learned about Velenos in those pages and, later, when I started building a collection, a Veleno went on my wish list.

I finally located a pair for sale listed in the “want ads” of Vintage Guitar Magazine. I was on the phone two minutes later. A minty gold one was already gone, but this chrome beauty was still available, so I paid what was back then a lot of money to get it.

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

The fellow who sold it to me knew where John Veleno was living and I was able to track him down in Florida. That resulted in some interviews that yielded an article in Vintage Guitar Magazine, the chapter in my book Guitar Stories Vol. 2 and subsequent entry in Electric Guitars, The Illustrated Encyclopedia.

John was an amiable fellow who gave me a bunch of great anecdotes. These days I might be a little more critical of some of the facts, but it’s pretty hard to get corroborating data on a small guitar-maker from Florida!

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

John Veleno (b. 1934) was a machinist who grew up in Massachusetts. He started taking guitar lessons in around 1958 and by 1961 he’d become a teacher. If you’ve ever taught guitar, you know it ain’t exactly the most dependable living. Married with children, he became a machinist and relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1963 and got a job in a machine shop that made aluminum parts for use by NASA at then Cape Canaveral. Veleno augmented his day-job income by giving guitar lessons at home after work. You see where this is going!

Actually, the Veleno guitar originated from some advertising for his teaching sideline. To attract attention to his lessons, John fashioned a guitar-shaped aluminum mailbox for his house. Intrigued by the design, friends urged him to build a real guitar out of aluminum. John bit and Veleno guitars were born.

Using the technology with which he was familiar, Veleno guitars were carved out of aluminum, which was either chromed or anodized—I’m not sure I understand the difference. Most were chrome, but a few were gold, and fewer yet were done in red or blue. Or at least those were offered.

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

If you read my accounts, you’ll find an estimate of around 185 Veleno Originals being made, plus another 10 or so other odd models. That was based on Veleno’s recollection. You’ll find other numbers on the Internet, but they’re all in the same ball-park. Apparently there were some forgeries made, but it’s not clear when that happened; it seems like there was an issue with eBay in the early 2000s. At this writing Veleno was still offering to make you an upgraded version for around $8,000, but, by his own accounting, he’s only made around 10, if that, so Veleno guitars are still relatively rare.

Truth about Velenos is sometimes elusive. Plus John’s accounts were not always crystal clear. He has a massive, rambling “autobiography” you can find with a little searching on the Web. He talks about me in it, accusing me of claiming that he made 3 guitars with bird-shaped heads, wondering where I got that wrong information. Well, guess what? That’s what he told me. He forgot to mention that they were just necks and after Jorge Santana bought a guitar with one, he cut those other heads off. He also claims I got “fired” from my job around 2002, implying some connection that questions my credibility. Actually, I have been fired a couple of times during my advertising career! But, for the record I was laid off at that time and started a very successful agency shortly thereafter which I ran for more than a decade. In any case, it’s all very amusing!

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

This guitar is #90 and features the original Guild humbuckers. The fellow who sold it claimed it had formerly belonged to Frank Hannon of the band Tesla, but there’s no way to verify that. Hannon is on the list of Veleno owners. This guitar was part of the Dangerous Curves exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and it’s in Acoustic Guitars and a host of other books because the photos were subsequently licensed to other publishers (not by me).

Veleno Originals are actually pretty good guitars. They’re light-weight and easy to play. And, if you have one, you’re part of a fairly exclusive club. Like I said, cult objects!

Great Shiny Birds (Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1964 Silvertone 1457 Electric Guitar with Amp-in-Case

Inevitably there’s always an earlier “earliest,” but the earliest amp-in-case I know of was built by Daniel when he was working for Epiphone in around 1936. Nathan I. Daniel was a young electronics wizard who was discovered in the early 1930s by Epiphone’s head engineer Herb Sunshine building amplifiers in the basement of a New York department store (back when department stores really had departments and they did things). In 1935 the Epiphone Banjo Company changed its name to Epiphone and introduced a line of electric guitars and amplifiers called Electraphones, which was almost immediately changed to Electar. These included electric Spanish archtop guitars, Hawaiian lap steels, and little amplifiers designed and built by Nat Daniel. In 1936 Epiphone offered its Electar Model C Hawaiian guitar with an amp built into the case, designed by our friend Nat. For some reason, it didn’t go over very well, and the amp was quickly separated out into the Model C amplifier.

Vintage 1964 Silvertone 1457 Electric Guitar with Amp-in-Case

In 1938 National-Dobro revisited the idea, introducing the Supro 60 Electric Combination and the Portable Supro 70 Electric Combination. Both of these featured a little pearloid-covered Supro Electric Hawaiian Guitar tucked into an amp in case unit. I don’t think any of these earl amp-in-case designs did particularly well, but then there was something called the Great Depression going on, which had to have an effect on sales.

Obviously, Daniel thought the idea was good enough. Daniel worked for Epiphone until 1942. After the War Daniel opened his own plant, Danelectro, in Red Bank, NJ, mainly making guitars and amps for Sears and Montgomery Ward, badged Silvertone and Airline, respectively. They began selling Danelectro-branded guitars and amps in around 1954. People throw the term around all too often—and ignorantly—these days, but those ‘50s and ‘60s Danos were truly iconic.

Vintage 1964 Silvertone 1457 Electric Guitar with Amp-in-Case

And maybe the most iconic of Danelectros were the Silvertone Amp-in-Cases made for Sears beginning in 1962. The first were the smaller black-sparkle-finished Masonite one-pickup No. 1448s with an 18-fret fingerboard and a small 3-watt, 6” speaker tube amp built into the case. These were followed in 1963 by the full-size red-sparkle-finished Masonite two-pickup guitars with a 5-watt, 8” speaker tube amp, the No. 1449.

Vintage 1964 Silvertone 1457 Electric Guitar with Amp-in-Case

Let me get this off my chest. Something’s “iconic” when it represents something bigger than itself. “Iconic” does not mean, as modern advertising copywriters throw it around everywhere these days, “his best album,” or, more often, “very famous” or “extremely popular.” Icons are like symbols or metaphors with greater meaning attached, signaling a bigger message or concept. These amp-in-case guitars are icons because they stand for a whole generation and the changes in American culture that were transpiring in the early ‘60s. They were targeted at maturing Baby Boomers who were doing Beach Blanket Bingo with Annette from the Mickey Mouse Club (or, more likely, imagining that they were), switching from Folk to surf rock, starting bands in their suddenly suburban garages. A population on the go, on brand new Interstate superhighways. See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet. Well, you get the point. I’ll be quiet.

As with everyone else in the ‘60s, Danelectro got bought out in 1966, here by entertainment giant MCA. Whether due to the ownership change or coincidence, the Dano line was shuffled. The two-pickup 1449 was renumbered to 1457 and a bunch of new models debuted. While the amp-in-case concept seemed to continue to 1969, it was no long the iconic versions we know and love.

Vintage 1964 Silvertone 1457 Electric Guitar with Amp-in-Case

I’ve never played a 1448, but I’ve played this 1457 and the amp is surprisingly good. The 8” speaker and tube output have really sweet tone and really decent volume, more than you’d expect. I can’t say the guitar knocks my socks off, but as primitive as it is, it plays fine and it’s pretty good for a few choruses of “Walk, Don’t Run” and “Apache.” These are pure guitar fun! And, yes, they are iconic…

Garage-Band Dream Machine (Vintage 1964 Silvertone 1457 Guitar with Amp-in-Case) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

How, you ask, could anything be odder than a beer conglomerate (Norlin) buying Gibson? (I guess, the more you think of suds and guitars, it’s not so hard to understand!) Well, that’s because Heads & Threads wasn’t about skin tensioners on percussion instruments or banjos. Heads & Threads was originally a pioneer in the importation of nuts and bolts made in Japan founded by Norman Sackheim. Please note his first name, the source of the “Norma” brand name. Like others before him (Jack Westheimer and sporting goods), it wasn’t such a giant step from hardware to guitars, given the times.

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

Sackheim set up a subsidiary called, following a theme here, Strum & Drum in 1964 to import guitars and drums and related instruments. Like everyone else, Strum & Drum purchased instruments most likely from a trading company. They were the power brokers in Japan and every trading company had a stable of related manufacturers to draw upon, based on what the customer wanted. It’s darned near impossible to identify the makers of Japanese guitars with any precision. Sometimes outstanding workmanship—as in the cases of Matsumoku or FujiGen—are pretty compelling evidence, but there were so many specialty providers (eg, hardware, pickups, etc.), it’s hard to identify conclusive features. This is further complicated by the fact that imitation of successful ideas between companies was an accepted part of the culture, so just because something looked good on one brand’s product doesn’t mean it wouldn’t show up on another’s. Welcome to reality!

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

That said, the majority of Strum & Drum’s electric guitars seem to have been sourced from the Tombo factory. A few have features that suggest Teisco, with the caveat above. There’s no way to know where the acoustics came from. The older I get, the less important that seems to get, but I also know we collectors have issues…

Norma was Strum & Drum’s major brand. Many were pretty pedestrian solidbody and hollowbody electrics that are interesting as period artifacts, and little else. Of special interest were their sparkle-finished guitars, which are about as cool as it gets with ‘60s Japanese guitars.

In 1966, Norm Sackheim’s son Ron bought the rights to Don Noble’s instrument line. Noble was a prominent Chicago-area accordionist who sold imported accordions and guitars. Some Noble guitars made by Wandré Pioli in Italy appeared, but in ’67 the line was cancelled and the Noble name was added to the Strum & Drum stable.

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

While all this was transpiring, the Ventures were becoming guitar gods in Japan, and Japanese makers began to build Mosrite “copies.” Long story short, the Noble brand re-appeared on some Mosrite copies sold by Strum & Drum, including this 1968 copy of a Mosrite Combo hollowbody, The Noble Model No. EG 686-2HT.

I’m no Mosrite expert but I own a Combo and this copy isn’t too far off in terms of quality. Mosrites weren’t that great. And, it’s pretty historically interesting. Note the nifty “N” fingerboard inlays and real German-carve top. This guitar was the only Noble model, the only Strum & Drum Mosrite copy, and was only available until late 1969, maybe into 1970. Ironically, The Noble Mosrite Combo copy is probably as rare if not rarer than a genuine Mosrite. Such a world; go figure.

In 1969 Strum & Drum bought the rights to the National brand name—notice the N theme—and brought out the National Big Daddy, one of the earliest bolt-neck Gibson Les Paul Custom copies, in 1970, but that’s another story. Strum & Drum stumbled on into 1975 when it was sold to C. Bruno, who promptly deep-6ed the whole shebang. Seeing promise in the nuts and bolts market, the Sackheims returned to importing those essentials, which they were still doing the last time I spoke to them quite a few years ago. So, that’s what nuts and bolts—or Heads & Threads—have to do with our favorite obsession, and some venerable brand names in guitar history.

The Nuts (& Bolts) of the Guitar Biz – Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

Ok, it was the early 1970s so Ampeg can be forgiven for being well behind the curve in the politically correct category (I’m not even sure that political correctness had been fully invented yet at that time). Still, you gotta admire the chutzpah and it’s hard not to like any line of guitars called Stud. Sounds like it should be a Paul Newman movie.

Anyhow, all the yuks aside, the use of the Stud name was kind of eerily appropriate. These guitars were loosely speaking what we’d today call “copy guitars” in that they are based on American guitar designs popular at the time. They appeared just as the whole copy strategy was unfolding. Importers/distributors were producing copies mainly of Gibson guitars, since they yielded the most profit, but also of Fender and occasionally Guild guitars and basses. Even American guitar companies themselves hopped on the copy bandwagon. Gibson itself imported Japanese “copies” of some of its Epiphone models, and both Martin and Guild marketed lines of copy guitars until they wised up to the potential threats to their business.

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

The Ampeg Studs were part of this whole copy scene, but they were aptly named because, unlike many of their competitors—the Ibanezes and Arias of the world—these were really over the top. They really were Studs!

Ampeg has always been better known as an amplifier company, although the very name refers to an amplifying “peg” or leg for a doghouse bass fiddle. Indeed, Ampeg’s first stringed instruments were electric Baby Basses in the 1960s. In 1969 Ampeg struck a deal with then hot guitar designer Dan Armstrong, who came up with the idea for those wonderful Plexiglas “See-through” guitars and basses. These were made into 1971 when Armstrong left the arrangement over a financial disagreement.

While rough copies of Rickenbackers and Mosrites appeared in Japan as early as 1968, followed by some somewhat crude Les Pauls, it was really the Plexiglas Ampegs that the Japanese manufacturers pounced on, producing near and pretty exact copies by 1970. That kick-started the whole copy movement.

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

Around the time that the Plexiglas guitars and basses disappeared, Ampeg was sold to Selmer Band Instruments in Elkhart, IN. It was the Selmer incarnation of Ampeg that decided in 1973 to bring in the Studs.

The Ampeg Studs included 5 guitars and 2 basses. Three guitars, including this model, were based off of the twin humbucker Gibson SG: the Stud GE-100 with a stoptail, the Stud GET-100 with a vibrato, and this Super Stud GE-500. Two guitars were based off of the Fender Telecaster, the Heavy Stud GE-150 with two single-coil pickups and the GEH-150 with ‘buckers. Two Fender-style basses included the Little Stud GEB-101 with one single-coil pickup and the Big Stud GEB-750 with a single and mini-humbucker. Except for the Super Stud seen here, most of these had laminated bodies with either grained cedar, grained cherry, or a black finish.

This Super Stud has a one-piece maple body. It might have been better named as Heavy Stud because this is one hefty axe. The neck is bolted on rather than set in like a real SG, but, as much as I love set-neck guitars, you have to admit that it sure is easy to get a great set-up on a bolt-neck guitar, especially if it’s not premium grade. That said, this is a pretty darned good guitar. The abalonoid inlays look great on stage but are kind of cheesy up close, unless you’re like me and love any kind of bling. These ain’t DiMarzio pickups, but they’re quite adequate, especially if you’re going to pump this through a nifty Maestro effect pedal or two, and why wouldn’t you? And a little (or big) Ampeg amp.

There’s an illusion that 1970s Japanese copy guitars were legion. Twasn’t so. Most came in in relatively small batches and are nowhere as plentiful as some think. The Ampeg Studs don’t come around all that often, so they’re probably pretty rare. There’s no way to date these precisely because before 1975-76 most Japanese guitars did not have serial numbers, related to my previous point. They weren’t numerous enough to worry about returns and warranties. The Ampeg Stud line was only available from 1973-75, so you have a less than 2-year window to date with.

Linda Ronstadt’s “cowboys” certainly didn’t play Ampeg Studs, however apropos they might have been on that tour bus. Nevertheless, all of us who play guitar have a little bit of stud in our DNA and deserve to play a Super Stud! Plus, you getcher money fer nothing and yer chicks for free!

1973 Ampeg Guitars Ad (Stud Series)

1973 Ampeg Guitars Ad (Stud Series)

Getcher Money Fer Nothing & Yer Chicks For Free! (Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar

When I published my first book, Guitar Stories Vol. 1, we promoted it at a few vintage guitar shows and I would invariably get the wit from collectors and dealers, “Guitar stories, yeah, I got a few stories I can tell you.” Of course, they weren’t talking about histories, like I was, but amusing anecdotes about where they’d picked up this or that guitar. I guess most of us pack rats remember where we got things. Oh, maybe not so much the mail-order or internet scores, but back in the day when you looked the seller in the eye and tried to make him blink with a lower offer. It’s hard to forget the story about getting this Imperial guitar.

This Imperial came out of a little piece of Dickens in Philadelphia called Torresdale Music in the neighborhood with that name, in the “near northeast” as we call it, near the Burlington-Bristol Bridge (cheapest toll bridge over the Delaware River to New Jersey and back). Torresdale was a tiny, ancient corner shop just up the street from Chink’s Steaks, a legendary cheesesteak sandwich purveyor, the name of whose establishment has been the source of some local ethnic controversy. (Really good cheesesteaks consumed while sitting in 1940s-vintage wooden booths, highly recommended.)

Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar

Torresdale Music was run by Marvin Kopernik, who’d worked for the local music distributor 8th Street Music before becoming a guitar picker, as in flea market habitué, not as in Doc Watson. Anyhow, Marvin’s shop was STUFFED to the gills with old guitars and amps that he’d pick up dirt cheap at yard sales and local swap meets, an endless stream of new treasures lurking behind something else under a shelf to tempt me.

Marvin liked to get a dear price for his wares and he would rarely budge from his sticker price. However, there were chinks in Marvin’s armor. He’d write a little code on the reverse of the price tag. It didn’t take long to decipher the fact that this was what he paid for the guitar written backwards. If it was, say, “501” I’d know that Marvin had $105 into it.

Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar

One other chink in Marvin’s armor was that he couldn’t add too fast on his feet. The strategy was to scope out three guitars, decipher what he had into them, bundle them together and offer him a larger, but reasonable sum for the lot. Marvin’s circuits would fry and he’d hear $300 and that sounded like a lot of money and I’d walk out with a really great score!

But, no, this Imperial wasn’t part of one of those deals. You see, in addition to the overstuffed racks out front, Marvin had this teeny, tiny little back room where he’d pile up recent finds and stuff he had no room for in the showroom, like so much firewood. It was kind of painful to see, really. It was lurking under one of these stacks of guitars that I found this Imperial early in my collecting days and when I first knew Marvin. I had no idea what it was other than being Japanese, but it spoke to me.

Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar

Much later I found out that this was a product marketed by the Imperial Accordion Company of Chicago. As we’ve discussed before, there was an accordion boom among Baby Boomers in the mid-1950s. Like many booms before and since, it didn’t last and the numerous accordion manufacturers/importers/distributors that had sprung up to meet the demand found themselves in need of new markets. Fortunately, this coincided with the rise in guitar popularity. Also fortunately, the Italian accordion manufacturers, from whom most of the accordion guys sourced their products, were also near a guitar-making area, so they expanded into guitars, many of which were sold by the old accordion companies, including Imperial. By the early 1960s Imperial was selling solidbody electrics made by Crucianelli in Italy. By around 1965 Imperial had added Japanese-made guitars to its line, including this puppy.

Just what this model is is uncertain, but we can extrapolate. This shape is very similar to the older Crucianellis. A c. 1965 catalog has the Model S1 with one pickup and the Model S-3T, a three-pickup with “tremolo.” This is probably a Model S-2T. Very similar Greco guitars from Japan are seen, and most Grecos were built by Fujigen Gakki, the factory that produced most Ibanez guitars as well. The style of this guitar probably puts it right around 1965 or ’66.

Fortunately, this had a thick enough poly finish to survive Marvin’s woodpile. Unfortunately, Marvin’s health didn’t hold up—certainly not helped by too many cheesesteaks from Chink’s—and his shop finally had to close and become a piece of Philly history and legend. Every time I see this Imperial I smile and recall those glory days when I had Marvin’s number and got to revel in his shop’s treasures. How much did I pay? Now, that’s another story…

The King of Vintage – err – Used Guitars (Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

One of Dan’s favorite subjects was a truly weird kind of heart-shaped Murph hollowbody 12-string electric guitar, a model called the Satellite, which was truly funky and bizarre. He featured it in a Vintage Guitar Magazine article a few years back. These “heart” 12s are exceptionally rare, but, really, so is any Murph guitar, including this Squire 11-T.

Believe it or not, there actually is a sort of Murph fan club with a Murph history web site run by an Aussie fan named Dan McGonigal and located at www.murphguitars.com. This is the kind of madness and devotion that deserves recognition!

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

As you’ll learn on this site, Murph guitars were part of the Los Angeles-area guitar scene of the wild and wooly 1960s. Or 1965, to be exact. Actually, Murph guitars were the brainchild of a former Midwesterner named Patrick Murphy and were actually originally intended to help promote his children who had formed a family song-and-dance band called the Murphys. Or to have his children promote the guitars, which is a slightly different spin on the tale. The Murphys apparently did a mix of live gigs and recording local television commercials.

In any case, in early 1965 Murphy leased a small factory space and commenced an ambitious manufacturing program. Initially Murphy planned to call his guitars York, but since there were band instruments made carrying that brand, he settled on an abbreviation of his family name, which made sense given the tie-in with his children’s band. Murphy’s scheme was ambitious because he probably had too many designs. These included the aforementioned Satellites, heart-shape semi-hollobodies, plus his most popular model, the Squire, seen here and offered in a variety of other configurations, such as bass and 12-string. There was also a hollowbody Gemini, which looked very similar to contemporary Standel gutars. Oh, did I mention the single cutaway Continental IV solidbody? Or the Westerner, which was a Squire by another name. Or the Tempo I and II guitar kits? Or the acoustic model? Or the Califone model, some 25 or so were made for the record manufacturer Rheem Califone.

Murphy’s plans were so ambitious he even targeted the mighty Sears, Roebuck & Co. and sold them another batch of 25 Murph/Silvertones. At its peak, the Murph factory employed as many as 22 workers. Murph guitars sourced its primary timbers locally but bought a lot of its hardware from the German collective C.A. Gotz Jr., which is still around as a violin maker.

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

The exhaustive Murph lineup was unveiled at the 1966 Summer NAMM show and Murphy lined up a stable of dealers. As with many other small ‘60s guitar companies, these Murphs are decent little guitars with that nice, bouncy single-coil sound that’s perfect for riffing on a surf melody.

As mentioned, by far the most common Murphs were the Squires, which look suspiciously like a Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster. There’s also more than a little of a Rickenbacker vibe. Indeed, after the ’66 NAMM appearance, according to the Murph site account, “someone” complained about patent infringement and threatened to sue. The “someone” isn’t identified, but you can probably draw your own conclusions as to who was also in the neighborhood and might object. The Murph site implies that pressure was exerted on the dealers, too, who began returning guitars. Sustaining a prolonged legal battle wasn’t in the cards for Murph guitars and the doors were closed in the Spring of 1967.

I have no idea how common Murph guitars are, but an educated guess is not very. As I write this there’s a Murph Squire on eBay, well road-worn, the seller is asking $3,500 for. Good luck with that. They were never pitched as anything but budget guitars and by the time they appeared, there would have been plenty of competition from both European and Japanese manufacturers, not to mention Harmony, Kay and Valco. Probably like so many inexpensive ‘60s guitars, no one thought to hold on to them. Estimates are that only around 1,200 Murphs were ever produced, and of those around 950 were Squires.

Anyhow, muchas gracias to Teisco for bringing Murphs to our attention and even more thanks to Dan the Murph-man for keeping them alive on his tribute site. Now we’ll just have to see how much that eBay Murph guitar fetches, if anything!

Surf’s – uh, Murph’s Up! (Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

I guess if you have a job working for Peavey in Mississippi you care about CNC-carved guitars because they help feed your family. In any case, I don’t think there are any production guitars made today that don’t come out of a CNC machine, so Peavey was a real pioneer who rarely gets the credit that’s deserved.

According to Hartley Peavey, the original idea for using CNC machines to help build guitars came from the manufacturing of gun stocks, as in rifles and shotguns. Peavey’s chief designer Chip Todd started working on the idea as early as around 1975. Along the way Chip and his crew worked with Hollywood steel guitarist and amp repairman Orville “Red” Rhoads to come up with that nifty circuitry where the guitar is wired so that the tone pot works as a coil tap when it’s turned down below 7 or 8. Peavey also developed and patented a new “bilaminated” neck, which basically fused two pieces of maple with the grain going in opposite directions to combat warping. The result was the T-60 (two humbuckers) and T-30 (three single-coils) guitars and T-40 bass, which were introduced in early 1978. The “T” prefix was shorthand for Todd, though it later got reinterpreted to stand for “Technology.” I’ve always thought the T-60 was a really handsome axe, although I’ve never warmed to frets hammered right into the neck. Obviously, not everyone feels the way I do.

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

Originally the T-60 was made of natural-finished ash, but later sunburst finish and I think maple body options were added, as well as a rosewood fingerboard for curmudgeons like me. Peavey’s T-60, T-30, and T-40 were a little, how shall we say, 1970s in their look. They must have been moderately successful because Peavey decided to stick with guitars.

In 1982 Peavey had Chip Todd revamp its T (now “Technology”) line, just before Todd got hired away to Fender. To the casual eye the new T guitars—T-15, T-25, T-26, and T-27—looked a lot like the previous T-60, but there were subtle changes. Todd had lightened the guitars with less dense timbers, added new high-output Super Ferrite “blade-style” pickups, and a variety of pickup configurations. The cutaways were also deepened a bit to improve access up the neck. These new Ts also came with some new finishes, including the jet black seen here and a few metallic paints, including a turquoise and a brown. To my taste, these still look a little too retro ‘70s, but it wouldn’t be long before Peavey got into the weird shapes (like the Razer) that were becoming popular with the heavy metallists of the times.

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

The T-15 was a shortscale guitar with a pair of single coils and a bridge/tailpiece assembly. The T-25 seen here has twin humbuckers and the cast bridge. The T-26 had three single-coil pickups in a Strat-style configuration. The T-27 had a humbucker and two single-coils, one of the early guitars to feature this. The T-30 went back to the three single-coils. The T-25 pictured is called the T-25 Special, which presumably refers to the fact that it has a phenolic fingerboard instead of the usual maple.

I don’t think these Peaveys are especially rare, due in part to the fact that CNC machines can pretty much work as long as you want. On the other hand, these later T Series were only promoted in 1982 and by ’83 Peavey was on to the Razer et al. By mid-decade Peavey had move on into much more exotic territory with guitars with fancy figured tops and all sorts of new developments.

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

Still, all these T Series guitars are fun to play and are relics of that seminal era when new manufacturing technology was revolutionizing how modern guitars are made. Part of Hartley Peavey’s rationale was that by using machines, he could keep guitar manufacturing here in the U.S. It’s awfully ironic that the adoption of CNC technology would make it even easier to send guitar production to developing countries where you could make them even cheaper. So, I’m not exactly sure what the reward is for being “first!”

T for Two (Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1970’s Epiphone ET Series Crestwood Electric Guitar

Here are two examples of the Japanese made EPI Crestwood from the early 1970’s. The Epiphone ET Series guitars were solidbody guitars produced from 1970-1978 at the Matsumoku plant in Japan. In 1970, the decision was made to close down Kalamazoo production of Epiphones in favor of building them overseas in Japan. Epiphone decided to offer a new line of Japanese-built Epiphones that had more in common with other Japanese copies than previous Epiphone products.

Often confused with the Crestwood, Coronet, Olympic and Wilshire, the ET-275, 276, 278, 290 & 290N were a Japanese-made amalgamation of a few older Epiphone body shapes and designs. And unlike the USA originals, these Japanese models featured a bolt-on neck.

Additional Details:

• 1974-1978
• Two humbuckers
• Maple body
• Gold hardware
• Bolt-on Maple neck
• Rosewood fingerboard with pearl block inlays
• Bound neck and headstock
• Tune-o-matic bridge with stopbar tailpiece
• 2 Vol. 2 Tone controls
• 3-way selector switch
• 24.75″ scale
• 1.68″ nut width

Back Catalog Memories: Epiphone ET Series Crestwood Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar

You can probably justifiably consider certain lap steel guitar designs to be the forerunners of the headless guitar. Oh, like all guitars they need some basic structural components and they need some sort of tuning mechanism, but they kind of reduce the guitar to a plank with strings. You even orient to them in a different way that kind of negates the idea of a head.

Whether or not you buy that argument, probably the first headless guitar I’m aware of was Dave Bunker’s appropriately named Astral Series Sunstar, which debuted in around 1966. Dave rather brilliantly stripped the guitar down to its essence, then appended all these removable pods and appendages (including detachable head), making it truly a Starship Enterprise! I don’t know exactly when New York guitarist Alan Gittler began his experiments on minimalist guitars, but I think it was after Bunker.

It was, of course, Ned Steinberger (and his principal disciple, as it were, Andy Summers of The Police) who codified the headless guitar concept right around the end of the 1970s. Cort in Korea licensed the design and produced a number of brands popular in the early 1980s. I have one that I used to be able to cram on top of the family’s shore supplies when we vacationed. It’s in the context of those New Wavey guitars of the early 1980s that this rather fetching Riverhead belongs.

Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar

The Riverhead story is a little hard to piece together coherently. They were primarily made in Japan by the Headway company and briefly in the mid-1980s were imported into the U.S. and actively marketed. Headway, it appears, began as a high end acoustic guitar maker in around 1977 in Matsumoto City, basically the epicenter of Japanese guitarmaking. In 1981 Headway made the transition to electric solidbody guitars. Information is sketchy, but it seems they began with Fender-style copy guitars, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. They seemed to have used the Headway name, as well as the brands Bacchus and Momose, named for the luthier and Headway founder Yasuo Momose, who’d learned his art at Fujigen Gakki, builder of Ibanez and Greco electrics. There have been other brand variations, including, obviously, Riverhead.

Online sources (which seem credible) suggest that Headway experienced two factory fires in 1983, which ended in the construction of the Asuka electric guitar factory in Matsumoto in 1983, coincidental with the launch of the Riverhead brand. Unlike the Bacchus copies, Riverheads seem to have been Headway’s “high tech” line. Another source suggests that Headway made all (or most) of its own components. Certainly its guitars had many unique and innovative features, like vibratos designed to pivot two ways.

Riverhead’s Unicorn Series was distributed in the U.S. by a company called Prime, Inc., of Marlboro, MA, the same outfit that imported those curious Quest guitars. Designed somewhat after the fashion of the Burns Flyte guitars, Unicorns came with either two single-coil or, as here, two humbuckers. These were probably a unibody construction, with a mahogany core, though the wings might have been added on. Their advertising in late 1984 touted the fact that the pickups were mounted directly on top of the body for maximum tone. The heavy duty cast adjustable bridge/tuner assembly is very similar to a Steinberger, though I’m sure it was Headway’s own innovation. For such a high tech looking axe, it’s actually pretty basic, with a simple threeway select, one volume and two tone controls. Still, you’d look pretty darned cool in your orange and black Starship Trooper jumpsuit, eh?!

The Riverhead Unicorns were promoted in 1984 and ’85, so they were around at least in that time frame, probably 1983-85 or ’86 at the latest. They’re not exactly plentiful. Prime seems to have had a presence in the Northeastern U.S. I don’t know if they achieved much national distribution. The online sources suggest that Riverhead brand guitars were produced until 1997, after which Japanese production stopped. Japanese guitar production recommenced in 1999 and continued at least into 2009, although the company operates factories elsewhere in Asia. At this writing, Headway’s web site was not active.

I’ve always thought the headless technology was cool, but I was never a New Agey kind of guy, and I wouldn’t look good in an orange and black jump suit. I always found I liked a head to help me know where I should stop. Guess I occupy more of that boring normal part of the guitar universe than I care to admit!

Riverhead Unicorn Series Guitar Ad

1985 Riverhead Unicorn Series Driving Force

Searching for Spock (Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Something I’ve always found curious was the discrepancy between “correct” and “incorrect” technique on the guitar. If you ever study classical guitar, you’ll get schooled on proper positioning of the left (and right, for that matter) hand, with the thumb in the middle of the back of the neck and the fingers coming down perpendicular to the strings. This helps maximize your reach and make it easier to fret the often complex harmonic line movements. It works. But then along comes Jimi who plays left-handed upside down and backwards with his darned thumb looped over the edge of the fingerboard and creates genius. Go figure.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

In any case, periodically guitar designers turn their attention to the ergonomics of the guitar fingerboard and implement improvements to the traditional parallel fret layout. In modern times Oregon luthier Ralph Novak employs his patented “fanned fret” concept—with lower frets angled toward the bass side of the head, gradually migrating in a fan-like shape so that higher frets are angled toward the bass side of the body—on his Novax guitars.

Of course, somebody has always done something before, and in this case, conceptually if not actually, at least, it was Rickenbacker who came up with the slanted frets idea in 1973 with its Model 481. Or actually they reportedly did the slanted frets as a custom option as early as 1969. Rickenbacker had a tradition of trying to improve the ergonomics of guitar necks. Back in 1961 Rickenbacker designer Peter Sceusa filed a patent for a parabolic neck profile that was narrower at the top of the back to make it easier for ladies and people with smaller hands to fret the guitar (granted 1963). Who came up with the idea of slanting the frets I don’t know, but the idea was that if you’re resting the neck in the crook of your thumb, the fingers naturally curve forward. Thus, if you angle the frets slightly forward on the bass side, it’s more comfortable to fret, more natural.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

The notion must have been at least somewhat popular because the concept got its own guitar model with the 481 introduced in 1973. Basically this is a solidbody with what’s called the “cresting wave” shape derived from Rickenbacker’s distinctive 4001 bass guitars. Rickenbacker even came up with a pair of high-output humbuckers with 12—count ‘em—adjustable pole pieces each for the 481 which only ever appeared on this guitar. One of the toggles is a threeway select and the other is a nifty phase reversal switch.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

Hard information on the 481 is difficult to come by. The slant-fretted Model 481 was offered for 10 years from 1973-1983, but online references suggest that these are relatively scarce. There was a sort of companion Model 480 which had a similar shape, but different electronics and no slanted frets. Apparently, the Model 481 is favored by a guitarist named Serge Pizzorno of the contemporary band Kasabian, but I confess I don’t know their music (reflective of someone like me advancing on in age).

I love the idea of this guitar, even if for me the slanted frets don’t work all that well. They’re not a real obstacle to playing—they’re not that slanted—but if you favor classical technique, like I do, they’re no real advantage, and they don’t work all that well if you play a lot of barred chords. Unless maybe you’re Jimi, but who is?

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

Certainly the Model 481 is one of the more desirable of Rickenbacker’s 1970s output, probably because it’s so unlike the usual Rickenbacker. I love phase reversal switches and I love crushed pearloid shark’s teeth inlays and even the varnished fingerboard surface. That it’s so unusual is probably why I was so attracted to the Model 481 in the first place. Well, come on. You gotta love any guitar with slanted frets. Whether or not the guitar really fits in with your personality.

The Right Slant on a Rickenbacker (Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Domino Californian Electric Guitar (Redburst)

This model was an obvious take on the VOX Phantom from the same era. VOX initially made guitars in England then transferred production to Italy. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones popularized the Phantom and the Teardrop models, so Lipsky was quick to jump on the opportunity with the Domino brand.

The California was available in 2 or 3 pickup configuration. Main colors were White or Redburst as shown below, but have also been spotted in canary yellow and sonic blue. They all sported the rather unique woodgrain pickguard which looked like a 1950’s kitchen table top. It was also available in a Bass version.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Domino Californian Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Espana Violin Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

This model was an obvious take on the Hofner Beatle Bass from the same era, but a 6 string version. It is an extremely well made guitar (compared to the similar models that were coming from Japan at the time). The components look very similar to most VOX models of that era.

This model was available in 2 pickup configuration, 3-way switch, volume and tone with a Bigsby style tremolo. I have only seen this one model in Sunburst, and a very impressive and detailed Sunburst it is with a wonderfully contrasting white binding everywhere!

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Espana Violin Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Actually, painted finishes have been around probably forever. I’m no expert on really old guitars, but I’m sure faux wood finishes have been used ever since the technique was invented. It was popular in the late Victorian period on many items, including boxes, clocks, and furniture. Chicago’s Joseph Bohmann specialized in acoustic guitars with faux wood finishes from the 1880’s into the early 20th Century. Faux wood finishes returned on inexpensive guitars during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, obvious concessions to the hard times. Even Fender and some other makers used a form of photographic faux finishes on their electric guitars in recent times.

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

Likewise graphic decorations have been used time out of mind. Technically speaking, marquetry and purfling are forms of it. Stenciling probably existed for a long time, but by the 1920’s it had become a common technique for dressing up cheaper guitars. Think of those cowboy guitars with roundup and campfire scenes on the front. Sometimes this “stenciling” was actually what was known as “decalomania,” use of a colored acetate decal under the clearcoat. These could be as simple as gold scrolls to 4-colored scenes like on the Bradley Kincaid Houn’ Dog of the late 1920’s.

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

All these “finish tricks” are ancestors of the guitar graphics that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Probably no one did more to champion custom graphics on guitars than Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, whose checkerboard-to-self-portrait guitars almost define the genre. By the early ‘80s heavy metal was on the rise. Essential to metal was flashy guitar playing and for that you needed a flashy guitar, often with nifty graphics. Graphic guitars trailed off late in the decade but right around 1989-90 there was a resurgence of the form. Crackle paint jobs, bowling balls, and guitars like this here c. 1990 Vester II Concert Series (JJR Series) HFR-1070 (I kid you not).

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

I tried to get information about Vester guitars and contacted someone at the parent company, but it was NAMM time and later I misplaced the contact. But we know a little. Vester guitars were imported by Samuel Music Company of Effingham, IL, probably beginning in the late 1980’s, by 1987 at least. Your guess is as good as mine as to why this is a Vester II and not just a Vester. There were some “Traditional Series” copy guitars, and some more modern bass designs, at least. Vesters were made by Saehan Guitar Technology of Korea. Online sources say there were some Japanese Vesters as well, but take that with a grain of salt, since the Korean Saehan factory is the only source identified. The guitars were imported by Midco Music, which became Musicorp. Most Vester guitars of this vintage had typical graphic finishes for the times, some abstract, some representational.

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

I’m not sure how this graphic was produced, but I’m guessing its some sort of photo-printing process of an original airbrushed image. This is a pretty standard form of Superstrat, with the H/S/H pickup layout. The pickup covers are marked “Vester” and encase serviceable Korean pickups. The controls are interesting. Supporting the master volume and tone are the mini-toggles that control each pickup. The single-coil is on/off. However, the humbuckers are on/off/on, reversing the phase between the two on positions. Pretty clever and pretty complicated, if you ask me.

By the late 1980s Korean manufacturers were making decent guitars. These are solid, competent guitars. If you like personality, they don’t have a lot. But how do you define “personality?” Some guitars have this vibe that incorporates some sort of ineffable essence from the people who made it. Some are just good tools…and this falls into that category. Pump it through some nice effects and it will perform admirably.

I’ve no idea how long Vester brand guitars were produced, but probably into the mid-1990s at least. With the advent of “the Seattle sound” spearheaded by bands like Nirvana, Superstrats fell out of favor, and overtly sexist graphics were hardly appropriate. Vester guitars don’t seem to be especially rare, but this is the only one of this graphic I’ve ever seen. But, it was cataloged. At least we can say they are not everyday occurrences.

As a red-blooded heterosexual man, I’m tickled by the idea of exercising that strategically placed whammy. But, to be honest, it’s hard to imagine a venue where you could do that without garnering the ire of a good portion of the human race these days. Not sure I’d have the…

Well, so, did I write responsibly about a guitar decorated by a woman’s rear end? You bet your…

Speechless (Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II HFR-1070 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Espana 335 Electric Guitar

This model was an obvious take on the Gibson 335 from the same era and almost identical to the VOX version. It is an extremely well made guitar (compared to the similar models that were coming from Japan at the time). The components look very similar to most VOX models of that era.

This model was available in 2 pickup configuration, 3-way switch, dual volume and tone controls with a Bigsby style tremolo. Here is a fine example in Sunburst, but it was also available in traditional cherry.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Espana 335 Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

The first time I laid eyes on this guitar was in the showroom of LoDuca Brothers warehouse in Milwaukee, which was another of those “Temples of Doom” you hear me talk about periodically. LoDuca Brothers were (or was if you consider it a company, not siblings) the American importers and distributors of EKO guitars (actually Rickenbacker handled the West Coast). LoDuca Brothers had its roots in a late 1930s, early ‘40s accordion duo Vaudeville act featuring Thomas and Gaetano (Guy) LoDuca. According to their son, Mickey, as good Italian sons, the brothers handed their earnings over to their father, who paid them an allowance and put some in savings. When they’d amassed a couple grand, they opened the first of what would become a chain of music studios around Milwaukee. As they thrived, they began to import and sell LoDuca brand accordions sourced from Oliviero Pigini of Recanati, Italy, just north of Castelfidardo, a town that is still the hub of accordion manufacturing in Italy.

As we’ve talked about before, accordions were a big fad among young Baby Boomers in the early to mid-1950s. This was good for the LoDucas business. But when the wind was squeezed out of the demand for accordions, it kind of left the LoDucas with empty hands. They played around with importing keyboards—including the actual black and white key assemblies—until, fortuitously, folk music happened and demand for guitars began to pick up toward the end of the 1950s.

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

Pigini knew only too well about the drop in sales of accordions in the US, of course. So the company decided to expand into guitar manufacturing. LoDuca Brothers had an accordion distribution network with around 600 outlets and was doing business with Pigini, so they were a natural partner to handle the expansion into guitars.

As far as I know, EKO was the brand name chosen for Pigini’s guitars and didn’t come off another existing line of instruments. I don’t think it was ever used on accordions (though it eventually did get put on some electronic keyboards and drums). Just as with accordions, Pigini would gladly put the brand name of your choice on a batch of guitars, but EKO was their main string moniker. EKO guitars debuted in 1961.

The first EKO guitars were acoustics and among the first customers was Sears. LoDuca had imported a little chord organ for Sears beginning in 1959, so they had an established relationship. The first EKO electric guitars were a pair of plastic-covered solidbodies, the Models 500 and 700, covered in sparkle plastic, plus a range of archtops, introduced in 1962.

From the get-go Pigini relied on input from LoDuca Brothers to develop guitars that would sell in the American market. In this regard LoDuca enlisted a number of professional guitarists from the Milwaukee area, who endorsed EKOs.

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

LoDuca and EKO hit the market at a good time. EKO’s biggest year was probably 1967, when this Condor was made. It’s the huge ’67 catalog that most frequently circulates in the paper trade. I fell in love with this the moment I laid eyes on it. I mean, it’s so T-Bird (as in Ford with a porthole) or Edsel (yeah, I loved those, too). That pale pink with the black neck. And four—count ‘em—four pickups. It pretty much screams out for a matching tuxedo. Besides being a looker, this guitar actually plays pretty well, too. It’s light-weight and comfortable. The single-coil pickups aren’t screamers, but they’re beefy enough. You get a nice variety of tones, though not those swell glassy out-of-phase sounds like on a jimmied Strat. Having four on-off switches is darned awkward, but otherwise this is a sweetheart.

So, why was the warehouse this came out of another Temple of Doom? Mainly because of a confluence of events. Demand for guitars in the US began to drop in 1968. Tastes changed. Hendrix, Clapton and Bloomfield were whetting appetites for axes capable of chopping, not matching tuxedos. Then, at some time probably around 1968 or ’69, Oliviero Pigini, who loved fast sports cars, died in a car crash. Anecdotal evidence suggests that EKO’s seasoned wood supply burned up in 1970, but I can’t confirm that. In any case, quality supposedly declined.

In any case, business waned and LoDuca Brothers found itself sitting on a warehouse full of unsold EKO guitars. And there they sat for years. Fast forward and in the 1980s vintage guitar collecting became all the rage. Collectors and dealers got the word and began to mine the trove at bargain prices. Temple of Doom indeed! When I strode in, the pickings were comparatively slim, but there was still plenty of guitar eye candy left, including this two-tone beauty, as fine a sight as any gleaming T-Bird, or maybe a pink Cadillac!

Peachy Keen (Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1968 Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar

Hawaiian music actually had an extraordinary run of popularity in America that predates even me. Hawaii has been important for the U.S. since the mid-19th Century. Situated halfway between the Americas and Asia, it was a natural stopping point for sailing ships. Guitars and banjos were common possessions of sailors, so some of each ended up on the Islands. (Any musician in the crew of a ship captured by pirates was automatically spared and recruited into the pirate crew.) Both guitars and banjos figured in Commodore Perry’s opening up of trade with Japan in 1854, when sealing the deal included several blackface minstrel shows…and lots of champagne. Minstrelsy and Kabuki theater have more than a little in common, after all! Hawaiians quickly developed open tunings (“slack key”) and playing with a slide, probably by around 1880, give or take.

Vintage 1968 Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar

Hawaiian musicians had come to the U.S. mainland by late in the 19th century and figured prominently in a number of World’s Fairs, where Americans were often regaled by various “ethnic” exhibits on the surrounding midways. There was a Hawaiian show at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. By around 1910 Hawaiian music was big on Broadway and with college students (Boola-Boola was originally the Hoola Boola). It was probably—at least in part—the rage for Hawaiian music following the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco that inspired Sears to purchase the Harmony Company in 1916 and introduce a number of Harmony-made Hawaiian instruments the following year. And, don’t forget, it was Hawaiian music that led directly to the first successful electric guitars in 1931-32.

Among the popular performers of Hawaiian (and most other types of) music on the Vaudeville music hall circuit was Roy Smeck (1900-1994). Smeck was a talented instrumentalist who played guitar, banjo, ukulele, and lap steel guitar, earning the sobriquet “Wizard of the Strings.” Smeck made quite a few recordings and starred in part of the first “sound on disk” movie that was released in 1926. Like many other performers, Smeck endorsed a number of instruments by various manufacturers over the years, but is probably best known for the line of Harmonies introduced in 1927 with the pear-shaped Vita-Uke. Smeck’s name would be associated with Harmony instruments until near the end of the company’s run in 1973.

Vintage 1968 Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar

Including association with this late example Harmony Roy Smeck H7 Lap Steel that dates to about 1968. This modern take on the lap steel was originally introduced in 1955 and sported Roy Smeck’s name on the handrest. In around 1958 these came with optional legs, which this example has. At some point in the 1960s Smeck was still the endorser in the catalog, but his name had been removed from the guitar. Like many lap steels, this is pretty basic, with one single-coil pickup and volume (black) and tone (white) controls. Still, it’s quite serviceable for playing Yellow Bird or Aloha-Oe on your next gig at the neighborhood Tiki bar and I’ve always preferred legs to holding a guitar in my lap.

There can’t have been many of these Smeck lap steels made in 1968. Hawaiian music had become mighty passé in the face of the onslaught of The White Album and Jimi Hendrix, although nascent Country Rock was just beginning to emerge, but with pedal rather than Hawaiian lap steels! (I recall there was a Tiki bar in Toledo into the 1970s, but it was something of a dive by then and you were more likely to hear Dolly Parton than Jerry Byrd on the juke.) The H7 became the H607 in 1972 in the catalog, but Harmony’s lap steels would bite the dust the following year.

Vintage 1968 Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar

There remains a small group of devotees of the Hawaiian lap steel. Since I’ve never been accused of being hip (the only hip I know about is the new one I recently got!), I haven’t much followed the Tiki bar revival. (Don’t care much for fruity drinks with umbrellas either.) There may be a concomitant resurgence of Hawaiian music and the lap steel, for all I know. But I doubt it. Still, the ukulele hasn’t done badly over the last few years, so maybe it’s time has come!

Wizard of the Strings (Vintage 1968 Harmony Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1983 Hondo H-2 Electric Guitar

Oh, I played in a rock band in 1967, on my original ’58 Gibson ES-225TD. We did a mean cover of the Boxtops’ The Letter. But by the early ‘70s I was playing and teaching classical guitar. In fact, I pretty much missed the 1970s with my nose in Giuliani barnstormers and my ears glued to Latin and Big Band swing from the 1930s and ‘40s, mostly on original 78rpm discs.

During my cultural exile I continued to read Guitar Player and had perhaps some dim awareness of what was going on. I knew disco was a threat. But I didn’t disco and had put on some weight. Only your fingers move in classical guitar and with Segovia as your model, well… In the early 1980s I decided I needed to get some exercise so I bought a cheap exercycle and set up my KLH stereo with headphones. I’d been reading about this hot-shot guitar player named Randy Rhoads playing behind some dude named Ozzy Osbourne, whoever that was. I bought a copy of Blizzard of Oz, strapped on the ‘phones, and started to pedal.

Vintage 1983 Hondo H-2 Electric Guitar

It took about 12 seconds of Randy Rhoads for me to become a convert to Heavy Metal. Man, could he play guitar. “Don’t ask me, I don’t know” became my anthem. Still is. I started reading Kerrang! Magazine and before long I was collecting LPs by all these British and American bands with steaming lead guitar(s). I never got to where I could wear Spandex or jump off an amp, but I have some great rare metal records in my collection.

One of the first things you noticed back then was that the guitarists liked guitars with odd shapes. There was the occasional Les Paul or Strat, but not that much. Vees, Explorers and even stranger fare were the order of the day, often with custom graphic paint jobs. It was all part of the post-punk gestalt.

There was no immediate impact on my guitar playing or instruments, but there was a latent impression on my tastes. Later, when I began collecting guitars, anything with a weird shape attracted my attention. So, it was inevitable that when I strolled into Sam D’Amico’s music shop in South Philadelphia, this Hondo H-2 would grab me. I didn’t know what it was, but I had to have it.

Vintage 1983 Hondo H-2 Electric Guitar

Indeed, it was this guitar that led me to eventually track down Jerry Freed and write the Hondo history, as imperfect as that was at the time. Back then I didn’t really have much of a context for it, but several decades later it now makes perfect sense. In response to the predilections of the metal guitarists, guitar companies began introducing increasingly unusual guitar shapes. Both Ibanez and Aria had introduced exotic “X”-shaped guitars. The Hondo H-2 was an extreme variation on that theme.

Hondo had been formed by International Music Corporation (IMC) of Fort Worth, Texas, by Jerry Freed and Tommy Moore. In 1969 they decided to get into importing guitars and, in a visionary move, travelled to Korea to see about sourcing guitars there from what would become the Samick company. By the time this guitar was made Korean guitarmaking was on the verge of respectability, but not quite there yet.

This Hondo H-2 was made for a kid who wanted to be Michael Schenker but probably never had more than a dream’s chance. It gives you the right image at the right price, but the laminated plywood body is hardly disguised. The neck is glued in, and the flamed maple veneer is cool. But the two single-coil pickups are kind of a joke on a heavy metal axe. Then again, if you’re playing through a Rat, you really only need a pulse to get something impressive out the other end, so this might not be as bad as it appears! Still, I doubt if Yngwie ever considered one of these!

The Hondo H-2 may not be high electric guitar art, but you gotta admit it’s pretty fetching. It certainly was—and still is—to me. I’m back to losing weight again and if I ever get fit enough for Spandex, I’m thinking of strapping this H-2 on and beginning to work on my amp-jumping skills… Not.

Ugly Betty (Vintage 1983 Hondo H-2 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Conrad 12-String Electric Guitar

As much as I would like to, I can’t really shed a lot of light on this brand. What we do know, is they were from Japan, mid 60’s to early 70’s. All the typical copy-era models that you would see from Teisco and a handful of other brands. Slightly better than average quality, similar to the Domino guitars. So, likely an American importer that found a niche and filled it for as long as he/she could. Rather than ramble on about it, I’ll simply offer up a bunch of photos so you can let your imagination run wild!

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage 1960’s Conrad Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Domino California Rebel CE82 Electric Guitar

In 1967 Lipsky introduced a line proto-copies carrying the Domino brand name. Most were inspired by European models such as the EKO Violin guitar. Among the offerings were two models sporting a California cache, the #502 Californian, an asymmetrical copy of a Vox Phantom, and this #CE82 Californian Rebel. It was a semi-solid, since most of it is solid, but built in halves with a sound cavity routed out under the one sound hole. The top has a nice German carve relief, the slotted head adds a kind of retro vibe and cool dots along the top side of the bound fingerboard. What looks like a rosewood pickguard is wood grained plastic. Featuring high output for a single-coil pickups, two sliding switches for on/off control and a tremolo.

Who actually built this guitar is unknown, but these pickups appear to be associated with Kawai guitars, and that’s probably a good guess. Rumor is www.eastwoodguitars.com is planning a reissue of this guitar before the year is out.

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage 1960’s Domino California Rebel CE82 Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

This design is based around the early 60’s Silvertone Jupiter H49 which was also available with the Airline brand. Here we have upgraded our existing Airline Jupiter to create the Jupiter PRO. We’ve added a unique blend control that lets the player dial in a wide variety of tones. We have also replaced the wooden bridge with a Tone Pros Tun-o-matic, upgraded the bolt-on neck with a set maple neck and upgraded the hardware to create a solid, tour worthy guitar for today’s modern player.

This model features dual Airline Argyle pickups, three way flipper switch, two volume, two tone controls and a unique “blend” control that pans between the two pickups when the flipper is in the center position. The blend control ranges from hi-tone bridge pickup to neck pickup with the tone rolled off. Very versatile! Black finish with gold metal flake. Also check out the Jupiter PRO – Dallas Green Signature Model.

All PRE-ORDERS will receive a Body Glove Hybrid gigbag (factory list price $199) at no extra cost.

only $879. $49 Shipping to North America, $149 to UK and Europe. $189 Australia, Japan, etc. $285 South America.

**SOLD OUT**

All PRE-ORDERS will receive a Body Glove Hybrid gigbag (factory list price $199) at no extra cost.

NEW Airline Jupiter PRO – Metallic Black Finish – June 2013 from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Airline Jetsons Red Res-O-Glas Electric Guitar

Res-O-Glas was Valco’s term for fiberglass. These guitars we made with two clamshell pieces (top and bottom of the body) that were aligned and held together with a slotted rubber grommet strip, then long machine screws through the back and into the front. There was a maple block inside the hollow body which served the purpose of mounting the neck. The necks did not have a truss rod – a major setback to these old guitars, especially 50 years later – but had a 3 screw pivot system to tilt the neck angle back and forth to adjust the action. These were covered but chrome plastic covers on the back of the body. One giveaway that a vintage version has a bad humped neck? Those covers are always missing, as someone over the past 50 years tried and tried to adjust the neck and eventually lost the covers.

Although they appear to be humbuckers, these guitars had single coil pickups with a unique tone that became popular with the blues players (not just for their tone, but more likely for their affordability vs. a new Fender Strat). That is what modern players are seeking out these old guitars, like Jack White, for the growly single coil tone. This sample had two pickups, each with its own volume and tone controls, and a unique 3-way switch labeled “Tone Switch”.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Airline “Jetsons” 2P Red Res-O-Glas Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar

Ward’s was probably the first to sell guitars through its catalogs. Aaron Montgomery Ward started his company in 1872 as a solution to the problem of farmers obtaining the items they needed to make life more palatable out on the Great Plains. At the time, the farmer’s only source for household goods was the general store. And their only source of merchandise was the railroads, who charged an arm and a leg. To combat the high prices, the farmers joined to form buying clubs and put together lists. A representative would take it to the big city to buy the stuff and ship it back in one big container. Lot’s cheaper. Ward’s idea was to return to Chicago and put the lists together for them by assembling a catalog and sending it to the farmers direct.

Ward’s concept was so successful that Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck decided to compete head-to-head with them, starting Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1893. Sometime between Ward’s founding and Sears’ first catalog in 1894 Ward’s began selling guitars. There’s a guitar offered in Ward’s 1894 catalog with a woodcut and some copy. That very SAME woodcut and copy appears in the first Sears catalog!

Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar

Sears sold increasing numbers of guitars as the years progressed, obtained from various sources, including Lyon & Healy, Oscar Schmidt, and the Harmony Company. In 1916 Sears purchased Harmony to supply the majority of its stringed instruments, which began appearing carrying the Supertone brand name in 1917. While it was a subsidiary of Sears, Harmony was still free to sell its own brand independently and to make guitars for other companies. Sears, for its part, mainly relied on Harmony for its guitars, except occasionally when a specialty model was sourced from someone else. In 1940 Sears sold Harmony to its president Jay Kraus, after which it operated pretty much as before, with Sears as its main customer, with the Sears brand name changed to Silvertone.

Sears had branched out into retail stores in 1925. By the 1960s, when this guitar was made, Sears was the largest retailer in the U.S. Throughout the 1960s the guitars featured in the Sears catalog were exclusively American-made, mostly by Harmony. However, obviously, as evidenced by the very existence of this guitar, they also sold guitars made in Japan, only just through their retail store outlets.

Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar

This Silvertone is a Model 1437, otherwise known as a Teisco WG-4L. Except for the logo, it’s a completely stock Teisco. The Teisco company was founded in Japan in 1946 by Atswo Kaneko and Doryu Matsuda. Teiscos were distributed within Japan and probably regionally until the end of the 1950s, when exporting to the U.S. commensed. The first known American importer was the late Jack Westheimer whose Westheimer Sales Corp. began importing Kingston acoustic guitars from Japan in 1959, followed either later that year or early in 1960 by Teisco electric guitars. Jack added the “del Rey” most often seen on these guitars.

In around 1964, Sil Weindling, Barry Hornstein, and Sid Weiss formed Weiss Musical Instruments (W.M.I.) and began importing Teisco Weiss guitars. Westheimer’s focus had shifted toward his Kingston brand, so W.M.I. sort of took over the Teisco franchise. The WG line debuted in 1964 with a plain pickguard, changing over to the very groovy striped metal ‘guard in 1965. W.M.I. undoubtedly provided this guitar to Sears.

Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar

There’s nothing not to like about this guitar! I mean, how could you resist the look of that pickguard?! And metallic blue paint! Plus four—count ‘em—four chunky single-coil pickups. And I love those typically Teisco rectangular adaptations of Gretsch’s thumbprint inlays. As with almost all better Japanese solidbodies from the 1960s, with just a little attention this can be set up to play quite nicely. The neck is a little hefty for a modern taste, but then so were many others back then. To be honest, you don’t really get that much tonal variety out of four pickups, but it’s still way, way cool. Perfect for a chorus or two of Walk, Don’t Run or Apache!

By the 1970s, Sears was finally featuring Japanese-made guitars in its catalog, but the Sears hegemony was waning, replaced by emerging “big box” retailers such as Kmart. The catalog soldiered on into the 1990s, but its value as a source for interesting guitar—or lingerie—information was long past.

Catalog of Dreams (Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Airline Barney Kessel Model Swingmaster Electric Guitar (Deluxe)

The natural color was unique to the Airline brand. All were outfitted with the “Kleenex Box” pickups. It was available in 2 or 3 pickups models, with or without the Bigsby style tremolo and a wooden, floating bridge. Bolt-on neck with a flamed maple bound body on top and bottom. Each pickup had its own volume and tone controls and there was a flipper switch for pickup selection.

Will Eastwood make a replica of this for its Airline line of guitars in the future? Pretty sure the answer is yes!

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Airline Barney Kessel Swingmaster Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Espana Bass Guitar (Sunburst)

These Crucianelli guitars are surprisingly well made with a wonderful, slim neck. Unfortunately, many of these instruments from the 60’s were 30.5″ short scale basses, so never did measure up to the sonic boom of the full scale Fenders.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Espana Bass Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Standel Custom Model 202 Electric Guitar (Red)

Standel was originally founded by Bob Crooks of Temple City, CA (a northern suburb of L.A.), in 1953 to make high-end tube amplifiers. The company describes itself as a “boutique” manufacturer, meaning it was basically a custom shop. Transistors—which can amplify an electrical signal in a way that’s analogous (!) to tubes—were invented around the same time, but it took some time for them to be applied to musical instrument amplification. I’m no amp expert, but the earliest application of transistors to guitar amps I’ve encountered was by Kay and its Vanguard series that debuted in 1963. Bud Ross, in Chanute, KS, built a reputation for hot-rodding amps by putting tuck-and-roll vinyl on them, and, in 1965, produced a transistorized amplifier that he took to NAMM and Kustom amplifiers—also “big” in both senses of the word—were off and running. I don’t know when Standel embraced the new solid-state technology, but it wasn’t long thereafter.

Kustom, like Standel, would go on to produce—or really commission—its own line of guitars. Exactly when Standel introduced its first guitars is a mystery remaining to be solved. Likewise, who made most of Standel’s guitars also remains to be elucidated. By 1969, at least, Standel was sourcing its guitars from legendary luthier Sam Koontz in New Jersey. This Standel Custom guitar is from before that arrangement.

Vintage 1967 Standel Custom Model 202 Electric Guitar (Red)

Pretty much inspired by the Country-Western bands that congregated in and around Bakersfield, CA, a whole bunch of guitarmakers sprang up in Southern California, including Semie Moseley and others. Standel did sell some solidbody guitars with a tell-tale German carve around the top that I suspect might have been built for them by Semie. But Crooks apparently preferred hollowbodies, since most Standels are made that way.

Looking at the Southern California guitarmaker landscape at the time—excluding Fender and Rickenbacker, of course—the most likely source for this guitar is Murph. This looks for all the world like a Murph Gemini. Murph guitars were made in another northern L.A. suburb of San Fernando, CA, by Thomas Patrick Murphy from 1965-67, mainly as a vehicle to help promote the pop music act put together by his children. The best known models were the Squier and a heart-shaped Satellite that Dan Forte (aka Teisco del Rey) loves to feature. The Gemini was a thinline hollowbody with a pair of f-holes. The Murph Satellite had a headstock with a little Woody Woodpecker peak at the tip. Visit www.murphguitars.com for more information on Murph guitars.

Vintage 1967 Standel Custom Model 202 Electric Guitar (Red)

You can’t just look at a Murph and this Standel and say “Aha.” There are both similarities and differences. In addition to the similar body shape, the Standel head shows its own resemblance to Mr. Woodpecker. Murphs had more than 10 coats of paint; this appears to be plastic-covered, but could be really just very thickly painted. Both lines had 3-bolt necks. The Gemini had a similarly shaped pickguard with extensions up under the pickups, although these pickup covers are unlike any Murphs. The bridge and vibrato are also different. The Murph Gemini used a threeway toggle, but the Squier used a sliding switch, as here. The two biggest differences are the presence of an elevated “belly on the top,” yielding a mild German carve, sort of. Murphs had flat tops. Lastly, Murphs did not have zero frets. Of course, Standel could have deliberately sourced hardware from a different supplier just to make their guitars different.

So, like those annoying History Channel shows where you sit through an hour to find out that they can’t really prove that the wreck they’re exploring really is the Santa Maria or not, we can’t say for sure that Murph made this Standel. If they did, that would place it somewhere between 1965 and 1967, probably closer to the latter. If Murph did supply Standel’s guitars, then Murph’s demise in 1967 might explain why Standel switched to Sam Koontz a year or two later.

All Standel guitars appear to be quite rare. Until we find an example from another known maker that’s identical, origins will never be conclusive. Who knows? We could even find out that, for awhile, at least, Standel did, in fact, actually build its own guitars! And, for the record, give me a small amp any day!

All Amped Up (Vintage 1967 Standel Custom Model 202 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1950’s Airline Town & Country Standard Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Although they appear to be humbuckers, these unique guitars had single coil pickups with a unique tone that became popular with the blues players (not just for their tone, but more likely for their affordability vs.. a new Fender Strat). That is what modern players are seeking out these old guitars, like Jack White, for the growl-y single coil tone. This sample had three pickups, each with its own volume and tone controls, and a unique 3-way switch (as opposed to the 5-way of a strat). This has its good and bad point. Good: you can have solid pre-sets for each pickup both in tone and volume that are completely unique. Bad: you miss the “in-between” tones that make the Strat so popular. A master volume rounded it out.

Another unique feature of this model was the rather crude “tone chambering” of the body. In the modern Eastwood version, it is made with the benefit of a modern CNC machine to completely route out the inside of the body, then laminate the back on to the guitar. On the 60’s version, they simply drilled huge holes in it to remove wood and remove the weight, then slapped an over-sized plastic back on it to cover up the holes. Crude but effective.

Back Catalog Memories: 1950’s Airline Town & Country Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

1960’s Contessa Guitar (Green)

Castelfidardo is a town in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region of central-eastern Italy. During the early 1960’s this area was a hot bed for small but talented guitar builders, but also had links back to USA. From this area in Italy builders like Zerosette were branded with names like JG, Goya, Contessa, Atlas and Sano. Sano? Weren’t they an AMP builder in USA? That’s the connection! In the 1940’s a music school called Major Music – founded by Joe Zonfrilla, Sr – was teaching us all how to play accordion. In the mid 50’s, accordion player Nicholas Sano wanted a pickup for his accordion and Joe came to the rescue with a patented pickup design which led to the design of the Sano amplifiers. Shortly after that the Sano company began to import guitars from Italy (Zerosette) under the brand name of Contessa.

Here are two fine examples, a 6-string guitar and a bass. Both simple designs with two pickups, 3-way switch volume and tone. The remarkable “hidden gem” of these guitars were the necks. They are as close to early Fender profile and radius as I have found. In fact, many of the guitars from this area of Italy have the most underrated necks. The weakness was always in the electronics – typically rather thin and weak tone, and they are quite rare in North America, so the brands never really caught any traction in the collector world.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Contessa Guitar & Bass from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Coral Hornet Electric Guitar (Red)

There is not much information available out there on these fabulous late 60’s guitars. The Coral Hornet is certainly in my top ten all time favorite guitars. Why? The body was ultra thin. So thin in fact that the control cavity was mounted on a raised metal enclosure because the body was too thin to hold the pots and switches. The pickguard was completely unique, I’ll try to explain…

Pete Townshend with a Coral Hornet guitar

It was two piece – a Plexiglas top with some sort of invisible etching on the bottom, then a weird swirl underlay (like mother of pearl drum skins?) in a thinner layer was mounted underneath, the the Plexiglas was screwed on top. So, when you moved the guitar around the swirl looked 3-D due to the plexi etching.

They were branded with a “Vincent Bell Signature Design”. Vinny invented a number of electric guitar models for Danelectro and Coral. He designed perhaps the first electric 12-string guitar, and invented the electric sitar in 1967, using it on such hits as “Green Tambourine” by the Lemon Pipers, “Band of Gold” by Freda Payne, and “Heartbreaker” by Gene Pitney. This past Friday night I was lucky enough to get some passes to “The Who – Quadrophenia” at the ACC in Toronto. A fabulous show from a fabulous band, here is a early photo of the great Pete Townsend with a Coral Hornet.

I suspect very few were made as they are quite rare. Danelectro reissued them in 2009 as a “dead-on” model but in my opinion, not so dead on.

Here are some photos of an original Coral Hornet 2-pickup model in black and an original Coral Hornet 3-pickup model in red.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Coral Hornet Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Apollo Deluxe Electric Guitar

That being said, this Apollo Deluxe was kind of the exception that proved the rule, in that it followed a reverse pattern, sort of backing into discovery. While I didn’t really know what it was when I found it, I did have some idea of what it might be, or at least ought to be! I knew that the Grecian-god-themed Apollo brand was a part of the St. Louis Music (SLM) family of instruments, so all I had to do was locate it within the pantheon (SLM’s better-known brand was Electra, another Greek god).

St. Louis Music reflects one of those hazy back-stories in American (and actually international) guitar history that involve the murky world of distributors, which few people really understand. Distributors—or “jobbers”—were part of the middleman structure in the music business that bought instruments from the manufacturers (usually what we call “mass manufacturers,” like Kay or Harmony), marked them up, and got them to the music stores,department stores, and studios where they would be retailed to you and me. They’re the wringers because the guitars they bought might say Kay, but they might just as well say Cromwell or Custom Kraft. This latter was the brand used by SLM on guitars produced for them by Kay during the 1950s and ‘60s.

Vintage 1967 Apollo Deluxe Electric Guitar

A roughly equivalent—though somewhat more Byzantine—business model developed in Japan following World War II. How much that was a result of American governorship would be an interesting subject to study. Guitar manufacturers—some of whom had been active before the War—sprang up, similar to a Kay or Harmony. They sold their products to “trading companies,” whose job was to distribute domestically and to interface with foreign importers, who would then either be a distributor in its own country, or sell to other distributors, or both. (To make things worse, the trading companies may or may not have owned an interest in the manufacturing companies; can you say CMI and Gibson?) You can see why sorting this all out is not always easy!

Japanese guitars made significant inroads into the American market as the 1960s progressed. And not coincidentally, American mass manufacturing declined accordingly, although I think this was more a combination of management stagnation and cultural chauvinism than anything else. The global economy was still emerging and Depression-era-trained managers didn’t get it. There’s very little difference (read “improvement”) between a 1962 and a 1967 Kay, Harmony, or Valco guitar.

Vintage 1967 Apollo Deluxe Electric Guitar

SLM had sourced guitars from Kay for a long time but it, too, was drawn to the Japanese makers. SLM was big enough to be important players in the music industry, big enough to see the writing on the wall. They may even have had inside information that all was not rosy at Kay, which was purchased by Seeburg in 1965 and then Valco in 1967. By 1968 both Valco and Kay had gone belly-up.

Anyhow, this model shows up in an undated SLM catalog probably from around 1967. Or at least a two-pickup version does, called the Deluxe 2235. Clearly this was inspired by—or actually meant to compete with—a Burns Bison. At that time the Japanese were copying the European guitars that had been the “budget” alternatives earlier in the ‘60s. Thus, this is an early “copy” guitar. If you’ve overcome the usual prejudices of many older guitar enthusiasts, you know that this is a pretty decent guitar, once it’s properly set up. Poor set-up was the common problem of the time for these guitars. Look, these pickups ain’t DiMarzios, the switching is kind of sucky, and Japanese wiring was really small gauge, so it may not survive well, but these have their own sound and are great fun.

Even though Kay went out of business in ’68, SLM continued to offer Custom Krafts until 1970. Whether or not those were left-over stock or assembled by SLM from parts is unknown. By 1968 they were already pretty dated designs in any case, so probably not selling well. The SLM Apollos were probably not imported in large quantities, based upon how many you see: not many!

SLM, of course, would go on to introduce The Electra guitar, a copy of the Ampeg Dan Armstrong Plexiglas guitar in 1970, and Electra would be their primary brand for electrics (Alvarez for acoustics) until 1984, and they would be a major force in the importation and distribution of guitars from Asia. This Apollo represents a fascinating clue in deciphering that process!

Nectar of the Gods (Vintage 1967 Apollo Deluxe 2235 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Bartolini Avanti Electric Guitar – white

Not much is known about them, but here is an excerpt from a Michael Wright article:

Avanti guitars were probably made by the Polverini Brothers of Castelfidardo for European Crafts of Los Angeles beginning in late 1964. Most early Italian guitars had either push-button or rocker controls adapted from accordions, but this is unusual with a fourway rotary select that let you choose each pickup individually or all at once. All in all a sensible arrangement. Whether the pickups are really humbuckers or single-coil is unknown, but they have that bright ’60s sound.

The Italian guitar boom did not last too long, as Japanese manufacturing took over the low end guitar boom in the late 1960’s and soon all the cool European guitars disappeared from North America.

Back Catalog Memories: Bartolini Avanti Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Back in the Sixties, Fender guitars were the holy grail of electric guitars. I knew two people in the valley that had Jazzmasters. But, being a sixteen year old kid, owning a Fender was out of the question. For us, it was the Sears or Eaton’s catalogue and a cheap, poorly built guitar from another land. My first electric guitar was so poorly built it could not be tuned properly, and every time you switched pickups, you got a shock. It soon went back to the catalogue company. I settled for an Italian acoustic and played folk music, but the thought of an electric guitar was never far from my mind. Playing Ventures music on an acoustic just didn’t cut it. After a long and hot summer, I earned enough money working at a chicken farm to head off to the city and see if I could buy some sort of electric guitar.

One sunny morning, I swung my acoustic across my back, stuck out my thumb and headed for the city, about 2 ½ hours away. Pretty soon an old beat up Hudson pulled up, driven by a longed haired hippie, with wife, baby, and sister. Strapped to the roof were their worldly possessions, as they were from California, heading north to the gold fields in Alaska. I got in the back with the sister, guitar across my knees as there was barely room with all the boxes and clothes. We got to talking about their adventure, life, sixties politics, and eventually music. I mentioned that I was headed to the city to see if I could trade my acoustic in on an electric guitar. After a while I learned that he had a Fender electric in the trunk. Of course, I was pretty excited that I met another Fender owner, and we talked different models etc. After a couple hours, he eyed my acoustic and told me that they were a bit short on cash and he would consider selling his Fender, taking my acoustic as part of the deal.

Deep in my heart, I was thinking, “I’ll never be able to afford it, but what the heck, at least find out how much he wanted for his guitar”. He scratched his beard for a few seconds, and said “tell you what…your acoustic and ninety bucks, and you got yourself a deal”. Well, you could have peeled me off the roof of the car. I was in heaven – I was going to buy a Fender! My summer’s work had put $130 bucks in my pocket, so I said I might be interested. Yeah right, I would have given him every cent I had. I wanted that Fender, and I am sure he could tell I was pretty excited. He would get the guitar out of the trunk so I could look at it when we got to where he needed to turn off and go north.

Finally we reached the turn-off, he pulled the car off the highway, and I proceeded to help him unload a well packed trunk. It took a few minutes and finally, laying across the bottom was a beat up old brown fender guitar case. I was so excited, it didn’t matter what was in that case…it was a Fender and that was all that mattered. He slid the case out and onto the ground. He popped the case open and there it was. This beautiful, beat up, old, scratched and chipped, beige colored, ¾-sized, one pick-up, maple neck Musicmaster:

I picked it out of the case, strummed a couple of chords, stood up, shook his hand, and said, I’ll take it!” I pulled the cash out of my wallet, helped him put everything back in the trunk, and then watched as they headed north, the sister smiling in the back seat as she strummed my acoustic.

I crossed the highway, stuck out my thumb and headed back the way I came. I didn’t need to go any farther. I was the proud owner of a Fender.

Written by: Andrew Marr, Coldstream B.C.

My First Fender from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional 5002 Electric Guitar – Black

[See image gallery at www.myrareguitars.com]

When Telestar—the first communications satellite and this guitar’s namesake—was launched in 1962, I was living in a small-to-medium sized city in Michigan about a 100 miles north of Detroit. I knew about Gibson guitars, of course, and Kay and Harmony (mainly through the Sears and Wards catalogs). Even though my heroes, The Ventures, played them, I’d never heard of Fenders, much less Rickenbackers, or EKOS or Teiscos, for that matter. Inevitably, my horizons expanded to include more than Midwestern guitars, but that MicroFrets or TeleStars ever existed at all came as a revelation only years later when I became something of a guitar archaeologist. I don’t think my experience was atypical.

One corollary of the illusion about the abundance of ‘60s guitars goes beyond awareness. It’s that they were so abundant. That is, that millions and millions were produced and sold. This is just not the case. The only documentation available is from reports in The Music Trades of the time, for Japanese electric guitars. The peak year was 1966, when 618,000 were imported. By 1968 the number was down to 385,000. By 1969 it was 150,000. American or European numbers aren’t available. In any case, when you spread those numbers over the plethora of brands that created the illusion in the first place, you begin to see that the quantities of many of these guitars was relatively small.

I became aware of TeleStar guitars (sometimes it was Tele-Star) when I started buying obscure paper. Somewhere along the line I obtained a brochure with a business card for one Maurice Laboz, 1129 Broadway, New York City, stapled to it. And even then, I really only began to get a clue when I met Chip Coleman, who had a vintage guitar shop in China Grove, NC, and had a large personal collection of TeleStar guitars and basses. At the time, I was working on the Kramer history and my collaborator lived in South Carolina. He had a large personal collection of Kramers. So, I put my young son and my photo gear in the car drove southward while my Kramer buddy loaded his daughter and his Kramer guitars into his car and headed northward. We rendezvoused at Chip’s place and I got all these great photos of Kramer and TeleStar guitars.

That great experience put me onto the scent, and before long I had a couple TeleStars of my own and had documented the line as far as was possible.

TeleStar guitars were being sold by 1965. While it’s not certain, many features of these guitars suggest that most, if not all, were built by Kawai. In the past I’ve speculated that there might even have been some greater business connection between Laboz, TeleStar and Kawai, similar to that of, for example, Hoshino (Ibanez) and Elger, but probably there’s a simpler answer that Laboz just got his guitars from Kawai, or whatever the trading company representing them was. A rather remarkable number of models were offered in the catalogs over the next few years, helping to reinforce the illusion of plenty. It’s unlikely that large numbers of each of these models were actually produced

In 1967, following the corporate gobbling frenzy of the times, TeleStar became a part of the Music-Craft Electronic Corporation and moved to 651 Broadway. It was from this era that the TeleStar Professional Solid Body Sparkle Electric 5002 seen here comes. Sort of inspired by a Burns Bison, this is a Kawai product. Like many ‘60s Japanese guitars, a light weight, delicate wiring, and slightly awkward sliding controls tend to cause folks to look down on these guitars, but they really can be set up to play and sound satisfactorily. However, let’s face it, the reason you really want one of this is for the sparkle finish, little silver specks that would make this guitar twinkle in the spotlights!

TeleStar guitars, including the sparkles, lasted into 1969, around which time the warehouse burned down, and the company moved to Secaucus, NJ, and became a distributor of music accessories.

Guitars like this sparkling TeleStar are certainly eye-candy. They’re just not as common as many once thought, probably only distributed on the East Coast. Still, if not common, no illusion either!

Within the TeleStar Orbit (Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

The headstock is large and flat, into which are set 12 individual covered tuners which bear a striking resemblance to Kluson tuners. They are, however, uninscribed. The nut looks to be made from plastic, and is perfectly cut to accommodate light gauge strings. A one piece neck and fingerboard – which appears to be made from Maple – is in as brand new condition and beautifully crafted with no evident fret wear despite its age. There is a dark wood ‘skunk stripe’ on the back of the neck into which is inset a truss rod. Surprisingly, the truss rod cannot be accessed for adjustment without removing the neck, which suggests a short-coming in planning.

The solid body is of medium weight and of a shape that will be familiar to all electric guitar enthusiasts. There are two ‘humbucking’-type pickups, and a three way toggle selector switch mounted close to the volume control knob. A coil tap enables marked changes to the overall tone and to an extent the volume. The sound range is wide, going from sharp cutting treble to a very warm and bassy neck pick up. The hardware appears to be stainless steel, as there is no evidence of corrosion. The tail piece is fixed and sits out of the way behind a sophisticated bridge with screws for adjustment in front and behind, each string passing over an independent saddle. The cream white colour makes it stunning in appearance and it is a joy to play.

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Kawai Aquarius 12-String Solidbody Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar

In a general way, the guitar business has always been about copying. It was just usually a bit more subtle. Kay’s and Harmony’s first solidbody electrics in the ‘50s were loose copies of Gibson’s Les Paul. Many of the guitars made in Japan during the 1960s deliberately emulated European guitars. They were the competition, after all. When Gibson started sourcing guitars from Japan in around 1970, the guitars included some Epiphone copies of classic Epis, such as the Coronet.

The apocryphal story about ‘70s copies related to me by the folks at Aria when I was doing that history was that company president Shiro Arai was visiting the NAMM show in 1968 when Gibson re-introduced its Les Paul Custom “Black Beauty.” Mr. Arai thought, “Hmm, so that’s a copy of the original Les Paul Custom, eh?” He went back to Japan and the first bolt-neck Les Paul copies appeared shortly thereafter. That may or may not be true, but it is a good yarn.

Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar

Most copy guitars from the ‘70s through the early ‘80s were associated with Japanese manufacturers. But by the mid-‘80s the dollar-yen conversion was increasingly unfavorable for Japanese guitars (meaning they cost more than Americans would pop for). Simultaneously, the Korean guitar business had been slowly evolving, with companies such as Samick (Hondo) and Cort producing better and better guitars. The Japanese were markedly superior, but Korean product was coming on strong.

In 1986 Gibson began to shift sourcing of its Epiphone guitars to Korea. Some of these early Korean Epis were nothing to write home about, but others, like this Firebird 500, weren’t too bad.

Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar

To be honest, I didn’t pay too much attention to contemporary electric guitars during the 1980s. I found this about a decade later in a “cheap guitar stall” at one of those antique malls that seem to come and go like raves. (Does anyone throw raves anymore?! To quote the great Oz, “Don’t ask me, I don’t know.”) I’d never seen this model and it obviously had neck-through construction, which I was into at the time. Also, it was silver. I never got the ‘80s taste for greybursts and silver, which I think is ugly, and which, of course, made it all the more attractive to me. I recall buying this on my lunch break and schlepping it about a mile back to the office in summer heat.

This is actually a pretty cool guitar. It’s made of mahogany. The fingerboard is synthetic ebanol, a kind of interesting alternative to disappearing ebony. Of course, you’d rather have wood, but you don’t build budget guitars with premium materials. At least the inlays are real pearl! The Steinberger KB-X vibrato was new at the time, and a pretty good unit. It took ball-end strings without clipping and you could also adjust spring tension with a lever. You could also lock this down to have a stop-tail with the flip of a switch. I’m not sure why you would want to do that, but it’s still a neat idea. The pickups are stock EMG Selects. I never really warmed to Selects. They had a good frequency response and were exceptionally clean, which made them good for pumping through effects, but they lacked essential character, in my opinion. They came in red, black, sunburst, and this silver.

Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar

The Firebird 500 and a downscale 300 were offered from late 1986 into 1988. There are no serial numbers, so this could be from anywhere in that timeframe. No production numbers are available for these models, but scuttlebutt suggests that these are relatively rare guitars. They listed for $825.25, which was pretty pricey for a Korean guitar in the 1980s.

Today, of course, it’s routine for guitar companies to offer all sorts of “copies” of their own lines sourced from any number of factories, usually Asian, sold at various price points. (And sue the pants off anyone else who comes close to copying anything they consider theirs.) There have been numerous subsequent Epiphone Firebirds, but these were the first. And always give me a chuckle when I recall the original brew-ha-ha over the “lawsuit” guitars that started it all.

Hot For Rare Birds (Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

RELATED: George Harrison’s Guitars in the Beatles

Basses

1964 Rickenbacker 4001S-LH

Paul McCartney with his 1964 Rickenbacker 4001S-LH Bass

In 1965, Paul got his hands on a Rickenbacker bass which was first used on the song “Think for yourself”. He also used it extensively on the Revolver and Sgt. Pepper albums notably on tracks such as “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields”. McCartney sometime in 1967, painted the Hofner with day glow paints to give it a psychedelic look. George Harrison and John Lennon did the same for the occasion. The newly painted Rickenbacker can be seen in the live satellite performance of “All you need is Love” in June of 1967.

1966 Fender Jazz Bass

Paul McCartney with his 1966 Fender Jazz Bass

Paul used a Fender Jazz Bass in 1968 during the Abbey Road/White Album sessions. It can be heard on songs such as “Sun King”, “While my Guitar Gently Weeps”, and “Yer Blues”. This was the last known bass (aside from the Hofner) that McCartney used with the Beatles.

Guitars

Epiphone Texan FT-79 Acoustic

Paul McCartney with his Epiphone Texan FT-79 Acoustic Guitar

The Epiphone acoustic guitar was used by Paul on the album Help, specifically for the song “Yesterday”. It can be seen in his live performances of “Yesterday” as well. McCartney, known for being a hoarder of instruments, still has this guitar today.

1962 Epiphone Casino ES-230TD

Paul McCartney with his 1962 Epiphone Casino ES-230TD Guitar

Paul got this righty Casino which he modded in order to be able to string it as a left-handed guitar. Known as one of Paul’s favorite guitars ever, he used it on famous songs such as “Taxman”, “Paperback Writer”, and “Drive my Car”. This guitar can be seen today as Paul still performs with it.

1964 Fender Esquire

Paul McCartney with his 1964 Fender Esquire Guitar

This sunburst Fender was played by McCartney in 1966 for the Revolver album. You can hear it on songs such as “Good Morning, Good Morning” and “Helter Skelter”. Very little is known about how Paul got the Esquire, or where it is now.

1967 C.F. Martin D-28 Acoustic

Paul McCartney with his 1967 CF Martin D-28 Acoustic Guitar

Another acoustic guitar Paul had was a nice, warm-sounding Martin which he acquired in 1968. It was used in the White Album Sessions and can be heard on the songs “Two of Us” and “Blackbird”.

Well, there you have it. The other guitars and basses Paul used with the Beatles. Hope this gives you more insight into some of the magic of the Beatles!

Posted by Raj from Guitar Tone

Paul McCartney’s Guitars in the Beatles from MyRareGuitars.com

Galanti Panther Guitar (3 pickups)

Italian brand Galanti has its roots more than 100 years ago. The Galanti accordion factory was cranking out accordions into the late 1950’s, then for a few shorts year included a shift to electric guitars. In the 1970’s they moved into making electric organs. Look closely, are those accordion switches?

Although not very popular in North America, I have owned many Galanti guitars over the years. I guess very few came over from Europe in the 1960’s, so the brand just never found a following here and consequently the vintage guitar market price remains low. Many of these guitars were also produced under the GOYA brand name, and there were a surprisingly wide variety of models available. In my opinion, they are really a hidden gem.

Why? The necks are fabulous! I would put the Galanti and Goya necks up against many vintage Fenders, but at 1/50th the cost. Also, great tremolo and pretty good bridge. The downside? The electronics were weak. Pickups are simply uninspiring. Too bad. Here are some photos of two – a 2 pickup and a 3 pickup model.

Back Catalog Memories: Galanti Panther Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1985 Aria Pro II Knight Warrior Electric Guitar Ad

The association between guitars and “getting the girl” is almost as old as mankind. Or at least it seems so. In studies of “primitive men” (who are, of course, not really the same as “early man,” despite their low-tech and seemingly non-evolved conditions), musicians frequently have a special place in the culture. It’s not uncommon for musicians to travel around among different villages, and there is plenty of testimony about these wags being a threat to the virtues of local village maidens. It would take some work, but I’m sure one could fairly easily assemble a list of musicians from the historical period who got into the drawers—and subsequent trouble—of the fairer sex. It would probably be a long list.

Indeed, I recently read Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote de la Mancha, one of the first novels written in 1605 and 1615. Guitars are mentioned four times, three in the context of serenading/wooing lovers. Two instances were in the context of guitarists coming to town and seducing the local beauty, before absconding with her virtue and fortune.

Vintage 1985 Aria Pro II Knight Warrior Electric Guitar

Of course, we all play guitars here and if I asked for a show of hands of those of you who first got into music motivated by trying to impress chicks, I imagine the majority of readers would be waving the flag right now! (I’ve never understood why there are so many fewer female guitarists, but the few I’ve known have had to work more at fending off guys than attracting them.)

As I said, there’s a whole sub-class of music advertising that features babes in various states of dress (or not) mugging to get you to look at this or that guitar or amp. Aria’s Knight Warrior ads went one further, fusing heroic fantasy with male libido. A sort of Ivanhoe in skivvies (with his guitar strapped on his back) holds the hot gal he’s either just rescued or is carrying off, to the boudoir, no doubt. (Or maybe those striped silk shorts were supposed to be knight’s pants, not BVDs…) Laughably unsubtle, but it never failed to get my attention, and implant a desire to find out what the fuss over the Knight Warrior was all about. In due time I found this one, suitably after it had gone out of fashion.

Vintage 1985 Aria Pro II Knight Warrior Electric Guitar

Aria Pro II introduced its Rev Sound (RS) Series of guitars in the late 1970s, initially neck-through competitors to Ibanez’s Musician series. Pretty nice guitars. In the early ‘80s, these became svelt bolt-neck, slightly dinky Strat-style guitars with cool switching options. Most Aria guitars for the rest of the decade were based on these Rev Sounds. Next came the Cats and the Knight Warriors, which got pretty good coverage in the guitar press.

Vintage 1985 Aria Pro II Knight Warrior Electric Guitar

I had low expectations when I found this guitar, but Aria’s guitars were consistently better than you’d expect back in the day. Many were built by the legendary Matsumoku factory. This guitar might have been built there, but by the mid-1980s the Japanese had gotten so good at making guitars, this could have been made by any number of superb manufacturers.

There’s nothing not to like about a dark-to-bright red sunburst, in my opinion! The tuners are Gotoh and the vibrato a genuine Kahler, all top-notch. The electronics configuration is a little less ambitious than previous Rev Sounds, but it still has enough horsepower for any Superstrat need. These blade pickups are strong and clear. The simple volume and tone control is really about all you need in a performance context. The tone pot is push-pull, tapping the humbucker to give you single-coil sounds. If you’re not hung up on brand envy, this axe would be perfectly satisfactory, even for a pro.

Now, I admit a redburst guitar doesn’t make me feel like Sir Lancelot and I never used this guitar to try to pick up any chicks (in any sense of the term), so I don’t know if it really would work. At my age, I don’t really see myself trying it out. But I do love the Kitschy way it was marketed with sex and, if you can get past the names and image, Knight Warriors are pretty darned good examples of mid-‘80s extravagance.

Getting the Guitar…But Not The Girl! (Vintage 1985 Aria Pro II Knight Warrior Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1985 Robin Wedge Electric Guitar

Robin guitars had not really been on my radar until I picked up an odd Robin Rival somewhere or another. Then I got a swell Robin Machete and I was hooked. I contacted founder Wintz and we set a time to talk. It turned out to be about a two-hour interview conducted while Dave was on his cellphone driving a load of exotic lumber he’d just harvested himself from a Louisiana bayou back to Robin HQ in Houston. And this was back before you got unlimited minutes plans! That call probably cost Dave a fortune! Dave gave me the blow-by-blow history of Robin guitars.

Wintz and Bart Wittrock opened Rockin’ Robin Guitars and Music in Houston in around 1972, selling vintage guitars. In around 1982 Wintz and Wittroc began selling Tokai “copy” guitars. They ordered another batch and the guitars arrived with no logos on the headstocks. Wintz and Wittrock were thrilled and had some Robin logo decals made up, and Robin guitars were born! It was about this time that Tokai got into trouble over copying Fender’s headstock shape—the oft-told story—so Wintz came up with his own, a down-sized reverse Explorer style, perhaps the first reverse head of the 1980s. In ’82 Wintz came up with his own guitar designs and contracted with Tokai to produce them.

Vintage 1985 Robin Wedge Electric Guitar

Robin continued to source guitars from Tokai until 1984, when a trip to Japan discovered all sorts of problems with a container about to ship to them. They rejected the lot and switched production of bolt-neck guitars to ESP and set-neck guitars to Chushin. They continued to get guitars from Japan until around 1986 or possibly early 1987. At that time there were big problems in the Japanese guitar industry, including some major realignments combined with a really unfavorable dollar-yen exchange rate. Bart Wittrock decided to bail out and return to concentrating on Rockin’ Robin, and Dave Wintz decided to learn how to make guitars. In 1987 Wintz opened the first Robin guitar factory in Houston and from that point on Robin guitars were all American-made.

Among the most distinctive designs of the Japanese-era Robins was the guitar shown here, the Robin Wedge, which appeared in 1985. These were built for Robin by Chushin. What can you say about this but “Wow?” There were a number of variations on the Wedge. The one seen here is a set-neck Custom with an ebony ‘board; there was also a bolt-neck Standard with rosewood. All came with a pair of Gotoh humbuckers. Customs featured a stop-tail, as here, but you could special-order a Kahler vibrato, which Robin would install in Houston. Standards came with a traditional-style vibrato. The first few Wedges had the Robin reverse Explorer-style heads, but Wintz quickly re-designed it to this “reverse blade” styling.

Vintage 1985 Robin Wedge Electric Guitar

As awkward as this guitar may look, it actually plays very nicely. It’s comfortable to hold, well balanced, and the neck is very fast. Let your hair grow long (if you’re lucky enough to still be able to do that!), pull on the spandex (if it wouldn’t embarrass you) and get ready to jump of your amp (if your knees are still in good enough shape).

All Japanese Robins were imported in very small lots and are pretty rare. (Indeed, even American Robins were never produced in large quantities.) The Wedges were actually fairly plentiful, with about 200 produced. This is SN 0044, presumably numbered sequentially. The model wasn’t all that successful, however. Some were still being offered as late as 1988 and at the time I spoke to him, Dave still had a little pile of Wedges lying in a dusty corner of the factory.

Vintage 1985 Robin Wedge Electric Guitar

In fact, that’s how this particular guitar came into my possession. After my history of Robin appeared in Vintage Guitar Magazine, someone suggested that Dave dust off one of those leftover Wedges and give it to me as a “thank you.” Dave had a nice case made and sure enough this arrived at my doorstep! You are very Welcome, Dave!

Indeed, I’m really glad I got to have that phone call with Dave Wintz and write up the story of Robin guitars. They were always fine instruments. But, alas, all things must end. Robin was going gangbusters into 2008 and then the financial and housing bubbles burst and dealer orders evaporated. In the Fall of 2010 Robin was forced to close its doors. As of this writing, a few remaining Robin guitars could still be obtained through Rockin’ Robin. Dave doesn’t rule out reviving the brand in the future, but for now he’s contemplating the direction his next chapter will take.

Robin Wedge, Exclamation Point on a Storied Brand (Vintage 1985 Robin Wedge Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop AE650TRW Electric Guitar (White)

Sutcliffe grew up in the Philadelphia area and Delaware. At 13 years of age, he got one of those 4-pickup Kent solidbodies with the horrible pickups. He promptly rewound them and was on his way. Armed with guitar experience, in 1978-79 Sutcliffe cut his teeth on guitarmaking at the short-lived flop—but ultimately fascinating—Renaissance (plexiglass) guitars out in Newtown Square, PA.

Most of you have probably seen his next work. Sutcliffe began working with another Delawarean, George Thorogood, converting Gibson hollowbodies to his taste and repainting them white. Sutcliffe began adjusting amps for a local Crate amp rep using a guitar with his own pickups, and that eventually led to a gig outfitting electrics in Westone solidbody guitars for St. Louis Music (Crate’s owner) in around 1987. The following year he had a line of Dana Westones.

Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop AE650TRW Electric Guitar (White)

In 1988 one of Sutcliffe’s employees was working on a Matsumoku-made Westone body when the router hit a knot near the treble cutaway and accidentally cut a big gash in the body. The body was discarded, but another employee finished assembling the guitar. The next day it was the joke of the shop, but when Sutcliffe played it, it sounded really, really good. He fiddled around with the gash and invented the Dana Scoop prototype.
Sutcliffe took the guitar to the 1989 NAMM show and showed it around as a novelty. However, SLM pulled him aside and told him to stop showing it. They were looking for a new model and this would be it! The new Alvarez Dana Scoop (made by Cort; the Westone brand died when Matsumoku stopped making guitars perhaps as late as 1990) debuted at the 1992 NAMM show, where it was named the “Guitar of the Year.” It was extremely successful and a number of variations appeared over the next couple years, including a Strat-style “L.A.” model and a Tele-inspired “Nashville.”

However, the relationship between Sutcliffe and SLM quickly began to sour. By 1994 versions of the Scoop that Sutcliffe had not approved began to appear, including the one with a Modulus Graphite neck and the guitar shown here with the 3-coil Tri-Force (probably a descendent of the Mighty Mite Motherbucker; Cort owned the Mighty Mite franchise by this time).

Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop AE650TRW Electric Guitar (White)

Seen here is an Alvarez Dan Scoop AE650TRW from around 1994. It has a see-through butterscotch finish over a figured maple body with the unauthorized Tri-Force pickup. The fiveway offers five different one- and two-coil combinations. Controls include a master volume and two tones. These were basically made for about one year, possibly less. By 1995 Sutcliffe and SLM had parted ways. Since Sutcliffe had a patent on the Scoop design, the model also departed the guitar universe. Production numbers are impossible to determine with any accuracy, but Sutcliffe estimates that approximately 2-3,000 of the original design were made, plus a 500-700 more L.A. and Nashville Scoop variants, and a fair number of custom-shop examples. How many of these Tri-Forces were produced is a total mystery.

Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop AE650TRW Electric Guitar (White)

The Alvarez Dana Scoop is pretty cool for a pin-router accident! And a lot of fun to play. It only had a brief roughly three year run, though it seems to loom larger than that. These days Sutcliffe keeps extra busy doing custom restorations and set-ups of high-end collectable guitars and banjos for well-heeled, mostly pro clients. We both keep trying to schedule another lunch, but so far it hasn’t worked out.

Michael Wright, The Different Strummer, is a collector and historian whose work is featured in Vintage Guitar Magazine.

A (Mostly) Happy Accident (Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

For guitar enthusiasts with a short memory, Kramer’s Focus and Striker series guitars are a cause of some confusion and, to be sure, there have been some unscrupulous people who’ve taken advantage of this fact. Kramer, as you recall, began back in 1976 with the novel idea of building guitars with aluminum necks, sort of “improved” Travis Beans. Their guitars were kind of a niche item, well made and generally well-received by players, but certainly no threat to Gibson or Fender. Stanley Jordan, the jazz tapper, was probably their most famous player. Kramer had a little more success when it introduced the small-bodied, headless Duke guitars in the early 1980s. Andy Summers of The Police was big with his headless Steinberger guitar so the Duke had a following.

Vintage 1983 Kramer Focus K4000 Electric Guitar

Kramer began to move away from the aluminum neck concept in around 1981 with the introduction of wood neck options. Actually, it’s around the subject of necks that one of the ironies swarm. Kramer designed but did not make its aluminum necks. They were sourced out to an aluminum fabricator, which makes perfect sense and is in no way unusual, especially when a novel material is involved. So, when Kramer began to use wooden necks, they logically turned to other vendors to obtain them. There were a variety of neck providers for Kramer over the years, but two of note where ESP, a Japanese company, and La-Si-Do, a Canadian company. The irony is that these were put on guitars that today are known as the “American” Kramers! By the way, I don’t know if Kramer made the bodies for its aluminum-necked guitars, but almost all—if not all—bodies on the wooden-neck American Kramers were made by a company called Sports.

Ironically, once Kramer began moving away from its unique original premise and capitulated to the common wooden neck, it began to take off phenomenally. Of course, having an endorsement of Edward Van Halen didn’t hurt. Nor did the early ‘80s infatuation with what would become known as the “Superstrat.” The Kramer Pacer (1983), along with Dean’s Bel Aire, both vie for the status as the first production Superstrats, available in versions with humbucker/single/single pickups and the soon-to-be-ubiquitous locking vibrato system.

Vintage 1983 Kramer Focus K4000 Electric Guitar

By 1983 Kramer was doing well enough to consider expanding with some budget lines made in Asia. It had already sourced necks from ESP in Japan, as well as offered ESP’s Flicker vibrato system as an option. Thus debuted the Kramer Focus line, made in Japan, in 1983. This was followed in 1984 by the Kramer Striker line, made in Korea.

The initial Kramer Focus line consisted of copies of the Baretta, Pacer, and early Vanguard models, plus Kramer’s early Fender-style bass and their thinner Stagemaster bass. At some point early on a copy of the Kramer Voyager joined the line.

Seen here is what’s probably a fairly rare early Focus by Kramer K4000 made in Japan. (As of yet I don’t believe the Japanese manufacturer has yet been identified, but these feel a lot like Chu-Shin.) Early Kramer Vanguards were modeled after the Flying V (1981-84). In 1985 the design changed to be more like the Randy Rhoads V made by Jackson, with a shortened lower wing.

Vintage 1983 Kramer Focus K4000 Electric Guitar

This is a really nice guitar, made nicer by the fact that it was found as unsold “New Old Stock” in the basement of the old 8th Street Music in Philadelphia. We know this is early because it has the “classic” headstock, later changed to droopy “bananas.” These are early unlabeled pickups, possibly Gotoh, but who knows? The double-locking Floyd Rose is likewise early, without fine tuners.

I think this is a very early 1983 Focus. While the exact sequence is a bit confusing, the original American Vanguard “Flying V” model was discontinued in 1984. It appears that in 1984 the Focus 4000 became a Pacer copy. In 1985, the Focus 4000 changed to the new Randy Rhoads shape.

In yet another irony, a lot of Kramer Focus guitars have been parted out. Early Focuses had a Focus by Kramer logo, but later models moved the Focus ID to the neck plate. Apparently quite a number of these, as well as Focus bodies, have been sold as “genuine American” Kramer parts. However, as we’ve seen, all but a few (made by Sports) Kramer wooden necks weren’t American-made in the first place!

In one more irony, the Kramer brand name is now owned by Gibson, the company that Kramer copied for this guitar! The name was owned by Henry Vaccaro, one of the original Kramer principals. He wanted to relaunch the Kramer brand in the late 1990s. He needed money so he sold the Kramer brand and model names to Gibson. Gibson subsequently released a line of very inexpensive Asian-made Kramers. Ironically, Gibson recently announced some upscale “copies” of Kramer’s legendary Pacer guitars! One last irony (I promise): I’m writing this essay about the irony of Kramers for Eastwood guitars, which specializes in producing “copies” of cool designs from the past. But I guess since Gibson has just reissued the Pacer, there won’t be an Eastwood Pacer any time soon!

Michael Wright, The Different Strummer, is a collector and historian whose work is featured in Vintage Guitar Magazine.

Beware of Substitutions (Vintage 1983 Kramer Focus K4000 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Actually, the coincidence of dealer and enthusiast coincided with working two rather disparate brands at the same time, TeleStar and Kramer. At the time I was working on the Kramer history with Terry Boling, who lived in South Carolina at the time and had a nice Kramer collection. I was also working on TeleStar and was in touch with Chip Coleman, who has a music store in North Carolina and a nice TeleStar collection. Into this mix was the fact that I lived in Pennsylvania and had more vacation days than my wife and I used some of it to take road trips during the summer. So, I combined all these and my son and I headed for Coleman Music, while Terry packed up his truck and drove north for the rendezvous. We set up a makeshift studio and I took pictures of both collections. We can talk Kramer later.

Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional Sparkle 5002 Electric Guitar

TeleStar guitars, basses and amps were sold by the Tele-Star Trading Corporation (Importers and Exporters), 1129 Broadway, New York, headed by Maurice Laboz, about whom we know very little. There’s a possibility that Tele-Star had some sort of direct relationship with the Japanese manufacturer Kawai, since many features on TeleStars smack of Kawai and many were definitely built by Kawai, but any formal connection other than as a supplier is only speculative. The first TeleStar guitars appeared in 1965 and were pretty primitive short-scale beginner models, except for an amp-in-guitar made by Teisco, a version of the Teisco TRG-1.

Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional Sparkle 5002 Electric Guitar

Early TeleStars tended to stay among the offerings, sometimes with slight modifications, with new, better models added. However, the cool thing was the addition of a new Professional Solid Body Speckled Electrics line in 1966. Speckled by any other name means “sparkle” finishes. I’ve not seen any ’66 catalogs, but these were probably similar to what we have here, possibly with narrow oval pickups.

In 1967 the name of the line changed to Sparkle Solid Body Electric Guitars, and included the 5002 (two pickups with vibrato), 5003 (three pickups with vibrato) and 5004 (four pickups with vibrato). Sparkles came in gold, silver, blue and green flecked finishes. These are what are mentioned in the catalogs, however, I own this black 5002 with silver flecks plus a cream-finished one with multi-color flecks, so obviously those were offered as well. (It’s possible that these finishes signify that these are later than 1967.) You can see why Chip was into them. Who wouldn’t be?

Seen here is a c. 1967 TeleStar Professional Solid Body Sparkle Electric Guitar 5002 built by Kawai. As you can see, it’s kind of modeled after a Burns Bison. The sliders are on/off switches, with a volume and tone control. Basic but good enough to do Pipeline.

Look, you’d never confuse this with a Fender (or probably even a Burns Bison), but it sure has style, and, like most Japanese guitars of this period, actually plays very nicely once it gets the benefit of a good set-up, which most didn’t. Pickups from this era are hit or miss. If you’re lucky, they have a crisp, clean single-coil sound, with a tendency toward being microphonic, which is good or bad, depending on your point of view. Usually the weakest links are use of teeny wires for the harness and crummy tone caps, which this guitar shares.

Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional Sparkle 5002 Electric Guitar

In 1967 the company changed names to become the Tele-Star Musical Instrument Company, now a subsidiary of the Music-Craft Electronic Corporation now at 651 Broadway. That probably indicates that they were purchased by Music-Craft, or whomever owned/set up the company. At the same time violin- and teardrop-shaped guitars joined the line.

The sparkle solidbodies continued into 1969 pretty much unchanged, but by then kids were high listening to Hendrix, Clapton and the Doors. It’s hard to imagine Hendrix playing a sparkle TeleStar! TeleStar begins to fade after this. At some point their New York City warehouse burned down and they relocated to Secaucus, NJ. With the move guitars were gone for good, and Tele-Star distributed accessories. In around 1982 Laboz, who was still in charge, sold the company to Fred Gretsch, Jr., and it effectively disappeared.
Fortunately, Chip Coleman had more than just the sparkle TeleStars for me to photograph, but it’s really the Sparkle TeleStars we remember with fondness.

Michael Wright, The Different Strummer, is a collector and historian whose work is featured in Vintage Guitar Magazine.

Coincidences & Satellites (Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional Sparkle 5002 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Gretsch Corvette 6135 Electric Guitar

While it’s blasphemy to many hardcore vintage guitar guys, I never really found myself attracted to Gretsch guitars. I grew up (a long time ago) in northern Indiana, northern Ohio, and northern Michigan. No one played Gretsches. No one played Fenders. A cheap guitar was a Harmony or Kay (or some no-name abomination) either from a teaching studio or, more likely, out of the Sears or Ward’s catalog. A good guitar was a Gibson from Kalamazoo. That’s what you aspired to.

It was, no doubt a function of geography and distribution (and not living in a big city). Plus, of course, Kalamazoo was “local” to all those places I lived. It was only later that I became aware that there was a much wider world of guitar options, well after this guitar was made!

Gibson, of course, was competitive in the lower end of the solidbody electric market, with its Les Paul Jr. And, of course, it had wreaked its wrath on its long-time competitor Epiphone when, after purchasing the company in 1957, it turned the brand into its budget alternative. Then also there were those semi-dreadful Kalamazoo models.

Vintage 1967 Gretsch Corvette 6135 Electric Guitar

Another Gibson competitor, Gretsch stuck with electric hollowbodies until Gibson’s plunge into solids with the Les Paul in 1952. Gretsch responded with its similarly styled Duo Jet models the following year. Then the Baby Boom market (me) hit the radar. To offer a more affordable entry-level alternative for young players about to start jamming to the Beach Boys or the Ventures, Gretsch introduced its downscale Corvette in 1961, a slab-bodied version of this guitar, outfitted with a trapeze tail and one Hi-Lo Tron single-coil pickup. This beveled body style debuted in 1963, outfitted with a Burns vibrato, with one or two Hi-Lo Trons (6132 and 6135). This reverse head appeared in 1964. The guitar seen here (#97363—September 1967) was built right around the time of the Baldwin takeover of Gretsch, though it’s still a Gretsch Gretsch, not really a Baldwin Gretsch.

I picked this up years ago at a vintage guitar show in Philly at a bargain because it wasn’t Kosher. While Corvettes did come with Super-Tron pickups beginning in 1970, this had its pickups changed for Super-Trons (OK but amateur job) probably early on in its existence. Of course, the irony is that it was actually an “upgrade!” Still, this has a great vintage Gretsch sound with glued-in neck and a real Bixby. Knobs are volume and two tones, the threeways a select and a treble boost. If you’re getting on like me, one thing you appreciate in a light-weight guitar like this is you can play it as long as you like with no implications for your back!

The Gretsch Corvette had a pretty good run actually. Debuting in 1961, it remained in the Gretsch line until it was discontinued in favor of those somewhat goofy models like the TK-300 and the Beasts in 1978, nice enough in their own way, but pale reflections of the classic Gretsch era.

Unless you’re really, really old (and probably not reading this), it’s pretty likely that seeing either a chopped and channeled ’32 Ford Roadster or a cool if modified Gretsch Corvette like this will bring a similar kind of ear-to-ear grin to your face! You could get around with this Corvette. Play in the right band and you might even make real good bread!

Vintage 1967 Gretsch Corvette 6135 Electric Guitar

I Get Around (Vintage 1967 Gretsch Corvette 6135 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Alamo may be a little better known for its amplifiers than its guitars, but these days neither are especially common, probably because they were not high end instruments, but rather targeted mostly at the beginner market. Ergo, not much incentive to keep them around once the kid has moved on to tennis, or a Fender.

I’m sure I first became aware of Alamo guitars through copies of their brochures that I obtained from paper-purveyor Michael Lee Allen. I eventually scored this guitar at a Philadelphia-area guitar show, and, of course, that required opening up a new case, as it were. From the catalogs I knew that Alamo guitars came out of San Antonio, Texas (where else?). I called Chris Smart, whose Krazy Kat Music is a vintage shop in San Antonio, and asked if he knew anyone who knew anything about Alamo. He promised to ask around. Not long thereafter he called back and gave me the phone number of Charles Eilenberg, the man who had actually started and run Alamo! I was thrilled and gave Mr. Eilenberg a call.

Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar

We talked for several hours and I got a pretty detailed play-by-play of the Alamo tale. A native of Newark, New Jersey, Eilenberg worked in radio before World War II began, during which he served as a communications engineer in the Navy. Following the War, Eilenberg was recruited by Milton Fink of Southern Music, a music publisher and distributor in San Antonio, to start an electronics business and in 1947 Alamo Electronics was born. They began with record players and battery-powered radios and by around 1950 had graduated to electric lap steel guitars and amplifiers.

Alamo began making electric Spanish guitars in either 1959 or 1960. Alamo guitars were pretty much made in San Antonio, including the pickups, though some mysterious ads for Mexican Alamos appeared in the early 1960s. At some point between 1960 and 1962 Alamo hooked up with the big New York distributor C. Bruno & Son.

Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar

Until the advent of the Titan Series in 1963, Alamo guitars were set-neck solidbodies. With the Titans, Alamos switched to a hollow core construction with bolted on necks. The Titans included the one-pickup Mark I, the two-pickup Mark II, and a Titan Bass. Early Alamos were made of Swedish plywood. The sides would be bent to shape and then tops and backs glued on.

Seen here is an Alamo Titan Mark II. I estimate this guitar to be from 1964, when it was included in the Alamo Stars Semi-Pro line. The earliest Titans had a French curve on the top of the headstock, but by 1964 this kind of “center-humped” shape shows up. Alamo numbered its models according to finish color. The catalog lists a Model 2591 (sunburst), Model 2592 (blonde), and a Model 2596 (cherry). This looks “plum” to me, but it could be interpreted as “cherry,” so it’s probably a 2596.

Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar

Basically the Alamo Titans like this were only around for about 2 years. While the name continued into 1965, the design was radically altered. Alamo, it appears, wasn’t too worried about consistency, and examples show up with what appear to be the “wrong” model name all the time. Alamo continued to make electric guitars until around 1970, though the majority seen are from around 1965-67. Amps actually marched on into the later 1970s.

Look, no one would confuse an Alamo with a Fender! Like their many Japanese counterparts, you can set them up to play pretty well, but you would really probably want one for its unusual styling…and as a pretty cool piece of American guitar history that won’t break your bank.

Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar

I wrote up the Alamo story and the good news is that it ran in Vintage Guitar Magazine and was featured later in my book Guitar Stories Volume 2. The bad news is that Chris Smart called me just before the article saw ink to tell me that Charles Eilenberg had passed away, never seeing his story in print. Like I said, in getting the Alamo information I was both lucky and luckily just in time.

Everybody knows there’s no basement at the Alamo! (Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Goya was purchased by Avnet in 1966, and continued to import instruments such as the Rangemaster in 1967. By the late 1960’s, electric solidbody guitars and basses were then being built in Italy. The vibrato bar, however, was provided by another Goya supplier, the Hagstrom company of Sweden. It has also been suggested that Italian guitar maker Galanti made the Goya “Panther” models. The Goya Panther and the Galanti guitars look nearly identical.

This cherryburst Rangemaster Model 109R Goya guitar was made by the “Polverini Brothers” of Italy (not by EKO as previously thought) in the late 1960’s. The multi control panels that were common with Italian instruments from that era, include a master volume next to three tone options, low, medium and high. The upper controls are for pickup selection, as the pickups are split into 3+3 x 2. So the controls are: 1+2, 1+4, 2+3, 3+4, off. Pretty cool!

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

This model is shown on page 12 and 13 of the 1967 Goya Guitar Catalog in a blonde finish.

New Arrivals: Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

From the Temple of Doom (I): Koob, Albert, Patricia, and Adeline

By Michael Wright
The Different Strummer

Imagine someone telling you about an old-time music store that had a huge stash of unsold guitars from the 1960s, plus some guitar effects from the ‘70s lying around in its upper floors in Newark, NJ. Well, you can bet it didn’t take long for me to beat a path to the door of Newark Music City (calm down; this was a long time ago and, while the company still exists, it’s long gone from Newark). Even though I was late in the game, there were still unmined treasures to be had. A real Temple of Doom!
I pulled a lot of good stuff out of Music City and owner John Ciarfella was great to work with. The store was full of New-Old-Stock gear, not to mention a bunch of vintage pieces taken in on trade over the years and just never sold. Maestro pedal effects, replacement Victrola parts, Japanese guitar hardware. Plus this NOS c. 1966 Kapa Continental No. CO-XII-V 12-String, culled from a huge pile in their old cardboard boxes stacked in a corner on the 3rd Floor. All leftover from when John’s father ran Newark Musical Merchandise and distributed Kapas, but was never able to sell. More about the Kapa later.

But the trip to the trip was the upper floors.  Music City was actually two joined 4-story buildings on a corner near the “new” Newark performance center.  The stairs were rickety and the floors unfinished, everything dusty.  The 2^nd floor was full of old shelving and drawers filled with the NOS stuff.  The stairs between the floors and buildings were a maze.

After I’d bought a number of things on several trips, John took me up to the 4^th floor of the corner building.  That had originally been a speakeasy and on the 4^th floor was a Burlesque theater.  It was still there.  The proscenium stage, all the seats, tattered curtains.  Water damage and some graffiti by locals who’d broken in through the skylight.  It was awesome, almost dwarfing the Kapa find.

But, unlike the KAPA, I couldn’t take the theater home with me. Kapa was a brand started by another music distributorship begun in 1960 and owned by a Dutch immigrant named Koob Veneman in Rockville, BD.  Veneman’s father had operated a music store in Holland and distributed guitars carrying the AMKA brand, an acronym made up of the first letters of his childrens’ names (K was Koob).  In 1962 Veneman decided to plunge into the Guitar Boom and manufacture his own line of solid- and hollowbody electric guitars and basses in nearby Hyattsville, MD.  He named the guitars KAPA after his family, himself, son Albert, daughter Patricia, and wife Adeline.

KAPA began in 1963 or ‘64 (sources differ) with three solidbodies, the Challenger (sort of a two-pickup mini-Strat), the Wildcat (three-pickup version), and an occasional single-pickup Cobra, made from scraps.  KAPAs were famous for their ultra-thin necks, made by KAPA, not Höfner as some online sources claim.  Until 1966 the pickups, which looked like Höfners, were made by KAPA.

In 1966 KAPA’s lumber stock got thinner and they began using Pix pickups made in Germany, the same as used by Höfner (but not made by Höfner).  They also switched from threeway toggles to sliding on/off switches about this time.  KAPA also introduced the Jazzmaster-style Continental in ‘66, including the 12-string example seen here.

KAPA guitars were actually quite well made, very easy to play, and give off a nice vintage ‘60s vibe.  They made upwards of 120,000 of them, so they’re not especially rare, but then, not too many people ever thought they’d be of interest to anyone in the future!

1966 Kapa Continental 12-String HS

Unfortunately, KAPA doesn’t seem to have been very concerned about consistency, and you’ll find Continentals with Challenger decals and vice versa, and dating is primarily a matter of guesswork.  In 1968 KAPA added a Minstrel teardrop-shaped solid to the line and in 1969 some thinline hollowbodies with bodies made in Japan.  However, by then sales were in decline and in 1970 Veneman shut KAPA down, selling leftover supplies and machinery to Micro-Frets and Mosrite.  Veneman sold Bradley copy guitars during the 1970s.  In the 1980s the shop got into the mailorder music biz.  The shop still exists, but as a premier Guitar Center location.

In any case, besides being a relatively rare ‘60s soldibody 12-string, this KAPA Continental carries the cachet of having been found unsold in a musty old corner of a musical Temple of Doom in Newark, NJ, next door and an obscure staircase away from a mothballed attic burlesque theater!

Michael Wright, The Different Strummer, is a collector and historian whose work is featured in Vintage Guitar Magazine.

From the Temple of Doom (I): Koob, Albert, Patricia, and Adeline from MyRareGuitars.com

In all my years of scowering ebay and the inetner I can only remember seeing 3 or 4 of these. This one in a pearl white is quite rare. It is in near mint condition, and all original parts, great neck, a fine player. Check out these photos:

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

The Tokai Hummingbird was abviously inspired by the 60’s Mosrite guitars – exagerated double cutaway and angled P-90’s with a tremolo – but it had a “normal” strat style neck profile, not the super skinny Mosrite neck. Back in 2005 we made an Eastwood re-issue of this guitar and like the original, it did not sell too well. Yes, it was a cool guitar, got a little traction in the surf guitar crowd, but in the end we decided to discontinue it in 2009. So I was pleased to get my hands on this original last month.

New Vintage Guitar Arrivals: 1967 TOKAI Hummingbird Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Antony Wandre Pioli made guitars from the late 1950’s through the 1960’s. His claim to fame was an aluminum neck, but the attraction to most of us was the crazy body shapes. The guitars were musical sculptures, works of art. But this is not a story about his history – you can read about him on the internet – it is a story about how I came to become a Wandre junkie.

So as to best of my memory in late 2002, I found a curious guitar on EBAY that nobody seems to be paying any attention to – a Wandre Doris. “What the hell is that thing?”, was my first thought. 30 seconds later I’m thinking,.. “damn, I gotta have it”. It is an inexplicable phenomena that guitar buyers go through, but we’ve all experienced it. So I contact the seller, make him an offer (at the time I was cursing myself for spending so much) and we arrive at a deal. Two weeks later I get this beauty in the mail:

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Wow. What a cool, fragile, ridiculously lightweight, spectacular, completely individual, personal, like-no-other-guitar-I-have-ever-held, sexy body shaped, weird?, big switched, comfortable, cozy, guitar. It was a piece of art… I mean a guitar. No, art. Whatever. I was hooked. Can you tell?

My first reaction was to tell everyone I know about this fantastic discovery! How did that work out? Kind of like telling everyone you know in grade seven that liver and onions is the best food on the planet. I started thinking the guy who sold it to me is telling everyone he knows that Mike at www.myrareguitars.com thinks liver and onions is the best food on the planet.

But fear not, I simply loved that thing. So much so that I photographed it from every angle and did some detailed drawings (yes, in my earlier years I was a draftsman, although that name sounds odd these days) so that I could catalog it for future use. Which I did in 2006 when we released the EASTWOOD Wandre to great fanfare.

However, back to the story of this specific guitar. There I was in my office about a year later when one evening the phone rang. “Hi, I see you have a Wandre Doris on your website”, said the caller. “Yep, cool isn’t she?”, said I. It was not for sale. I did not have a price on it, just listed on the 1960’s guitars pages that I’d been updating for reference. “I’d like to buy it”, said the predator. For the next 30 minutes we had a great chat about our guitar collections, how much we loved collecting guitars, where we both lived, families, friends, and all things that guitar fans have in common.

One of the great things about this job is you meet people every day that share your passion for guitars. This guy was one of those people. Yet he was a persistent fellow. “How much did you pay for it?”, he asked. I told him. “Can I offer you three times what you paid for it?”. I think, “WTF?” to myself. “no, I love this thing, really don’t want to sell it”. So we chat for another 15 minutes about other guitar stuff, then he says, “I’m thinking you’d be pretty stupid to refuse five times what you paid for it”. And of course I reply, “I’m not that stupid”. or something like that. Thirty seconds later my email pops up with a message, “You’ve Got Money” from PAYPAL.

Yes, it is in the amount of five times what I paid for it… plus shipping.

The next morning it got filed under THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

VIEW EASTWOOD WANDRE DORIS TRIBUTE FOR SALE

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Wandre Doris Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Story #1- 1959 Fender Musicmaster

This was perhaps one of the first vintage Fender guitars I ever owned. Got it in a trade in the early 1990’s eBay days from a fella in Texas. I was living in California at the time. Can’t remember what the trade was, but for my own sanity I’m convinced I got the better of the deal. I’m sure the guy on the other end feels the same way. That’s a good trade – when both parties are happy – and in fact I think we did a few more deals over the years so such is the case.

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

I instantly fell in love with this guitar – so tiny, so playable, and it was made the year I was born, 1959. Shortly after I got it, my wife and I were invited to a friends house down in Mexico for a weeklong vacation with three other couple. Why not take that old Fender?! It will fit in the airline overhead for sure! One of the other guys along for the trip – Ben Goldman – was a talented guitar player/singer and each night stirred up a sing-a-long around the fire, so I would bring out the little Musicmaster to add some accompaniment. Somewhere along the way, Ben went out to a local shop and came back with one of those massive acoustic Mexican guitars – I think it is called a Guitarron – without much thought we all ended up at the airport a few days later with no case for this beast. He ended up wrapping it in all his families clothing, then duct tape, to get it on the plane back to California. Nothing phased Ben, he was a cool guy is sadly missed by all who knew him.

The Guitarron

That old Fender was such a curious and cool piece of wood and wire. But, there was a problem.

Everyone I showed it to would eventually say, “what is up with that glob of gold shit on the body?”. At first it did not bother me, but a sticker that some kid put on it 40 years earlier had become fused with the finish, impossible to remove. Becoming self conscious about it, I took it to the local luthier for his opinion and to get that damn sticker removed. “We can refinish the guitar, but then it will be worth half as much as it is now, and you will have twice as much money into it”. Lesson learned.

Pretty cool guitar, but I sold it, and as always in cases like this, it got filed under THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

Back Catalog Memories: 1959 Fender Musicmaster from MyRareGuitars.com

1989 Kramer Gorky Park Electric Guitar

Let’s start with Kramer. Kramer began back in 1975-76 with the cool idea to make guitars with aluminum necks inspired by Travis Beans, in itself a neat story. The main people were New York music store owner Dennis Berardi, and Gary Kramer, who subsequently hooked up with former Gibson marketer Peter LaPlaca of Chicago. Kramer quickly left and Kramer (the company) went on to create some truly great guitars. In the early ‘80s, as Strat-style guitars began to take the world by storm, Kramer began a transition to wooden necks. Guitars like the Strat-style Kramer Pacer became extremely popular. Big endorsements by top players like Eddie Van Halen, Richie Samboro, and Elliott Easton didn’t hurt either!

By the mid-‘80s Kramer’s pointy droopy headstock, while an anathema to snooty vintage guitar fans, was in the hands many top and aspiring guitar slingers. In 1984 Kramer made the fortuitous decision to start selling budget versions of its own guitars, Focus from Japan and Striker from Korea, to further cultivate fands for the brand. By the beginning if 1987 Kramer was making and selling more guitars than another other guitar company! What could go wrong?

1989 Kramer Gorky Park Electric Guitar

Many of the guitar players who favored Kramers were in the hard rock and pop metal bands that had become popular in the mid-‘80s as interest in punk and New Wave began to wane. Centered in L.A., this rock movement mostly featured guys in tight glam Spandex outfits with long, ratted and teased poofy hair. “Hair bands!” Catchy melodies, a hard backbeat, and lots of rifferama.

Enter Mother Russia. About the same time Kramer began importing guitars, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev took control of the Communist Soviet Union and began a process of liberal reforms. Among those were a toleration of underground music such as rock and a relaxation of travel restrictions.

In 1987 singer Nikolai Noskov, Sasha Minkov on bass, Sasha Lvov on drums, and Jan Ianenkov on guitar formed a rock band called Gorky Park, named after the big public Moscow park in honor of Maxim Gorky. The band was able to travel to the US and soon acquired champions including Frank Zappa and Kramer advocates Jon Bon Jovi and his axeman Sambora. In 1989 the band’s self-titled album debuted and they scored three successive hits and MTV rotation, the first popular Russian hair band.

1989 Kramer Gorky Park Electric Guitar

Probably through the Sambora connection Kramer’s Dennis Berardi became interested in the band and formed a management company to handle them. The Kramer Gorky Park was intended to be a promotional item in support of that effort.

Built for Kramer in Korea and introduced in 1989 or early 1990, the Gorky Park had a cool balalaika shape and graphics and signature of the band. Ballalaika. Russia. Geddit? The guitar really wasn’t all that bad, actually. It has one hot Seymour Duncan humbucker and a licensed Floyd Rose.

Unfortunately, the Gorky Park arrived just in time to see everything crumble. In 1989, the Iron Curtain came down, as Berliners attacked the Berlin Wall and dismantled it. I still have a piece in a box my parents gave me as a present! Gorky Park returned to the exuberance of liberation in Russia. Alas, the enthusiasm for hair bands in the US was also beginning to crumble as alternative rock represented by the Seattle Sound was coming on. Lastly, Kramer guitars itself had become a house of cards and was beginning to crumble. Bad management and other bad things began to undermine it—it probably didn’t help that Berardi was off focusing on Gorky Park. By the end of 1990 Kramer guitars also collapsed.

Whether the Gorky Parks were ever even distributed is unknown. How many exist is also unknown. Many of them were bought up (or turned over) to some large dealers, as I recall, and were liquidated for like $149 apiece. Gorky Park, the band, continued to be popular in the former Soviet Union, but became mostly a footnote to ‘80s rock and guitar history. Today these guitars show up every so often and can actually trade for quite a bit more than the clearance price! In the early 2000s the Kramer name was sold to Gibson by its owner, Henry Vaccaro, a former principal in Kramer, in order to finance the now-defunct Vaccaro Guitars venture. Like the Gorky, modern Kramers are budget imports, but with no connection to the former Soviet Union!

Hair Bands, Soviet Russia & the 1989 Kramer Gorky Park Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

1968 Guyatone LG-350T Sharp 5 Vintage Electric Guitar

It shows my age (everything does now anyway), but around the time I was hitting my teenage years, I discovered what was then still a fairly obscure band called The Ventures and their record called Another Smash. At least they were obscure for northern Michigan. This was also about the same time that I figured out I wasn’t going to be either the next Johnny Unitas or Al Kaline (a famous slugger with the Tigers). My dream became to learn those songs, which I eventually did more or less and I still play some of them to this day. The Ventures went on to have a bunch of hits, perhaps the most famous of which was their streamlined version of Johnny Smith’s “Walk, Don’t Run.” Their popularity eventually led to a relationship with Semie Moseley and yielded the Mosrite Ventures guitars, which was literally based on a tracing of a flipped-over Strat! Plus the groovy German carve around the edge that Semie had learned from Roger Rossmeisl.

Even though the Ventures seemed to keep increasing their record output, their popularity didn’t quite keep pace. In the US, that is. At a time when Jimi Hendrix and Fresh Cream were all the rage, the Ventures just didn’t seem relevant. What saved the Ventures’ career during those lean years when they were eclipsed by Bob Dylan and the Beatles was an astonishingly virile popularity in Japan. The Japanese obsession with the band extended to everything Ventures including Mosrite guitars. By the mid-‘60s, when Japanese guitarmakers finally began to become competitive in the American market, they hit upon a strategy of imitating the competition. Which, at the time, was European guitars. Among the early Japanese imitations were the violin-bodied copies of EKO’s popular copies (of Hofner’s copies of Gibson’s…well, you get the picture).

1968 Guyatone LG-350T Sharp 5 Vintage Electric Guitar

Wholesale copying of American guitars would come later, but the honor of the first American design to be copied probably goes to the Mosrite Ventures. By 1966 or ’67 many Japanese guitarmakers were building guitars inspired by Mosrites, with extended lower horns and/or German carves and/or slanted neck pickups, etc. Among the earliest and goofier of these in Japan were these Guyatones.

Guyatone was one of the first guitar manufacturers in Japan. It was founded in 1933 by Mitsuo Matsuki and Atsuo Kaneko and began selling Hawaiian guitars with the Guya brand name. After the War, in 1951, the company switched to using the Guyatone brand. Guyatones were among the earliest Japanese electrics to come to the US, imported by Buegeleisen and Jacobson with the Kent brand name.

1968 Guyatone LG-350T Sharp 5 Vintage Electric Guitar

This 1968 Guyatone LG-350 Sharp 5 is actually kind of a flipped-over Mosrite, ironically enough! It’s hard to tell from the photos, but it’s finished in a really cool dark metallic blue color. The pickguard is also blue. Its single coil pickups are not typical of most Guyatone guitars that made it to the US. This was a pretty high-end guitar for Japan at the time. The edges aren’t exactly German carve, but they are beveled. The vibrato is a pretty interesting in-body design that emulates the feather-touch of a Mosrite. An unusual feature for the time is covered tuners, sort of like European Van Ghents. And you gotta love that headstock! This is a sweet guitar way ahead of the usual quality you find in Japanese guitars of this era.

By the time this guitar was made, other guitars closer to Mosrite were beginning to appear made by Teisco, Kawai, Firstman, Aria, Zen-On, Humming Bird, Suzuki, Minister, Audition, Monica and others. And the first near-copy had made it to America in the Noble EG 686-2HT, a variant on the Mosrite Combo, marketed by Chicago’s Strum & Drum. By the early 1970s Mosrite knock-offs had become standard, like one of the most famous, the Univox Hi Flyer. But as sharp as those are, that’s another story!

A Sharp Venture (1968 Guyatone LG-350T Sharp 5 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Vintage Electric Guitar

Whatever the reasons for their popularity in the Pacific, it should come as no surprise that when the Japanese guitarmakers hit on the strategy of copying popular guitar designs, the Ventures’ Mosrites were near the top of the list. Which partially explains this ca. 1967 Heit Deluxe V-2.

Actually, the first “copy” guitars by the Japanese were of their European competition. European guitarmakers from Italy, Germany, and Sweden were among the first to begin supplying the beginner-grade demand of American post-War Baby Boomers, just hitting adolescence as the ‘60s dawned. The success of EKO’s violin-bodied guitars and basses—a not-so-subtle nod to Paul McCartney’s Hofner—yielded a host of Japanese knock-offs by the mid-‘60s.

1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Vintage Electric Guitar

Once the notion of “copying” took hold, it didn’t take long for the Japanese attention to turn to other models. And it didn’t take long for them to begin eyeing those swell Mosrites played by their beloved Ventures. Perhaps as early as 1966, but certainly by 1967, a variety of Mosrite-inspired guitars were coming off Japanese production lines and making their way to American shores carrying a variety of brand names, including the Heit Deluxe seen here. These Mosrite-style guitars ranged from vague tributes such as those by Humming Bird and Guyatone to the first really exact copies like the Mosrite Avenger by Firstman.

1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Vintage Electric Guitar

This Heit Deluxe is almost certainly a version of the V-2 made by Teisco. It is identical to those shown in the indispensable book ‘60s Bizarre Guitars‘, except for the two-way sliding selector switch instead of the usual three-way toggle. Most guitar fans automatically think “Teisco” for anything Japanese, but the picture is far more complicated, of course! When you actually study Japanese guitars, you find a remarkable consistency in pickup use. While there are a few exceptions to prove the rule, Japanese manufacturers almost always used distinctive and exclusive pickup types. The ones shown here are variants on the little DeArmonds used by Harmony and are almost always found on Teisco-made guitars. As you might expect, there’s a lot of variability in the output of these pickups, but they can be quite excellent, as here on this guitar. This particular guitar is a little more reminiscent of the Mosrite Joe Maphis or Mark I than the Ventures model, but the inspiration is absolute. These are great guitars, with nice slim necks that play swell if you set them up right. As with many ‘60s solids, this has a mahogany body, although a lot of these guitars used sen, a native timber related to mahogany.

Less is known about the Heit brand. It was used on a number of Japanese and possibly early Korean acoustic imports in the late ‘60s marketed by G & H Imports (GHi) located at 475 Westminster Place in Lodi, New Jersey, a small town not far from Passaic near the junction between the Garden State Parkway and I-80. Presumably G and H were partners in the venture, but their names are unknown at this time. You can find their 1968 catalog and price list at www.vintaxe.com (a subscription site). This model is not shown that year, which is why I suspect ’67, but it could be slightly later. ‘60s Bizarre lists these as “c. 1968,” but that don’t mean it’s necessarily so. Other models shown in the Heit are not Teiscos, but could be Kawais. Other Kawai guitars have been spotted carrying the Heit Deluxe brand. The Deluxes were Heit’s better models, but that’s almost one of those distinctions without a difference. Pickups ranged from one to four. The acoustics look dreadful which is why I suspect a Korean origin. GHi apparently distributed to other retailers because in ’68 a half dozen Heits would set you back between $18-35 each!

1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Vintage Electric Guitar

Of course, you won’t find your Heit Deluxe for $35 any more, but you’ll still pay a heck of a lot less than for a genuine Mosrite! And, you’ll have a sweet little ‘60s guitar (well, not really so little; these are pretty substantial) to chomp down on whichever version of Walk, Don’t Run you prefer to play!

Let me know if you know anything more about GHi or who G and H were!

Walk, Don’t Run! (1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar

The usual scenario, of course, involves holding onto a poker face, disguising your interest in some treasure or other, and finally ending up in a negotiation to wrangle the prize at the best—that is lowest—price. Not this time. I was casually cruising through Cintioli Music in Philadelphia, a legendary music store, when a salesman who knew me said “Psst,” and pointed to this guitar sitting on a stand on the counter. “Take this off my hands, please.” I shrugged. I had no idea what it was. Then he said the magic words. “Seventy five bucks.” Well, it did have a cool lightning bolt and the original hardshell case. What the hey. It was mine. Another mystery to solve…

It turned out that this guitar featured some very cool technology, had a really interesting pedigree, and was actually a local product built—in nearby Coopersburg, Pennsylvania—by a significant guitar designer, Dave Bunker. Yes, of the Boston Bunkers, though some generations and a century or so removed to the Pacific Northwest.

1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar

Dave was born on January 3, 1935, in Bunker Creek, Washington (his family has a knack for naming places). His was a musical family and he learned guitar and began teaching in Puyallup. Then in 1955 he went to one of those promotional workshops Gretsch was throwing starring the Ohio-born tapping-style genius Jimmie Webster. Bunker had his mission.

Bunker went on to have several successful music acts playing Las Vegas and later cruise ships. He designed the guitars for his act and Bunker guitars are some of the coolest unique guitars in guitar history. All were designed to maximize his “touch” technique. Detachable wings off a central core body, six individual pole pickups. Eventually leading to his “Touch Guitar.” Locking nuts and butt-end tuners? Dave. But those are all ancillary to this story!

1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar

Probably the central theme of Dave Bunker’s guitar contributions was his development of the “tension-free” neck in the 1960s. Bunker found that he was getting dead spots above the 10th fret caused by the tightening of the truss rod, which anchored right around there. He came up with the notion of taking all the tension off the neck by putting a metal bar into a channel through the neck, attaching the bar to the body and the head, leaving the neck itself to float free and be more resonant. Good for tapping!

The tension-free neck would provide the basis for all of Bunker’s subsequent guitar designing.

In 1989 while demonstrating his Touch Guitar at the Los Angeles NAMM show, Bunker met John Pearse, the colorful guitarist and string/accessory maven living in Pennsylvania. While performing on a cruise ship in Alaska the following year, Pearse contacted Dave about joining a new guitar manufacturing venture. With a partner named Paul Chernay to handle financing, Bunker found himself in charge of design and production of guitars for PBC Guitar Technology—Pearse-Bunker-Chernay—located just outside Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles north of Philly. Pearse quickly left the partnership over a disagreement.

1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar

In any case, the result was a line of interesting, mostly hollowbody guitars with Bunker-designed pickups…and the patented tension-free neck. The PBC line met with moderate success, but PBCs came into being at a time when retro guitars and, ironically, the Seattle sound were hitting big. Still, things really began to take off when Bunker’s guitars were discovered by Jim Donahue, then designing guitars for Ibanez in nearby Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Ibanez contracted with PBC to make its USA Custom USRG Series with Bunker’s floating necks, a line that debuted in 1994. Ibanez was pleased with the project and wanted to expand the relationship in 1996. However, Chernay had issues with working with the Japanese, and deep-sixed the contract. And, as it happened, PBC, which bit the dust along with the USRGs that year.

Probably the most conventional-looking guitar in the PBC line was this GTS 200S, with its Strat-style solid body. There was a GTS 200, the same except without the lightning graphics. Nevertheless, it had the tension-free neck, plus the quite-respectable PBC Spectrutone humbucker and two PBC Banshee singles. Not to mention a “sound reflection shield,” a recessed Kahler Spyder vibrato, and a coil-tap on the ‘bucker. A two-octave neck is never bad! Turns out this is one heck of a shred machine! Good price, too! This guitar originally listed for $900! It’s pretty much in like new condition.

And probably pretty rare. PBC output never got that large, and this model was only made for a couple of years.

After the PBC and Ibanez fiasco, Dave Bunker—now in his 70s—moved back to his native Washington State and began custom building Bunker guitars again, making guitars more-or-less based on his PBC designs. He’s still doing it today.

So, that salesman’s “Psst” worked out pretty good! Cool guitar. Cool piece of history. Like I said, a great price! And no negotiations. Glad I listened.

Tension Reduction, But Not With Shiatsu (1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1969 Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro Electric Guitar

Turns out Danelectro, like every other musical instrument company, got caught up in the corporate feeding frenzy of the 1960s. Danelectro had its origins in electronics work done for a department store by Nathaniel “Nate” Daniel (born 1912) in the Bronx in the 1930s. He came up with his own amplifier design and from 1934-42 made Epiphone’s Electar amplifers. After World War II Daniel moved to Red Bank, New Jersey, and founded Danelectro, building amps for Montgomery Ward (Airline), Sears (Silvertone), and Targ and Diner (S.S. Maxwell). In the early 1950s, when solidbody electrics demonstrated that they were more than a passing fad, Sears wanted more guitars than its subsidiary Harmony could produce and arranged for Danelectro to start making electric guitars. Danelectro and its Silvertone counterparts debuted in 1954.

The first Danos were solid, made of poplar. In 1956 the legendary “lipstick tube” pickups appeared and yes Martha they were purchased from a lipstick manufacturer! In 1958 the classic masonite hollowbodies took a bow, the same year Danelectro relocated to Neptune, New Jersey.

1969 Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro Electric Guitar

Fast forward to 1966. By then guitar companies could sell any guitars they could make. A number of large corporations, many with experience on the periphery of the entertainment business, started seeing dollar signs and began acquiring guitar companies. CBS purchased Fender in 1965. Norlin, whose interests including breweries (I guess that’s entertainment!), bought Gibson. Baldwin Pianos and Organs bought first Burns of London and then Gretsch. Even Westheimer Sales, importer of Teiscos, was purchased by King Korn trade stamps. Seaburg, the juke box folks, bought Valco/Kay. Avnet bought Guild. Danelectro was purchased by MCA, the company that owned Decca Records and Universal Pictures, among other properties.

Unfortunately for all the greedy corporations, the bloom started to fade from the guitar business almost immediately. According to the Music Trades magazine, guitar sales began to decline in 1967 followed by an even bigger drop in 1968. That year Valco/Kay went belly up. MCA wanted out, but there were no takers to buy the brand. In 1969, MCA simply locked the doors of the factory and that was it.

Which links up with this guitar. Dan Armstrong was a well-known repairman nee guitar designer who had a shop in New York. He and his then girlfriend Carly Simon came up with this idea for a plexiglass “see-through” guitar which would be sold through another area amplifier company, Ampeg in 1969. Armstrong was hired to personally inspect every guitar before it left the plant, but, reportedly, Armstrong was, shall we say, not very interested in showing up for a regular day job shift. Ampeg had trouble meeting demand for the plexiglass guitars and basses. There may have been other production problems.

In any case, a part of the Ampeg design was a series of interchangeable pickups that slid into a slot on the front. These were cast in epoxy to help cut back on feedback.

1969 Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro Electric Guitar

The rest of the story is a little murky. Some sources say that Armstrong purchased a bunch of leftover parts from the closed Danelectro factory and assembled between 650-700 guitars outfitted with his epoxy-potted pickups. Some stories link this to Ampeg’s supply problems, but why they don’t then say Ampeg is a mystery. Other stories have these guitars being sold out of Armstrong’s New York shop, which probably makes more sense, given the identification on the pickguard. One interesting clue is that Ampeg used Danelectro bridges on its see-through guitars. This has always struck me as odd, that such an advance guitar concept wouldn’t have a sophisticated bridge.

Somehow, this all ties up with the fact that Unimusic, Ampeg’s parent company, ran into financial troubles about this time. They couldn’t pay Armstrong. Had Ampeg purchased those Danelectro parts to use the bridges and save money? Did Armstrong get the parts to make these guitars as part of the pay Ampeg couldn’t give him? We may never know the whole story.

All this came tumbling down in 1971 when the Ampeg see-throughs bit the dust. Along with the company. Ampeg was sold to the consumer electronics giant Magnavox that year. Magnavox operated the company until 1980 when the brand went to Ernie Briefel’s Music Technology, Inc. (MTI), distributor of Westone and Vantage guitars from Matsumoku Moto in Japan, as well as Giannini from Brazil. In 1985 the brand was sold once again to St. Louis Music, where it still resides.

Following the see-through debacle and the brief fling with these Danelectros, Dan Armstrong moved to London where he produced some mahogany versions of the see-through designs.

So, that leaves us with these Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectros. As you can see, they do exist! I’m pretty sure these date from 1969, but that’s far from certain. The timing fits. They could date from slightly later, but probably not much.

Basically everything on these guitars is vintage Dano except for the pickups. They are smooth, rich and quiet. Unfortunately, a Dano really needs cheapo lipstick-tube single-coils to sound right. These high-tech units kind of leave the guitar with no soul. I have no idea what the three-way toggle is supposed to do. It may have already been installed!

Nevertheless, like those anthropological missing links, this Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro fills in some curious connections between some of our most famous brand names and innovative guitar personalities. Maybe some day we’ll know the whole truth about this oddball.

A Missing Link? (1969 Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

The Guitars of Our Lives (Vintage Guitar Picture Contest)

I get a lot of people sending pictures to me. The most interesting ones always fit into two categories: 1) photos of people with their earliest guitars and 2) kids with guitars. It strikes me that they are kind of the same. Us “older” folks reminiscing of our youth, and us “older” folks seeing the young kids today finding the same passion we did so many years ago. So, I want to build a picture collage of all that stuff, right here on the net so all can enjoy it.

I want to keep it “vintage” looking for the most part, with pictures of kids as well. So please, only send old pictures (1950-1980) or modern pictures of people under 12 years old. OK? I won’t bother posting pictures that don’t fit this criteria.

The contest:

1. Submit your pictures using the form at the bottom of this page.
2. And (within reason) we will include them all on this page.
3. Please make them INTERNET friendly (less than 1000 pixels in width and height).
4. The contest will run forever (we hope!).
5. Every few months we will randomly draw an entry from a hat and the winner will receive a FREE EASTWOOD Guitar of their choice, up to $600 value (including shipping which is $49 N. America, $99 Europe/Japan, $179 elsewhere). If you want to get something more expensive, pay the difference.

We will store the photos under your email address name, that is the only way we can figure out the winner. When the winner is selected, we will email them and they will have 72 hours to respond. If we do not hear back, we will pick a different wwinner. All photos on this page remain in the contest forever!

Keep it simple, keep it fun!

Vintage Guitar Picture Contest from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Gemelli 195/4/V Electric Guitar

Back in the old days—no, I mean the really old days—expensive guitars might have ivory or even pearl fingerboards. These were pretty rare, of course, limited to either presentation guitars or royal clients. The first plastic to be invented was celluloid in the mid-1800s. Actually this had to do with billiards, not guitars. Like expensive guitar fingerboards, billiard balls were made of elephant ivory. But it was clear to the ball manufacturers that this situation couldn’t last. They sponsored a competition to find a replacement, and celluloid won. Now, it had a problem of being highly explosive, which presents a problem if you’re going to poking sticks at it! Still, it began a whole new industry.

Fortunately for us, engineers figured out the incendiary problem. Just when celluloid began to be used on guitars is unknown. But by the late 1920s manufacturers had learned how to make it in sheets and strips, and it began to be used as pickguards and binding. They also figured out how to make it look like pearl and sparkle gold. These began to appear on guitars. The former we now call pearloid; the latter was known in the guitar trade as “glitter.”

Vintage 1965 Gemelli 195/4/V Electric Guitar

By the Great Depression of the 1930s, pearloid, along with decals (“decalcomania”), became a popular way to spruce up cheap guitar materials and make people feel like they were getting something more than they could really afford. Pearloid was used for pickguards, trim, headplates, fingerboards. By this time “tortoise” celluloid was also common for use in pickguards (yes, real tortoiseshell used to be used).

After the War came the surge of electric guitars and the surge in population known as the Post-War Baby Boom. These two surges crashed together like breaking waves in the early 1960s, with a resulting tsunami of demand for electric guitars. Far more demand than American guitar manufacturers could supply. Some enterprising businessmen turned their gaze East to the inexpensive manufacturing possibilities in reconstruction Japan. Others looked to reconstruction Europe, where mass-manufacturing of guitars was an already established industry. Compared to American standards, costs were relatively inexpensive there, too. Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy were all major suppliers of guitars to musically inclined Boomers.

Vintage 1965 Gemelli 195/4/V Electric Guitar

Curiously enough, most of the established European instrument making centers included a variety of instruments, and especially accordions. Fortunately for the latter, there had been an accordion boom in the US during the mid-1950s. After that went bust, they had excess capacity. When the tide guitar demand began to rise in the early 1960s, the accordionistas were in a position to call on the guitar makers up the street to help them ramp up to meet American needs.

And, of course — ta da— accordion makers were highly skilled at working sheet plastic! So, it should come as no surprise that among the first European electric guitars to get to the US were the sparkle-plastic covered Hagstroms from Sweden in around 1958 or so. The demand had yet to emerge. But when it did, Hagstroms were joined by plastic-covered EKO guitars by Oliviero Pigini in around 1963. Others followed.

All of which is a long way around to this Gemelli guitar. Much of Italian guitar making was centered around Castelfidardo, Italy. In fact, there were a whole bunch of makers in that area who supplied guitars during the ‘60s, most making guitars for other distributors using whatever brand name was required. One of them was Benito & Umberto Cingolani, located Recanati not far from the Pigini plant. Among the brands they built was Gemelli.

A number of features make this guitar special. The pearloid plastic fingerboard is an obvious one. Long gone are the days of the simple sheet pearloid. This is a hard, nice, fast surface that plays like a dream. Another is the nifty black to green sunburst finish! These were especially popular on both Italian and English guitars during the ‘60s, especially Burns guitars, though American makers were not especially enamored of the style (Harmony did one at the end of the ‘60s and early ‘70s). . Finally, there’s the way cool push-button controls, a leftover from the accordion days. These give you All, Treble, Treble and Bass, Middle, Bass, and Off. Pretty neat, huh? The guitar is lightweight and the vibrato has a butter touch. Overall, this is a darned good starter guitar!

Plastic-covered guitars didn’t go over all that well in the US and they were gone by around 1966 at the latest. However, in this case, the plastic only enhances what’s a swell little guitar, not putting glitter on a piece of junk.

A Plastic Fantastic Dream (1965 Gemelli 195/4/V Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Alray 12-String Thinline Electric Guitar

If Alray doesn’t leap to the front of your mind when the subject of guitars from the Swinging Sixties come up, don’t feel too bad. They are about as close to a footnote as you can get. But, then again, as evidenced by the very existence of this guitar, they do, indeed exist!

The first question you might ask is how do we know this is, in fact, an Alray? The easy answer is that Kevin Macy, who lives in Kansas, told me it was when he sold it. But beyond that, this guitar has all the earmarks of guitars made by the Holman-Woodell guitar factory in Neodesha, Kansas, including the tell-tale pickups, and is identical to the same guitar shown in the Alray catalog. So, absent any logos or other explicit markings, we still know this is an Alray 12-string.

Still, I can hear you saying, “So?” You actually probably know a little about guitars made in Neodesha, because among their number are included the whacky Wurlitzer Wildcat guitars and the now-legendary LaBaye 2x4s. All from Kansas and the Holman-Woodell guitar factory.

Vintage 1967 Alray 12-String Thinline Electric Guitar

Holman-Woodell was founded by Howard E. Holman and Victor A. Woodell in May of 1965. Holman had worked for the Wurlitzer Music Company, the piano and organ manufacturer located in Elkhart, Indiana. For whatever reason Holman left Wurlitzer and started a music store in Independence, Kansas. Woodell was a retired “former industrialist” living in Sarasota, Florida, who had manufacturing experience. Whether he was originally from Kansas is unknown, but that’s a good bet. They recruited a local woodshop teacher and guitarist named Doyle Reading to be their main guitar designer. Reading would later go on to design guitars for Bud Ross of Kustom amplifiers in Chanute, Kansas.

It’s likely that Holman already had a Wurlitzer contract in his pocket, or at least he could pretty much count on getting one. In 1966 Wurlitzer’s Wild Ones guitars debuted, made by Holman-Woodell. There was a problem in paradise, however. Reading may have known how to work wood and build guitars, but he didn’t quite master painting. Wurlitzers were finished in candy and opaque colors that required a primer. Right away, dealers buying Wurlitzer guitars started returning them because the finishes were flaking off. Wurlitzer quickly abandoned Kansas for European guitars.

Which left Mssrs. Holman and Woodell sitting on a guitar factory. They decided to go it alone and re-branded remaining stock and new guitars with their own name, Holman. While I’m not sure, I think most of these came in transparent finishes, which solved the primer/flaking issue. However, it didn’t solve the sales issue. How many Holmans have you seen? Not many. It was from this period, around the beginning of 1967, that the famous LaBayes date from. At around 45 made, LaBaye wasn’t the answer either!

Vintage 1967 Alray 12-String Thinline Electric Guitar

Howie and Vic hung on until mid-1967 or so and bailed out. That’s when Al and Ray stepped in. We don’t know their full names. In fact, we can’t be totally sure their names were Al and Ray, but when a company changes from Holman-Woodell to Alray, that’s the most logical conclusion! Their sales office was located in Pittsburg, Kansas, though it’s unlikely that they relocated the factory. They must have had some experience because their line reflected some ambitious new designs, including solids, thinlines, basses and one acoustic.

Included among these new guitars was this thinline 12-string. Other than the shape and the bizarro headstock, this has all the hallmarks of a typical Holman-Woodell guitar. Like the others, pickups are marked “Channel A” and “Channel B.” The bolt-on neck is medium thickness with a round profile, again typical. The German carve on the top is interesting. The plastic bridge saddles are also common. However, the biggest giveaway are the Holman Sensitone pickups. These were Holman’s own design. They were single-coils that had the interesting feature of being height-adjusted by installing thin plastic plates or shims over the pole pieces. To make the lead pickup higher (or, conversely, the neck pickup lower), you simply added (or subtracted) another plastic plate. Probably the only time such a novel method has ever been used. Thank goodness! The only thing more annoying than the pickups’ adjustment method was their crappy output. There was more than finish flaking that caused Holman-Woodell guitars to bomb. I’d love to tell you how amazingly swell this guitar sounds, but weak 6-string pickups on a 12-string is even funnier.

These are no doubt rare guitars. This is the only Alray I’ve ever seen. Except for the electronics, it’s really not a badly made guitar. Better than most contemporary Kays or Harmonies. In any case, it appears that the Holman-Woodell factory closed down in around November of 1967.

I’m sure the closing of Holman-Woodell was no joke to Howie and Vic or Al and Ray. But even though this guitar is little more than a footnote to American guitar history, it does reflect a serious attempt to make guitars in Kansas. Look at it this way, the next time you’re with your friends and decide to play old Byrds tunes, a guitar like this one will give you plenty of laughs.

Al & Ray, Not Bob (1967 Alray 12-String Thinline Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

There’s not much I know about St. Moritz, Switzerland (or Aspen, for that matter). There’s not even much I know about this St. Moritz stereo guitar. But I’m pretty sure I like all of them. Certainly I love this guitar, which is pretty revolutionary.

Some of my greatest experiences in music have been in ensembles, but for the most part I’ve been a soloist. Already in the late ‘60s I was thinking about ways I could split signals to different amps. There wasn’t really much of a concept of effects yet back then. There were some effects, but they were pretty esoteric and I didn’t know about them. But I thought it would be so cool if you could create a surround sound sending parts of your signal this way and part of it that, kind of like panning. I doodled with primitive plans. It never went anywhere. I’m no engineer.

1968 St. Moritz Stereo Guitar

And I didn’t know there were people thinking about this problem already. But as this ca. 1968 St. Moritz stereo guitar demonstrates, they were.

The notion of stereophonic sound goes back at least to 1881 and Clement Ader in Paris. That such an idea should apply to sound is easily understood when you realize that stereoscopic photography applying to vision had already been around for 20 years or more. A long history of stereo sound unfolds but the first commercial records appeared from Decca in 1945. A common standard was established by RIAA in September of 1957. In 1958 the first modern stereo records appeared. I remember it well. And both stereo and mono records continued to be produced over the next decade or more.

Playback in stereo is one thing. But playing in stereo, that’s another matter. In history, it’s often hard to pin-point the first “who.” But probably the first to come up with the notion of a stereo guitar was Gibson with its ES-345 in 1959, which this guitar clearly emulates. A good candidate for inventing individual pickups might be Dave Bunker, who came up with the idea in the early ‘60s. Someone may have preceded him, but I don’t know who.

1968 St. Moritz Stereo Guitar

Probably both these influences led to some wag in Japan coming up with this St. Moritz. I have no idea who may have been responsible for this brand name. A relatively fair number of this brand exists, so it must have been a significant distributor or retailer. I don’t mean to say these are common like a Teisco, but neither are they totally rare.

When I bought this guitar I expected it to be another cheapo Japanese hollowbody. There were some pretty crappy ones made back then. But plugging this one in gave me a little whiplash. This is a really sold guitar and these goofy pickups really, really pack a punch. Each little ceramic unit is mounted on a large plastic base or plate and has its own magnet, pole and coil. Wiring is split down the middle, with the output as 6-4 on one channel, 3-1 on the other. You can switch off either channel, though why you would want just treble or just bass output is a bit of a mystery! I guess turning them both off gives you a roundabout way to “standby.” You can also get a mono signal using a Mix position. There are two volumes and two tones each associated with its own channel.

As with all ‘60s Japanese guitars, the electronics leave a bit to be desired. No sliding switch provides the greatest trouble-free connection and these cheap units are particularly bad, especially with age. Thin, unshielded wire and the smallest amount of solder don’t help. Still, this is a great sounding guitar.

1968 St. Moritz Stereo Guitar

And it feels good, too. I’m not much of a thinline man, but this neck feels good and sturdy and the guitar has enough adjustments to let you set it up perfectly. The body is probably laminated, but even with that it’s better than all those little Teiscos.

I’m not really sure when this guitar is from. I’ve picked 1968 because by then the Japanese were making some very interesting guitars and the cleverness of these electronics and quality construction seem to fit with that period of creativity. But it really could be anywhere from around 1966 to 1970.

So, as far as I know, this guitar has nothing remotely to do with Switzerland. But, had I only known about this St. Moritz back in the day, I would have been in heaven! And I’m sure I could have afforded it, unlike an ES-345! And nevermind the ballsy stereo output, how could anyone resist a guitar with a pickup that looks like this?!

Alpine Wonderland (1968 St. Moritz Stereo Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1984 Takamine Solid Body Electric Guitar (Model Unknown)

Well, I eventually found out some more, which I’ll be glad to share. To understand where this guitar comes from we have to go back to 1854 when Commodore Matthew Perry brought a fleet of warships to Japan and forced a treaty to open up its ports, and hence trade, to anyone other than the Portuguese, who’d had a monopoly on trade since the 1600s. This began the influx of Western cultural influences on the island kingdom. The guitar is said to have arrived in around 1890, at the time mandolin orchestras were popular. In 1901 Mr. Kempachi Hiruma returned from a stay in Italy bringing a guitar. Mr. Morishige Takei, a great player and composer, also studied in Italy in 1911 and returned to Japan in 1915 where he founded the Sinfonia Mandolini Orchestra in Tokyo, giving his first solo guitar concert in 1921. In 1929 Segovia toured Japan with great success and influence. Guitar importing soon followed, with manufacturing commencing in the 1930s.

Enter World War II. Pearl Harbor. Hiroshima. American occupation and reconstruction. Rebuilding amongst the ruins were guitar manufacturers, including those who made those new-fangled electric guitars and amps. It wasn’t long before Japanese manufacturers were exporting instruments throughout the east Asian region. By the end of the 1950s, the exporting was to the fast-growing American market, rapidly filling up with increasing numbers of Post-War Baby Boomers. Initially occupying the bottom of the market, their quality increased and by the late ‘60s Japanese guitars had effectively driven out European competition and put an end to many American mass-manufacturers (eg, Kay, National). By around 1969 product quality had progressed enough that established American manufacturers saw the possibilities of shifting production of budget lines eastward.

1984 Takamine Solid Body Electric Guitar (Model Unknown)

In 1969 the Martin company made overtures to the Takamine company—a premium maker of acoustic guitars—about producing some budget acoustics, but the deal fell through. However, the Kaman Corporation, owners of the Ovation brand, stepped in and inked an exclusive U.S. distribution deal with Takamine. Thus began a long and fruitful collaboration between Ovation and Takamine.

Which finally brings us back to this unusual Takamine guitar. Guitar-making, like any other aspect of a manufacturing economy, goes through cycles of demand and recession. In the early 1980s, demand for acoustic guitars was way down. Disco in the late ‘70s had challenged the whole guitar supremacy with a threat of keyboard domination. The guitar, thankfully, dodged that bullet with punk/New Wave and then the rise of Heavy Metal in the early ‘80s. That was good not only for electric guitars, but it was also good for weird-shaped guitars. The Metallers liked guitars like Explorers and Flying Vees and even more exotic shapes.

1984 Takamine Solid Body Electric Guitar (Model Unknown)

Alas, Heavy Metallers didn’t really dig acoustic guitars too much. Takamine suffered a dramatic drop in sales. Their American partners, Ovation, decided to help and suggested they try their hand at making weird-shaped solidbody electrics for the Metal market in order to avoid having to lay off workers. This strange beast was one of those experimental guitars produced by Takamine in 1984.

So, how did they do? Well, pretty good, actually. This model—name unknown—had all the latest jimcracks. It had a neck-through-body design and the just becoming de rigueur humbucker/single/single pickup layout. It also had a proprietary double locking vibrato system with a lock-down function turning it into a stoptail (probably borrowed from Yamaha). Pickups were controlled by a unique on/off pushbutton system, simple but effective if you like such designs. The metallic mauve finish wasn’t half bad either!

Indeed, this is a pretty darned good guitar. The pickups are sufficiently hot, the vibrato works fine, and the controls, while basic, are really all you need. If there’s a criticism, it’s that the neck has the typical Takamine rounded acoustic profile, not the usual thinner, flatter shape usually found on electric guitars of this era. Then again, if you like an acoustic feel, that might be a positive!

How long these were produced is unknown (probably about one run), as is how many were produced, but this is the only one I’ve ever laid eyes on. There’s no serial number. It’s probably as rare as the proverbial hen’s teeth. I love it, but it’s just another of those reasons why you haven’t seen me much at guitar shows of late!

Catching a Wave (1984 Takamine Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1966 Standel Model 101 Custom Deluxe Electric Guitar

Fast forward to the go-go ‘80s. Not about stocks or dancing. Go-go because I was buying guitars hand over fist. Weird guitars. Mystery guitars. One of those guitars snared in my trap was this Standel. I held back at first because there was some damage to the pickguard near the jack and I had no idea what this thing was. But plastic can be fixed, right? Once I started looking into this guitar, I was glad I didn’t pass.

Roll the tape further forward and I still don’t know much definitively about this particular guitar. Standel was begun as a tube amp company by Bob Crooks in Temple City, California, near Los Angeles, in 1953. The solid-state amps came in around 1965. As indicated, he was pretty successful, so it was a logical next step to cash in on the guitar boom and introduce a line of guitars. In around 1961 or 1962 Crooks approached a young Semie Moseley, who’d been making waves hot-rodding the guitars of local Country-Western stars, and asked him to design a guitar that was “as close to being a Fender as possible without being a Fender.” Moseley said sure, grabbed a Strat, flipped it over and traced the outline upside down. Voila, the first Standel guitar! Moseley build about 25 of these guitars for Standel, but the project languished for reasons unknown. It was this design that became the legendary Mosrite Ventures guitars of 1963.

Vintage 1966 Standel Model 101 Custom Deluxe Electric Guitar

Following the brief association with Moseley, Crooks began selling Dobros made in El Monte, California, by Emil and Rudy Dopyera, who came out of retirement to revive Dobro brand resonator guitars. That lasted until 1965 when Semie Moseley purchased Dobro. That same year saw Standel’s association with former Mosrite employee Joe Hall, the man who made the famous Hallmark guitars. These were pretty much Mosrite knock-offs. It is entirely possible this guitar is one of those; the CTS pot code is 137 6532, dating it to August of ’65. Some reports have Crooks getting some guitars from another guitarmaker named Bill Gruggett of Bakersfield, California.

After the brief stint with Hall, Crooks turned eastward to the Harptone Manufacturing Corporation in Newark, New Jersey. Harptone is still known today as a manufacturer of high-quality hardshell cases, but during the ‘60s they also did some guitarmaking (they’d done some before World War II, as well). Their chief luthier was the somewhat eccentric Sam Koontz. Koontz built custom-made archtops and ran the set-up and repair functions at Philadelphia Music Company, the principal importer of German-made Framus guitars. From around 1966 until around 1969 Harptone/Koontz built a variety of interesting, mainly thinline hollowbodies carrying the Standel brand.

Vintage 1966 Standel Model 101 Custom Deluxe Electric Guitar

But this is not about them. It’s about this odd guitar. Obviously, this is kind of a cross between a Burns Bison and a Mosrite Ventures. A lot of features are clearly Mosrite, including the German carve top and zero fret, though Koontz used these, too. This is a heavy guitar, probably made of mahogany, though it could be maple. The single-coil pickups look a lot like those made by Micro-Frets, but there’s no reason to think there’s a connection. They are pretty good pickups, with 3.88 kO of output. But check this out. They are epoxy potted. Now, who did that? Another fellow with New York/New Jersey connections, Dan Armstrong. Could he have done these? Dunno. These are replacement knobs, by the way, though everything else is original.

Other curious characteristic include a neck-tilt adjustment and two sets of volume/tone controls. The red switch lets you toggle between them. I guess that’s so you can pre-set them for lead/rhythm. The neck is nice and thin, but with a round profile that gives it a feeling of heft. The tuners are actually Grovers.

So, made by Moseley? Timing wrong. By John Hall? Bill Gruggett? Who knows? But probably not. By Sam Koontz? Most likely, though he didn’t do much with solids. Help from Dan Armstrong? Tantalizing, but unknown. In any case, despite its goofy looks, this is actually a pretty good quality guitar. Definitely a middle-level-plus axe with some professional features. Perfect for “Walk, Don’t Run” and “Pipeline.” Through solid-state or tubes, your choice! And even with the spotty pedigree a way cool blast from the past! Glad I grabbed it when I had the chance…

Hey Man, What’s That Sound? (1966 Standel 101 Custom Deluxe Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Juliett Delux Electric Guitar

You don’t need years of study to figure out this came from south of the Alps. A German guitar would have an innovative laminated neck and perhaps two more switches than you can figure out what to do with or a finger-operated, spring-loaded vibrato. No one but Italians—or someone pretty close—would make a guitar in avocado green with a green-black-silver mesh pickguard and matching pickup covers! I didn’t need two seconds to grab it off the dealer who showed it to me, no matter where it came from! I mean, avocado green?! You gotta own a guitar in that color, especially if it comes with color-coordinated appointments!

But there’s a long way from figuring out at a glance that this is Italian to figuring out what the heck it is! Like many of the guitars I’ve picked up over the years, this Juliet became an unsolved mystery buried in the back of my guitar room for ages. Actually, quite a few apparently Italian mysteries collected there gathering dust.

Vintage 1965 Juliett Delux Electric Guitar

But I have this thing about learning what’s up about any guitar I own. It’s why I got into the guitar history game in the first place. So these guitars nagged at me. Then one day I discovered www.fetishguitars.com, a web site devoted to Italian guitars. This site is about the best—and almost only—source on the subject at this point in time.

Besides a general lack of information, part of the problem involves the fact that so many Italian—read European—guitarmakers, like the Japanese, made guitars for a lot of different people carrying many different brand names and logos. Just as guitars made by Tombo in Japan ended up in the U.S. as Norma guitars, guitars made by various Italian manufacturers ended up in both Europe and America carrying a wide variety of names, usually not that of the factory.

Vintage 1965 Juliett Delux Electric Guitar

Back to this Juliett Delux. Mucking around the fetishguitars.com site led me to a company named Zerosette from Castelfidardo, Italy. Castelfidardo was—and is—one of the world’s centers of accordion-making. It began there in the late 1800s and even today it’s the home of an international accordion festival and competition. Its heyday was the 1950s when the accordion craze briefly swept the U.S. That soon ended, and, as we all know, guitars eventually took over. It turns out that Castelfidardo is located in a region of Italy with a long tradition of guitarmaking. So it was not that hard to add guitars to the mix. This explains why EKO guitars were so successful in the U.S. the early years of the ‘60s.

One of the more obscure shops located in Castelfidardo was called Zerosette. Virtually nothing is known about the actual operation, though you may have encountered their work in various guitars bearing the Goya, Contessa, and Sano.

Tucked among the gems produced by Zerosette are guitars bearing the Juliett Delux and JG brands. A comparison of the shape of one of the Juliett solids is the spittin’ image of this guitar…and even in light green! A look at the pickups shows a certain similarity of shape to others made by Zerosette. None of the examples shown there are quite as fancy as this guitar, but it’s pretty clear that this came from the Zerosette shop. Jack Marchal of fetishguitars.com believes this to be from 1965, based on the components and style. JGs may or may not have been related to the Juliett brand’s owners (other than being made by Zerosette); I suspect them to be for the same company but slightly later.

So, I now feel like I know where this guitar came from and who made it, as much as you can know with our lack of knowledge. When it was made or for whom? That remains a mystery.

All I know for sure is that an avocado guitar with matching parts, that’s way cool. Thank god for Italian guitars! Like I said. Style!

A Taste of Italy (1965 Juliett Delux Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1968 Teisco May Queen Electric Guitar

Thus I was tickled pink when I landed my very own May Queen. And a red one at that! Almost all that are seen are men in black. So, is this worthy of being a Holy Grail? As usual, the answer is a mixed bag.

Let’s take the plus side first.

Coolness factor. Only the worst kind of snob would deny this maximum cool. A hollowbody guitar shaped like an artist’s palette with a catseye soundhole? No way that isn’t cool!

Vintage 1968 Teisco May Queen Electric Guitar

Now, there are some guitars that were once ultimate cool, like when the Flying V and Explorer debuted back in 1957. Radical! But, there have been so many knock-offs in the years since, their coolness factor diminishes accordingly.

Then there are guitars like the 1960 Kay Solo King, sometimes called the “Map of Ohio” guitar. Elsewhere I’ve dubbed this the ugliest guitar in the world. And it is butt-ugly. While it has some design consistency, there’s just no way this guitar will ever be cool. Except to me, of course, sick-o that I am! But that’s another issue!

Vintage 1968 Teisco May Queen Electric Guitar

Rarity. As far as I know, the May Queen was made for domestic consumption—or at least regional consumption—only. I don’t think it was ever exported here. Then again, it does have an English engraving on the pickguard. Still, I’ve never seen a catalog, ad, or other evidence of it’s being sold in the US. These just do not come around very often. We have no idea how many were made, but ‘60s Japanese guitars are fewer than most people suspect. And, as mentioned, a red finish is really special. This rarity has to contribute to Holy Grailness.

The Teisco May Queen appeared at a significant time in Japanese guitarmaking. Teisco, which had formed following World War II as a Hawaiian guitar and amp company, had considerable success with exporting into the 1960s. They were probably the most successful brand during that decade. In January of 1967 they were acquired by Kawai, the piano company turned guitarmaker. Kawai seems to have kept the Teisco and its own lines separate throughout this period.

In any case, in 1968 the Japanese companies were feeling their oats and began to come up with original guitar designs. A whole spate of Japanese-style guitars appeared, reflecting creative thinking, not just copies of other people. This was, perhaps, the first golden age of Japanese guitars. All contributing to coolness.

Now the other side. Teisco just never did do hollowbodies too well. Some of their solidbodies are spectacular. They have great features and, with a little attention to set-up, can far surpass guitars in the same class, including those made in the US and Europe. And sound remarkably good. The pickups on this May Queen are nice, beefy single-coils, but the whole package just comes off as sort of, well, limp. Good if you’re back is bad, but lacking “heft.” It plays fine. These simple rip-offs of Bigsby vibratos are really pretty good. Maybe if the cats eye was really bound, but it’s just paint. There’s a lot of visual slight of hand here. Put it all together and, well, given a lot of choices of what guitar to pick up and play, this keeps sliding down the list. There’s no problem setting it up to play. It’s NOT bad. It’s just that I’d choose my vinyl-covered Teisco with the platform vibrato first… Or, to be honest, my Levinson Blade… Unless you’re really looking for the right image.

So, is this a Holy Grail? This begs the question, “What you mean pardner?” There are so many ways to define desire. Combine rarity and art, and this is way desirable. Consider a player’s criteria, and it become less so. Depending on how many guitars you want to own. Quantity was never an issue for me! At least I was able to check this off my “Off the Wall” check list!

Artist’s Pallette (1968 Teisco May Queen Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1982 Daion Savage Power Mark XX Electric Guitar

The event in question was the practice of copying American guitar designs by Japanese manufacturers. The Japanese hit on the copy strategy pretty early on. The American guitar industry was pretty robust when the guitar boom hit in the early 1960s. But it couldn’t meet the total demand of maturing Baby Boomers and the gap was filled by European guitar makers such as EKO and Framus. By 1966 or ’67 the Japanese had begun to copy European guitars that were popular in the US market, most notably the EKO violin guitar (itself just one of many Euro takes on the Gibson EB-0 bass).

1982 Daion Savage Power Mark XX Electric Guitar

The turning point, in a delicious irony, was precipitated by Gibson. Gibson had dominated the high end of electric solidbody guitars with its ‘50s Les Paul models. Glued-in necks on a mahogany body with a carved maple top. Yum, yum! But Gibson got bored with the design in 1961 and changed the Les Paul over to what would become the SG. Contract problems with Les ended the model name soon thereafter. The SG did ok, but not as well as the Les Paul. The times had something to do with it. Gibson made nice with Les and reintroduced the Gibson Les Paul in 1968. The version it chose to resuscitate was the black-finished Les Paul Custom.

What follows is somewhat apocryphal. Meaning there’s no incontrovertible proof. Shiro Arai, the man behind Aria guitars, was at the 1968 NAMM show where the reissue LP Custom was featured. He took one look at it. Hmm. It’s a copy of the old Les Paul. Copy!!!

1982 Daion Savage Power Mark XX Electric Guitar

The first Japanese “copies” of the Les Paul Black Beauty appeared the following year—bolt-on necks and not precise by any means. But it didn’t take long for the notion to blossom. By 1974 at least the Japanese were building copy guitars that were nearly as good as the originals. Certainly as good looking, and a heckuva lot cheaper. Gibson was—understandably—not happy.

In the summer of 1977 Norlin, Gibson’s parent company, sued Elger Guitars, the American arm of Hoshino, owner of the Ibanez brand name, in Philadelphia Federal Court. The charge was trademark infringement, based on the copying of Gibson’s headstock design. The plan was to seriously damage the Japanese makers. You know, sweep into the Summer NAMM show and scoop up the entire Ibanez display. Take that! Of course, here’s where the unintended consequences come in.

1982 Daion Savage Power Mark XX Electric Guitar

First of all, Gibson hadn’t noticed that Ibanez had already changed its headstocks. In an amusing twist, they actually looked more like Guild heads grafted on Gibson guitars! No confiscations. Furthermore, Elger reached an out-of-court settlement agreeing not to copy Gibson headstocks. More importantly, the lawsuit gave Hoshino a kick in the pants toward coming up with new designs that American guitarists wanted anyway. The copy era had run its course. Americans wanted natural-finished guitars made out of exotic woods. The result was Ibanez Musicians, Aria Pro II Rev Sounds, and various very cool Westones. Not to mention Travis Beans and Kramers.

Which brings us back to this guitar, which appeared right in the middle of that natural craze. Daion was a brand that debuted in 1978, part of a collaboration between MusiConics International, Inc. (MCI) of Waco, Texas, best known as the makers of the legendary Guitorgan, and the luthier Hirotsuga Teradaira, a maker who specialized in cedar-topped guitars outfitted with brass nuts and saddles for increased sustain. The most famous product of this liaison was the asymmetrical acoustic-electric Daion Headhunter.

Daion introduced its first solidbody electrics—the Power series—in 1981 or thereabouts. There were two basses (Power Mark X-B, Mark X-B2) and either two or four guitars (Power Mark X, Mark XX, Mark XXV, Mark XXX). The Mark XX shown here (#820397) was the top of the line. This is just spectacular. First of all, it’s a neck-through-body guitar, the neck core consisting of two thick strips of rosewood with a thin piece of maple in the middle sandwiched between four plies of maple, two per side, themselves separated with a thin slice of rosewood. The wings of the body are another sandwich, this time two pieces of nicely figured ash on either side of another layer of rosewood. The beauty of the sandwich notion is that when you carve out a contour, like on the back of the beauty, you reveal the gorgeous rosewood. It would be unthinkable in these days of dwindling rainforest to use this much rosewood on a solidbody! Another law I always obey is when an electric guitar is made out of a good chuck of rosewood: buy it!

Of course there’s also the de-rigueur brass fittings and a pair of coil taps on the ballsy humbuckers. Did I mention the original green alligator hardshell case? This is sweet.

Daion actually produced several other models, including the cool Savage line, but the Power Marks are superfine examples of Japanese lathery flexing its considerable muscles following Gibson’s ill-timed attempt to put the kibosh on Japanese guitar making. They never could have imagined that their efforts to end copying would be so successful yet lead to guitars like this Daion Power Mark XX. Good name. Good law.

Sandwich Time (1982 Daion Savage Power Mark XX Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

A few Hond guitar headstocks…

It’s not very fashionable, I know, but I like ‘80s music. I should be too old for it, but I sat out the ‘70s listening to acoustic music from the 1920s and ‘30s and playing classical guitar. I began listening to rock again in the early ‘80s, beginning with Ozzy and Randy Rhoads. Boy could he play! Anyhow, the metal, hair, and power pop bands of those days all put good, strong guitar soloing up front in the mix, and I enjoyed it. (I automatically block out vocals and lyrics, by the way, so I pay no attention to them!) Among the bands I liked was the Canadian outfit Loverboy, who had a hot lead guitarist in Paul Dean. You may be aware of the rare Kramer Paul Dean Signature guitar, but you are likely to be surprised that there was in fact an earlier “signature” model produced by Hondo, of all people! Indeed, several!

1983 Hondo Paul Dean II Electric Guitar (Hondo PD-2)

Loverboy was founded in Calgary in 1980 and released its first record in Canada in that year. They caught on big and for most of the decade cranked out hits including probably their signature tune, (Everybody’s) Working for the Weekend. It didn’t take long for guitarist Dean to begin working with guitarmakers on a guitar design he could call his own. Apparently he had some prototypes made by a Western Canadian company, though those my never have gone into production.

At some point thereafter he apparently hooked up with Jerry Freed of International Music Corporation (IMC) of Fort Worth, Texas, the owner of the Hondo brand name. Hondo gets little respect from most guitar aficionados, but it really should, both because it contributed quite a bit to guitar history and actually made some pretty good guitars (though not all, it must be admitted).

Hondo was founded by Freed and Tommy Moore in 1969 with the intention to open up guitar production in Korea, at that time a non-player in the guitar game. Japan had taken over from Europe as the primary supplier of budget-level guitars during the 1960s. However, even by the late ‘60s the success of the Japanese was being eroded by their very success and the strength of the yen. Americans, mostly as an after-effect of World War II, had little respect for Japanese products and weren’t willing to pay much for them, even if they were pretty good. When Nixon cut the dollar loose to float with other currencies on the free market, the yen went up, making Japanese products increasingly expensive, a problem in a prejudiced, price-sensitive market like the US.

1983 Hondo Paul Dean II Electric Guitar (Hondo PD-2)

So, Jerry and Tommy went to Korea and hooked up with a small guitarmaker there that would become, I’m pretty sure, Samick. Japanese engineers from Tokai were brought in to help improve the operation and the Hondo brand was born. Named for the John Wayne western (and late ‘60s TV show). Not unlike the brand name featured here!

Hondo was initially known for its really crappy but cheap acoustics, but then picked up the low end of the copy era. Although by the mid-‘70s it was marketing some better models still made in Japan by Tokai. By the late ‘70s and into the ‘80s Hondo was making some pretty interesting “original” designs.

It was at this point in time when Hondo was hitting its stride that Paul Dean and Hondo crossed paths. As far as I know, this was Hondo’s first (and perhaps only) foray into celebrity endorsed guitars.

There actually may have been as many as three Hondo Paul Deans. There was one made from the Canadian prototypes which was apparently never promoted and probably pretty rare. In the June 1983 catalog the Paul Dean II and III were listed. The PD-2, shown here, had two DiMarzio Super II humbuckers and a BadAss-style stop tailpiece. The PD-3 had three single-coils and a traditional-style vibrato. Both had a black textured metal pickguard and came in a cherry finish with a 24-3.4” maple fingerboard over a 3-piece maple neck. Despite the respectable horse-power provided by DiMarzio, I’m pretty sure these guitars were made in Korea, because Japanese guitars of 1983 had pretty fine workmanship, which this lacks. It’s not at all bad, just not top-notch Tokai.

1983 Hondo Paul Dean II Electric Guitar (Hondo PD-2)

The Hondo Paul Dean II shown here lasted only about a year, if that. It was not in the 1984 catalog. The Paul Dean III was still listed in ’84. Both are probably quite rare and almost never seen. And close to the end of the line for Hondo.

In 1985 IMC signed an agreement with Charvel/Jackson guitars to market its Charvel line made in Japan. Let’s see. Charvel? Hondo? Which would you choose? Like a bad guy in a John Wayne western (or any by Clint), Hondo bit the dust. The brand’s fate was forever sealed when IMC bought the Jackson company in 1986. Who you gonna call? Not Hondo.

In any case, Paul Dean had bigger fish to fry. He hooked up with Dennis Berardi and Kramer guitars, which was on its way to becoming the largest guitar company in the world. In 1986 the Kramer Paul Dean debuted. But that’s another story.

Loverboy continues to perform. I still like ‘80s music, but only from the ‘80s. And only on the shuffle feature on my iPod. I’m increasingly pulled back to acoustic music from the ‘20s and ‘30s… Sorry Loverboy. But I still do like this Paul Dean II, and it’s a cool—and rare—piece of guitar history! Makes it all worth while working for the weekend…

Workin’ for the Weekend. No really! (The Story of Hondo Guitars) from MyRareGuitars.com

1985 Schecter Genesis G6 Illusion Electric Guitar

The exact origin of this Illusion is shrouded a bit in mystery, despite the “transparent” nature of the design! So, everything I say here may be jumbled up and there are probably a lot of missing pieces, no pun intended. (Well, yes it was!) Here’s what seems to be the story.

Schecter. The genesis of Schecter guitars goes back to mid-1970s. In around 1976 or so Dave Schecter started Schecter Guitar Research. Could have been a little earlier. Schecter was into replacement pickups and pickguards, plus some other parts. This was at a time where dissatisfaction with CBS- quality control at Fender was a problem for fans of Stratocasters. A cottage industry sprang up in aftermarket upgrades and do-it-yourself parts. One of those was a shop run by Wayne Charvel, opened in ’74. He graduated to manufacturing in ’76 and shortly thereafter was hooked up with Schecter. Business problems separated Schecter and Charvel, the latter going on to selling out to Grover Jackson and becoming one of the big names of the ’80s. Schecter continued on as a partser until the mid-’80s, when it, too, began marketing guitars, some of them pretty fine.

1985 Schecter Genesis G6 Illusion Electric Guitar

Ok. Shift to Guild guitars. Begun in the early 1950s by Al Dronge out of the leftovers from the collapse of Epiphone, Guild had a long tradition of solidbody electrics dating to the early ’60s that always managed to remain on the fringes of professional acceptance. Like their dreads, really good but not a Gibson or Martin. By the ’80s Guild electrics had become really, really good, but less and less competitive with brands like Jackson, Charvel or Kramer.

In 1984 a guitar designer named Dave Andrews of David Andrews Guitar Research developed a Jazzmaster-shaped guitar that was basically an X-shaped structure with lots of the wood cut out. This had a glued-in neck. This got a lot of guitar press at the time. He licensed this design to Guild, which introduced the neat X-100 Bladerunner, of which only 95 were ever made through 1985.

1985 Schecter Genesis G6 Illusion Electric Guitar

In 1985 Schecter introduced its first guitar line with this bolt-neck Genesis model. It was supposedly based on a design by one Bill Reed and Chip Todd. Chip was the designer who worked with Hartley Peavey to develop the Peavey T-60 (T for Todd), the world’s first numerical carving machine guitar. Looks like a rip-off of the Guild to me, and there’s probably a lot more to this story.

Anyhow, this is a cool guitar, lightweight, and hot. While it only has one humbucker, the tone pot is a push-pull coil tap. A real solidbody version was also offered by Schecter. The Schecter Genesises were only offered for about a year. More conventional Schecters followed, as did some more unconventional ones, like the Schecter Yngwie Malmsteen! And whatever you think of the current offerings.

1985 Schecter Genesis G6 Illusion Electric Guitar

Once this guitar got to Boston, the show designers kind of fell out of love with the Genesis. It didn’t get featured in the main exhibition, but was minimalized, as it were, to a hanging in the cafeteria area. Still, how many guitars get featured anywhere in a world class art museum? Or represent the beginning of a guitar line with a strange pedigree like this one?!

How About a Twisted Sister? (1985 Schecter Genesis G6 Illusion Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1966 Wurlitzer Gemini Electric Guitar

Check out, for instance, this rare bird. A 1966 Wurlitzer Gemini, made at the Hollman-Woodell guitar factory in Neodesha, Kansas. Part of Wurlitzer’s THE WILD ONES series (which included the more pedestrian-looking, but still pretty rad Cougar and Wildcat models), these were made to compete with the best of the domestic market. High end tuners (Klutsons), a wonderful chunky bound neck (like a Fender V shape, but a bit thicker), and a great look highlight the Gemini.

Other cool features include stereo pickups. That’s right – the guitar is wired in stereo, so that the neck pickup is one channel and the bridge pickup the other. With a stereo cord that has a “Y” splitter, that means you can send your bridge pickup to one amp and your neck pickup to another. There’s a traditional 3 position toggle to select the pickups, or set it for both and use the blender knob on the treble side horn. It’s a trippy sound to stand in between two amps with the split signal. Put the tremolo and reverb on one of them, and it’s a great sound. You can also run both pickups, of course, into one amp with the proper cord.

Each pickup has a rocker switch labeled “Jazz” and “Rock”. Predictably, the JAZZ setting cuts the output and trebles, offering a m ore rounded mellow tone. The ROCK setting opens the tone up a bit, boosting the treble and volume. It’s a very versatile guitar, with a high end feel.

The vibrato, with its very stylish W cutaway feels like a cross between a Bigsby and a Mosrite. It has the position under the hand and sound of a Bigsby, but with a hint of the feathery lighter touch of the Mosrite. The bridge has separate plastic posts that intonate very well and allow for the vibrato to return to pitch consistently. The balance is wonderful as well. It’s an odd shaped guitar, but it’s very comfortable to play standing or sitting.

And, obviously, it’s one of the best looking guitars to come out of that king of all great-looking-guitar decades, the 1960’s (sorry all you pointy 80’s fans). If the Airline Reso-glass futuristic model most associated with Jack White earns the nickname of the Jetson model, well what is the Gemini? It out Jetsons the Jetson model itself. Maybe it’s the Spacely model. Or the Cogswell’s Cogs model.

1966 Wurlitzer Gemini Electric Guitar

So why didn’t they catch on, if they’re so great? Well, a lot of great companies couldn’t withstand the relative slump of the late 60’s and the birth of quality imports. Think of Danelectro, Valco and Kay all going south within a year of each other. Also, maybe they didn’t have enough capital to make enough noise outside of their Kansas factory. Maybe they just weren’t lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

But if you’re looking for any areas where the guitar itself hurt its own chances in the hyper-competitive guitar market of the late 60’s, there are a couple. Wurlitzer could have done better in the finish and the pickups. The finish on all three Wild Ones models had a habit of peeling and cracking. This white Gemini (all three models came in Red, White and Blue) is in surprisingly good shape. It does, however, have the same pickups as the other models, and this isn’t a great thing. While the pickups (the same as one the famed LeBay 2X4 – they were made at the same factory) look to be between the size of a DeArmond Silverfoil and a P-90, sadly they don’t share tone with either of those great pickups. They are clean and solid, tone-wise, but their output is very low and they can’t overdrive the dirtiest of amps. They can get a pretty good snarl going with a nice preamp or a good overdrive pedal, but they aren’t going to sound too tough going straight into most amps. Power and tone-wise, the popular guitar they sound most like (output-wise) is the Fender Mustang.

These are incredibly rare. Most estimates put the entire Wild One line at under one thousand guitars. Of those, the Cougar was the most popular, followed by the Wildcat, leaving the Gemini as the rarest of the rare.

Cool shape. Awesome retro vibe. Stylish. Super rare and hard to come by. And they could use a pickup upgrade. Maybe the more standard MONO wiring. Sounds like a guitar that might be just right for a cool company that re-issues rad guitars from the 60’s (hint, hint, Mike). If enough of you make enough noise, maybe this one could come back from the past.

1966 Wurlitzer Gemini Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Cameo 1402T Electric Guitar

Actually, the history of this back and forth between violins and guitars goes back at least to the 1880s and involves another cousin, the mandolin. Back in around 1880 a group of performers named the Spanish Students were all the rage in America. They were a mandolin orchestra and before long there were local copies everywhere, soon followed by banjo orchestras, all usually including guitars. Mandolins have bent or arched tops. What followed was some pretty interesting competition as instrument makers started coming up with variations to woo players of different instruments. This is how the tenor banjo came about. Anyhow, into this mix plunged Orville Gibson in the 1890s with his carved top mandolins, emulating the violin. Later came his harp guitars and then Spanish guitars. Then finally his archtops in the 1920s. Similarly, there were other guitarmakers like the Larson Brothers who stressed or bent their tops somewhat like a mandolin. By the 1930s it was commonly accepted that arching the top of a guitar – either by carving or bending – added to the output volume and most makers were producing violin-like guitars, including Kay which made some model with the top and back extending out with a lip like a violin.

Vintage 1967 Cameo 1402T Electric Guitar

The notion of shaping a guitar to look like a fiddle comes from the bass side of guitardom. In the late 1940s Everett Hull started amplifying his double bass with an amplified peg – Ampeg. By 1953 Gibson was producing its violin-shaped Electric bass. By ’56 Hofner in Germany was producing its version, what would become known as the Beatle Bass thanks to Paul McCartney. It was the Europeans who ran with the idea, and by the early ’60s a number of companies were producing both basses and guitars shaped like fiddles. In around ’64 or ’65 Italian-made EKO violin guitars and basses started coming into the US.

These violin guitars became EKO’s most popular models, so it was only a matter of time before the Europeans’ chief competitors, the Japanese, should come out with their own violin basses and guitars. They embraced the concept with gusto and soon an avalanche of fiddle guitars started emanating from most Japanese shops!

Vintage 1967 Cameo 1402T Electric Guitar

Who sold the Cameo seen here is unknown, but it’s identical to the Aria 1402T made by or for Arai in Japan. Japan had a virtually indecipherable system of production and exportation back then, with any number of large (or small) shops that built the instruments and another trading company that sold them to distributors in the market country. By the late ’60s one of Arai’s main suppliers was the legendary Matsumoku factory in MatsumotoCity, so it’s possible this came from there, but who knows? All the appointments are the same as on the Aria version, down to the trapezoid-topped pickups.

What we can say for sure is that this guitar is a bit below a Hofner in grade and certainly as good as an EKO. Violin guitars like this Cameo are light-weight and really comfortable to play. Back in the ’60s when this guitar was made Japanese guitars, and especially their pickups, were pretty much a joke to serious guitar players, but looking back these are really not that bad as long as you can deal with the chance for feedback!

So, next time you pick up a violin-shaped guitar, you’ll know it’s about a lot more than Sir Paul. Take that violin players!

Fiddling While Rome Burns (1967 Cameo 1402T Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1980s Astron Gittler II Electric Guitar

Whatever you call this instrument, the Gittler certainly pushes the envelope of what is a guitar! Alan Gittler (born in 1928) was originally a jazz guitarist in New York, heavily influenced by Remo Palmieri. He played music, composed, and even wrote and produced a film called Parachute to Paradise. He worked as a film editor for many years, invented a number of photographic-related devices, and even wrote a novel. At one point he was performing on New York streets with a Velasquez classical guitar run through a battery-powered amplifier. Gittler, by preference, only ever owned one guitar at a time. But he knew that the classical through a battery amp wasn’t right. So he began thinking about designing a guitar.

It was through this process that Gittler began paring down what a guitar was. While he acknowledged that a guitar’s shape and materials did affect the sound, he arrived at the conclusion that the primary mechanism that determines how a guitarist sounds are his flesh, his fingers, contacting the strings. Anyone who’s played guitar for a long time knows that your sound comes more from your “touch” than your equipment. All he needed to remind him he was playing a guitar was the sound of the strings. So he began stripping away as much as possible and arrived at his minimalist concept of the guitar. He took away as much as he could while still having a “guitar.”

The original American Gittlers were constructed of three sizes of milled stainless steel, with a master jack for output to a single amp plus individual jacks for each string. Plug into a string output and you disconnected it from the others for sending to another amp. They had a specially designed tuner concept that was later “borrowed” by Ned Steinberger. Andy Summers of The Police played one. Other musicians told Gittler that his guitar belonged in a museum. The Museum of Modern Art bought one. These two were among the few. Around 60 guitars and three basses were built in New York.

Gittler eventually moved to Israel and changed his name to Avaraham Bar Rashi. In Israel he was contacted by Astron Engineering Enterprises in Kinat Bialik, Israel, about licensing and manufacturing his design. Bar Rashi agreed. Unfortunately, he should have been more actively involved with Astron early on, because they took some shortcuts that ended up producing guitars that were not sufficiently up to specifications for Bar Rashi’s way of thinking. Bar Rashi even went so far as to send letters to dealers who bought them disavowing the instruments.

But not before they made 500 of them. The Astron Gittlers were known as the Gittler II. They were made of a mix of coated metal and stainless steel. Unlike the original Gittlers, the Israeli guitars have output via a single 1/4″ jack and/or a DIN plug. These also have a little metal spar you can screw on the body for holding the guitar in your lap. The Astron Gittler IIs started with serial number 61. The one shown here is #134. Just when these guitars were produced is uncertain, but it was probably mid- to late-’80s.

So, in the end, I guess you have to say this Gittler II is a guitar, or at least a skeleton of one! It’s fairly comfortable to play and once you get used to the weird frets (which feel almost scalloped), it works fine. Nevertheless, as you might guess, it doesn’t get played very often! When I go to pickup a guitar, I’m a bit more conservative, I guess. I guess this guitar does belong in a museum, after all!

Skeletons in the Closet (1980’s Astron Gittler II Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1979 Martin EM-18 Electric Guitar

Yes, Martha, that’s Martin. That’s because the late ’70s was one of Martin’s periodic failed attempts to break into the electric guitar market. That Martin never managed to challenge Fender or Gibson, or anyone else, for that matter, doesn’t mean they failed to make a pretty good guitar. Just that venturing outside your core competency can be pretty risky! So when I found this in a pawn shop in Philly, just down the pike from Nazareth, I had to pick it up!

Martin’s first attempts at making electrics occurred in the 1950s when it tried slapping DeArmond pickups on dreadnoughts. Ever hear of those? Then in 1961-62 Martin tried to market some thinline F-series electrics. These were pretty cool guitars with a unique design, but they never really caught on and were gone by mid-1965. Fast forward to the ’70s.

Vintage 1979 Martin EM-18 Electric Guitar

The 1970s were a strange time, to say the least! It had anti-war protests, wild inflation, fondue, gas shortages, odd new Japanese cars, presidential resignations, new STDs, and, man, disco. Disco! Guitarists were panicked by disco. Most of it was played on keyboard synthesizers and axe-slingers were afraid interest in guitars would disappear! Of course, they hadn’t reckoned on a young Eddie Van Halen! In contrast with the glitzy glam of disco spandex was the “back-to-nature” look.

The taste for natural-looking guitars coincided with the end of the Copy Era in 1978. Elger Guitars, the American beachhead of Hoshino, makers of Ibanez guitars, established itself by making high-quality copies of American guitars, as well as creating some interesting variations and original models (think Iceman). When Norlin/Gibson sued them, they introduced the Musicians and Studios, inspired by the neck-through, active creations of Alembic (and the Grateful Dead, kings of natural enjoyment). While somewhat more exotic in shape, Bernie Rico’s B.C. Rich guitars were also within this mode, as were the lesser known S.D.Curlees.

Vintage 1979 Martin EM-18 Electric Guitar

So anyhow it was into this mix of anti-disco naturalness that Martin tried again with its E Series. The Es were the creation of Dick Boak, who came to Martin as a draftsman in 1976 and by ’77 was given the project of coming up with some new electric guitars. Like many designs of the late ’70s, these have a kind of “organic” quality that’s unique in guitar chronology. The prototypes were produced in ’78 and the guitars entered production in 1979. Two guitars and one bass were made, all with glued-in necks and the retro “Stauffer-style” headstocks, reflecting Martin’s original 19th Century guitars. The guitars were the E-18 and EM-18. The E-18 came with a pair of DiMarzios and a phase switch. The EM-18 sported Mighty Mite pickups with series/parallel switches. The EB-18 was a bass version with one DiMarzio, though later versions had Schallers.

Following the au naturale aesthetics, this EM-18 has a 9-piece maple and rosewood laminated body, with a set-in mahogany neck. This is really a decent guitar, with screaming pickups. Mighty Mites were hot! Rarest of the ’70s Martins was the E-18 at 341 made. 874 EBs were produced. Most plentiful was the EM-18 with 1375 being produced until 1982. Serial numbers began at 1000 and this is #1034, so it was the 35th made.

Alas, for better or worse, the fad for “natural” guitars was pretty much over by the early ’80s, when these guitars bit the dust. Martin imported some Japanese-made Stingers following the E-affair, but never again really returned to the idea of competing in the solidbody arena. Dick Boak would later become one of Martin’s key marketing people. Finally, in fairness I have to say that despite the great fears about disco, there actually were a fair number of them that had some bitchin’ guitar parts! So it wasn’t quite as dire as we thought at the time. Seems to be a pattern there.

C.F. Martin Takes on Disco? (1979 Martin EM-18 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1979 Gretsch TK 300 Model 7624 Electric Guitar

Gretsch was founded in Brooklyn, NY, in 1883 by Friedrich Gretsch of Mannheim, Germany. He died a couple years later and the company was run by Fred Gretsch, Sr., until 1942. Bill and Fred, Jr., took over and when Bill died in ’48, Fred, Jr., was in charge. Most of Gretsch’s most famous guitars date from the 1950s, including the famous White Falcon that was promoted by touch guitarist Jimmy Webster in guitar demos offered at Gretsch dealerships throughout the country. Gretsches during this era were powered by DeArmond pickups and were undoubtedly cool!

Then along came the Swinging Sixties. Baby Boomers fused with the Beatles and suddenly you could sell every electric guitar you could make. Sensing gold in them thar hills, major corporations, some of which had nothing to do with music, stumbled over themselves to get into the guitar business. In 1965 CBS, with TV, radio and record company holdings, bought Fender. Ok. In ’67 Norlin, with a beer-making history, bought Gibson. In between both guitar manufacturers and distributors sold to corporations. Guild went to Avnet, an entertainment company. Kay went first to Seeburg, the jukebox company, and then to Valco. Jack Westheimer’s Teisco went to King Korn trading stamp company!

1979 Gretsch TK 300 Model 7624 Electric Guitar

Anyhow, Gretsch got caught up in the buying frenzy. Baldwin Piano and Organ Company of Cincinnati made a bid for Fender, but lost out to CBS. Then later in ’65 Baldwin bought Burns of London. Two years later, Baldwin added Gretsch to its portfolio. After that, Gretsch guitars began incorporating Burns features, like the “gear-box” neck adjustment and vibratos. To save money, in 1970 production was relocated to Booneville, Arkansas, and finally to DeQueen, AR. HQ moved to Cincinnati in ’72. Later that year the plant burned down, marking pretty much the end of the era acceptable to hardcore Gretsch freaks. Production didn’t really ramp up again until 1974, by now facing stiff Japanese competition. Baldwin was interested in capturing as much market share as it could.

In around 1978 Gretsch came up with a bunch of new models, including the ill-fated Committee (designed by same), as well as the Beast models (bitchin’ guitars), and this Bizarro TK, with the asymmetrical body and hocky-stick head. The hardware and pickups on these were made in Japan. This model may have been Gretsch’s first bolt-neck guitar model. The rising sun was about to set.

This particular TK came from my classic visit to discover the Temple of Doom, aka Bob’s House of Music in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Bob owned a strip mall and instead of renting out the shops, filled them with guitars. More guitars than you can imagine. If you came in to buy one and tried to negotiate, Bob would drive the price UP, not go down. He didn’t sell much with this strategy. He also collected feral cats and wore cast-off thrift store clothes. I went out there to take pictures of guitars, and came home with this as one of my prizes. No, it was a fair price but no bargain. What would you expect?

Collectors who like Corvettes or Mr. Chets or Falcons disdain these later Gretsches, but if you ignore the history, these are really nice guitars. The necks are slim and fast. They’re light-weight, which is good if you’re older like me (or like to jump off amps). And the Japanese pickups are HOT, HOT, HOT. These are great guitars. In a popular guitar context.

Gretsch died shortly after this adventure, though it would return as an import later. But if you’re interested in good guitarflesh that, like Rodney Dangerfield, don’t get no respect, but is quite respectable, you might want to keep your eyes open for a TK 300!

Like Rodney, It Don’t Get No Respect (1979 Gretsch TK 300 Model 7624 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Hofner 459TZ Electric Guitar

The idea of putting “effects” on the guitar itself is as old as the volume knob, and certainly as old as the tone pot. When guitarists started putting hand vibratos on their guitars probably in the 1930s another powerful onboard effect was unleashed. As far as I know, it was probably the Germans—who else?—who added what we’d more typically call “effects” to guitars. By 1965 Framus had put the infamous “spigot” on its guitars, a spring-loaded volume control that you worked with your pinky for manual tremolo. This was a great idea but it takes a heckuva lot of coordination to get the effect!

Vintage 1967 Hofner 459TZ Electric Guitar

All the things we’ve talked about till now were really mechanical. Or at least I guess “passive.” As far as I know, this 1967 Hofner 459TZ may have been the first of a long line of guitars with active electronic effects built in. Of course, the first thing you notice is the violin shape, which was, thanks to Paul McCartney’s bass, the company’s main claim to fame. That alone would make it pretty cool. But then there are those groovy ‘60s Hofner celluloid fingerboard inlays. You’d like it for those. But wait, there’s more! Those nifty dual-blade humbuckers were among the best on Euro guitars at the time.

But all that pales when you consider the effects! This has basically two active circuits, perfect for your psychedelic rendition of Ina Gadda Da Vida. One, the “T,” was a treble boost. Throw the switch and (most of the time) the treble kicks in for that biting, blow your mind solo! The other, the “Z,” is a built in fuzztone distortion circuit. Want nasty? Throw that switch and (most of the time) you get that nasal idea of distortion that was big in the Summer o’ Love. “Most of the time” is basically because not everything that worked perfectly back in ’67 still does. I can swear to that.

Vintage 1967 Hofner 459TZ Electric Guitar

Reliability over time issues aside, this guitar is perhaps more quaint than really nasty. We’ve all become a bit more jaded than we were back when we weren’t going to trust anyone over 30! If I want nasty these days I prefer to stomp on my Pro Co Rat. You probably have your favorite, too. And it’s probably not on this Hofner!

Vintage 1967 Hofner 459TZ Electric Guitar

How long these were around or how many were made is a mystery, but not too many seem to show up. It wasn’t long after this guitar appeared that folks began experimenting with active onboard electronics that were more sophisticated, but still descended from this. Alembic, B.C. Rich. With overdrive boosters that gave you distortion. Then came the Freshers in the late ‘70s with built in wah and phasers. Then Electra MPCs with plug in modules. Perhaps the most ambitious were the Cort Effectors from the mid-‘80s with phase, delay, vibrato, wah, chorus, distortion…it could have had more but Cort figured players brains would melt with more choices. Do they all work? Well, not that bad. Not that good. The reality is you’d rather have an array of stomp boxes, or maybe if you’re real savvy a multi-effects rack.

Or, I don’t know, maybe just a friggin’ guitar with a couple pickups and a volume and tone control. Then just jam a pencil into your amp speaker! In any case, this Hofner began the other track of putting your effects where your fingers do the walking! At least as best as I can recall…

Fuzzy Memories (1967 Hofner 459TZ Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1983 Electra Lady XV1RD Electric Guitar

We’ve already talked about that great period in the early to mid-1980s when the New Wave of Heavy Metal, combined with the emergence of L.A. as an important music center, Eddie Van Halen, and hair bands. For just a couple years before Superstrats hijacked everyone, weird-shaped pointy guitars were hip. Well, this is an example of a guitar that takes that to the extreme!

Electra guitars were made by Matsumoku in Japan for St. Louis Music (SLM). SLM started in the 1920s and grew to be a large regional music distributor. They were thick with Kay and from the late 1950s or so through to Kay’s collapse in 1968 offered Kay-made Custom Kraft guitars. Some of these, especially the later ones, are really pretty good guitars. We’ll profile one in time.

1983 Electra Lady XV1RD Electric Guitar

Like everyone else, SLM couldn’t resist the allure of Japan. Sometime in the late-’60s, SLM started to bring in guitars with the Electra brand. It was probably pretty tentative at first. But when Valco/Kay went under, options were running out. In around 1970 they introduced a “copy” of the Ampeg Dan Armstrong “See-Through” guitar called The Electra. This coincided with the rise of the copy era, and it wasn’t long before Electra was competing with Ibanez for the “beginner” market and beyond. One advantage they had was that they hired a guitar designer named Tom Presley who started designing guitars and supervising the manufacture of the electronics in St. Louis. From a certain point on, guitars came made by Matsumoku but without pickups, which were installed in the US. Those open-coil zebra pickups on Japanese Electras were American. Paul Yandell, who backed Chet Atkins, endorsed them.

Other stuff happened, but this brings us up to the early 1980s and the craze for pointy guitars. Two things happened in around 1983. One: SLM started playing with new pointy guitar designs. Two: SLM entered into a joint venture with Matsumoku and began a year-long process of taking over Matsumoku’s own brand name Westone.

1983 Electra Lady XV1RD Electric Guitar

There were a bunch of different radical designs introduced by SLM, including this Lady (obvious name!). All had the same hardware and electronics, but different shapes. The shapes speak for themselves. The cool thing was the electronics. These had two humbuckers on either side of a reverse-wound single-coil. This was Presley’s idea from back in 1971. This was controlled by a 3-way with a master volume, two tone controls for the humbuckers, and three pull-up pots. The front pot tapped the humbuckers to single coil. The middle pot activated the middle reverse-wound single-coil, and the rear pot has an out-of-phase function. There are 11 possible pickup combinations, making this one of the most versatile tonal layouts ever invented. These are great, hot, swell-playing guitars! Comfortable too! If you like to sit down, as I do in my old age, this fits very nicely with a classical position. And relatively rare. According to Presley, fewer than 200 of these were ever made. This was not cheap either. Cost was $439.50 in 1984.

From 1983-84 SLM changed its brand from Electra to Electra-Westone to Westone. You see examples of these strange shapes under a variety of names. By 1985 this novel switching system was gone and the Superstrat form was adopted. Too bad. By 1987 or ’88 Singer Sewing Machines had bought Matsumoku and killed guitar production. SLM changed the brand to Alvarez (it’s acoustic brand) and switched production to other plants, including Korea.

It’s kind of funny in a way. Rock and roll has this image and reputation for being on the edge. You know, sex, drugs, throwing TV sets out of your hotel window. Yet if you look at it from a guitar point of view, things look way more conservative. The vast majority of guitar players like the classic old shapes. Not everyone, but most. Except every once in awhile things get turned on their heads. Like when this Electra Lady was made.

Electric Ladyland (1983 Electra Lady XV1RD Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Judging by many of my last few years guitar purchases (on Ebay and elsewhere), I’m the kind of a person who seems to think he’s the kind of a person who likes guitars with a lot of knobs and switches. I’ve bought several multi-pickup guitars. Old ones, new ones, new ones made to look like old ones (not those stupid “relic-ed” ones, though…I’m an idiot, but I’m not stupid). Yet, as I look at the keepers in my collection, I’ve only kept one guitar with more than four knobs, and none with more than two pickups. Odd.

Many of them have been beautiful – for instance, a white 4 pickup Kawai model. Slider switches for each of the 4 pickups, plus one of ON/OFF. Which struck me as strange, at best…why, after all, would you need to turn your guitar “off” unless you were doing that cool Morse-code deet-deet-deet noise at the end of the Clash’s “London Calling.” Wait, I may have answered my own question.

But back to the Kawai. It was a creamy white like Fender’s Olympic White, the pickups were all shiny chrome, and it had a pretty cool whammy bar with a chrome bridge cover. Rosewood fingerboard. A pretty snazzy looking guitar. I saw it and had to have it.

But, like pretty much every three or four pickup guitar I’ve ever owned, it was a pain to play live. Plus, one pickup setting seems to always sound better than the others (to me, usually the neck pickup). But, damned if I don’t fall for the pretty temptress of the multiple pickups every time. I sold it a month later, realizing it wasn’t as good sounding or reliable or easy to play as my main stage guitars.

Pretty much, I play shows with my two main guitars: My 1969 Telecaster and I get a lot of tonal variety from its two pickups (a ’66 DeArmond from a Harmony in the neck and an original bridge pickup), three position switch, and the volume knob. My other main stage guitar is my new(er) Eastwood Airline H 44 DLX. Again, a two-pickup guitar with a single volume and tone knob. Through either my Deluxe Reverb, or my Silvertone 1484, I can get a nice rock clean by rolling off the volume knob, and a great overdrive by turning up. No need for pedals. Simple and awesome tone.

But this piece is about the keeper. The one eBay find that has stayed in the rotation, yet is labored with a series of knobs, some of them even downright confusing knobs!

The multi-knobbed guitar I’ve finally found that’s plenty simple for live playing, and yet full of tonal options for the stage or studio is the 1962 Harmony Silvertone 1423L Jupiter model.

1962 Harmony Silvertone 1423L Jupiter Electric Guitar

For those unfamiliar with Harmony guitars, in their rough heyday from the 1940’s to the late 60’s (they did limp to a close in the mid 70’s, but most of their cool advances and designs in guitars are from the earlier years), they were, for my money, the most underrated American guitar company going. While, yes, they mass-produced guitars more than anyone else (in one year alone, they made more guitars than all other American guitar companies combined in that same year), they were frequently great playing and great sounding instruments.

There are a variety of great and affordable vintage Harmonys, and many of the top of the line models are great professional guitars. There are exceptions to the general rule, but most Harmony collectors like to go after the models with the block inlay necks. There are some knockout dot-neck models though that have recently gone through the roof, price-wise (such as the original H44 Stratotones popularized by Rick Holmstrom, Junior Watson, Tom Waits now going for over two grand a pop). But, as I said, those are the exceptions – most of the collectable Harmony guitars are the block inlay neck models, such as the H62’s (big jazz box), H75-78’s (thinline archtop three pickup models), and the Silvertone 1446L (Chris Isaac models), among others.

Vintage Harmony H44 Stratotone Electric Guitar

And also, to add to that list of great guitars, the Silvertone 1423L Jupiter and its sibling with the Harmony label, the H49 Jupiter. These are remarkably versatile and great sounding guitars. They sport two DeArmond (Rowe Industries) pickups, with a volume and tone for each along with a three position selector. The difference? There’s a fifth knob – the rare ‘blender” switch, engaged when the three-potion toggle is in the middle (both pickups) position.

And what is a “blender” switch? It’s like having a wah-wah knob when the two pickups are engaged. It has at least a couple of uses. One is as a standard wah-wah sound. Play a note while wrapping your pinky around the knob, spin it back and forth and you have a classic wah. OR, set it wherever you like in its tonal sweep and come up with a stunning variety of tones from the two pickups blended. A truly wild feature of the blender is that it seems to tone down the hotness of the pickups, so that you have a slightly cleaner, groove tone on the two pickups, and more of a rock and roll/blues bite and grind on the them when they’re used separately.

And the sound of those pickups when used by themselves! A booming, bluesy grind on the neck pickup, with a ton of aggressive bottom and lush mids along with the bite. The bridge pickup is one of the truly great rock and roll sounds. And these tones are really easy to access when playing live. One of the few multi knob guitars ever made that is user-friendly and easy to dial in when you need a great tone as there’s really not a bad setting to be found on it. These guitars can go from rolled-off mellow jazz to snarling rock with very little effort.

Add to this a very easy playing neck and an astoundingly light guitar (these are semi-hollowbody, yet not neck-heavy), and you have one of the great values in vintage guitars. Another nice feature of this model is that it isn’t prone to the same squealing feedback some of the Rockets and H-series thinlines are at high volumes. Great as those guitars are (and my H72 is maybe my favorite thinline ever), they can be very sensitive to higher volume playing. Not so with the H49/Jupiter.

And on top off all this, both versions, the Silvertone and the Harmony, are great looking guitars. The H49’s are Spruce or Maple-topped in a golden natural wood grain with one of the coolest tortoise shell pickguard schemes, ever (just around the pickups and for the five mini-knobs in gold and the white three-way toggle). The 1423L Jupiters are finished in a sparkle-black top with a white pickguard only around the five mini-black knobs and the three way toggle. Both are lookers, with the H49’s seeming to go for more on the vintage market than the Silvertone. This may be for no other reason than supply, as the Silvertones show up on eBay about two to three times more often than the H49’s.

Either way, if you can find one for a decent price (currently the $500 range for a player and more for a mint show piece, of course), they are a far more versatile and better looking and sounding guitar than a new Strat that would set you back a similar amount of bucks. Plus, they’ll go up in value.

And, of course, they have a blender knob!

1962 Harmony Silvertone 1423L Jupiter Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Pinoy Jazzmaster Electric Guitar

Say what? You read that right. Pinoy, by the way, is an adjective often used to describe things Philippine. You see, from the Spanish American War in 1898 until 1992 the island nation known as the Philippines (named by 16th-Century Spanish “discoverers” for King Philip) was the home of the largest US military presence in Southeast Asia. 1898 because after Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders beat the Spanish in the Caribbean, the US acquired the Philippines as territory from Spain. This actually didn’t please the Filipinos very much, and after numerous attempts, the Philippines finally gained its independence from the US in 1946. However, the Americans kept a huge Navy base – the world’s largest at Subic Bay next to Olangopo City on the western side of the main island, not far from Manila.

It was from this vast Naval base that much of the Viet Nam War was staged. Many of the soldiers passed through Subic on their way to Viet Nam and many more spent some of their R&R there. As you can well imagine, with such a large presence of young American men on the island, a number of industries sprang up around the base to serve them. Among those endeavors was a thriving cottage industry of forging copies of American guitars which were then sold to probably inebriated Americans, some of whom brought their Pinoy prizes, like this Jazzmaster, home with them. Apparently the main center of this activity was the town of San Fernando, which lies halfway between Olangopo and Manila.

Vintage 1965 Pinoy Jazzmaster Electric Guitar

These Philippine forgeries are quite remarkable. Not so much because they’re great guitars, but more for the ingenuity that went into fabricating them. When we say “cottage industry,” we mean cottage. These were made by families in garage workshops. Without very much in the way of equipment. And without very much in the way of most of the materials used by guitar manufacturers!

Like, for instance, maple. Maple is a northern hardwood. The Philippines are tropical islands in the South China Sea. Basically what they have is mahogany. Basically what these guitars were made of was mahogany. Need maple for a neck? You take some bleach and make some maple-colored mahogany. And basically everything on these guitars was hand-made. Hand-made frets. Hand-made pickups. Hand-made pickup covers. A hand-made copy of a Fender vibrato. Some of these even had hand-made logos. Obviously they had access to some electronic parts such as switches and volume and tone controls, but most everything else was made out in the garage.

Vintage 1965 Pinoy Jazzmaster Electric Guitar

This particular example is unusual for having no logo. The neck is bleached mahogany, with a mahogany body. The fingerboard actually is rosewood. The bridge is wood with a bone saddle. Even the case is a tolex-covered “copy” of a Fender case.

This guitar probably looked pretty good after half a dozen or so Pabst Blue Ribbons, but it’s really more interesting as an artifact from the glory days of Subic Bay. This particular guitar was probably built in the mid-1960s when the Jazzmaster was Fender’s top of the line. It’s quite playable, just not exactly what it seems!

There’s no telling how many of these Philippine forgeries came back to the US with GIs. I’ve seen a couple of them. The bleached mahogany neck is almost always the tell-tale sign that you’ve got a guitar from a San Fernando garage. Whether or not forged guitars continue to be made in Philippine garages today is unknown, though apparently the evidence of the trade can still be found. Apparently this trade thrived at least from the early 1960s until the US finally closed down Subic Bay and turned it over to the Philippine government in 1992. Calling this relic from the Viet Nam War era a “Fender Jazzmaster copy” may not be as clever as the young lady’s dating of World War I, but it still makes a pretty good anecdote!

Of Forgeries and War! (1965 Pinoy Jazzmaster Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1984 Peavey Razer Electric Guitar

I’ve always been a sucker for an unusual shape in a guitar. I love the classic lines of a Les Paul or the balanced vision of a Strat. But give me something really oddball and I go for it! So, when I came across the Peavey Razer, how could I resist?

Guitars are musical instruments. But, let’s face it, they’re also fashion statements. What you tote on stage says something about your persona. And just as fashions change from Spandex to blue jeans, rages for certain types of guitars come and go. Often tastes go in cycles. Once in awhile it comes around to weird shapes.

1984 Peavey Razer Electric Guitar

One such weird cycle occurred in the early 1980s. In fact, the period from around 1983 or so until about 1985-86 may have been the golden age of weirdness. Wierdness was present in the ’60s, but it may have been as much a product exuberant exploration as response to demand. The ’70s were dominated by the conservative designs of Gibson, for the most part. Models like the Iceman or Moonsault were more anomalies than anything else.

Exotic guitars were the stuff of metal. In the late ’70s serious rock fans abandoned classic metal and arena rock for punk. Pop rock fans opted for New Wave. While the latter had some darned good guitar playing at times, it wasn’t really guitar-oriented. Then in the early ’80s metal caught on in Europe and the U.K. What was called the New Wave of British Heavy Metal spawned a host of guitar-oriented bands. Many, like Germany’s Michael Schenker, liked Vees or Explorers with fancy graphic paint jobs. The music was in your face. Guitar solos were de rigueur. Having an unusual guitar was part of your statement, part of being out there. Hence the Peavey Razer.

1984 Peavey Razer Electric Guitar

The Razer was actually part of a trio of guitars introduced by Peavey in 1983-84. Hartley Peavey’s company had been primarily an amp manufacturer until the introduction of the T-60 guitar and T-40 bass in 1978, the world’s first guitars made on numerical carving machines. A number of models more or less in that mode followed. Then in ’83 came the Razer and the Mystic. The Razer was shaped, as you can see, like an electric razer! The Mystic was inspired by the creations of B.C. Rich. Either at the same time or in early ’84 these two were joined by the Mantis, which was basically a modification of the Dean ML hybrid of an Explorer and a Vee.

These are really quite nice guitars! They featured Peavey’s patented bilaminated maple neck, with laminates running in opposite directions to increase stability. By this time Peavey was using its Super Ferrite twin blade Humbuckers. These pickups scream! The controls are one volume and two tones, with a coil tap built into the tone controls. Vibratos were just coming on at the time, and this guitar sports Peavey’s Octave Plus unit.

I’m not sure if these guitars made it to 1985 or not. Nor is it known if many were made, but they don’t show up very often, so probably not many exist.

The Razer may have been the weirdest guitar ever built by Peavey, but it probably doesn’t win the all-time weird award. That would be a matter of taste! But it’s certainly comes from one of the weirdest inspirations, a shaver. Well, there was that Gibson Futura of the same period inspired by a can opener. Or was that Pac Man??!

A Close Shave with Fame (1984 Peavey Razer Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1968 Danelectro Sears Silvertone Electric Guitar

These were cheap, crap box guitars made at a price point to that every kid who saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan could get one for whatever holiday or birthday was next. They were product, churned out at an alarming rate. They were also, lucky for us, pretty damn cool sounding little guitars.

So, a “rare Silvertone” is a bit of an oxymoron. The best Michael Bay film. A tall jockey. The thinnest sumo wrestler. The most competent politician in Washington. The least annoying morning DJ, and so on.

But by 1968, the post-Beatle guitar boom of 64-66 had waned. The wave had crested and you started to see some of the biggest names in little guitars (Kay, Valco, Danelectro) starting to suffer and, within a year, all die quiet deaths. (Chicago enormo-manufacture Harmony would slump on into the early 70’s before limping to a public auction death knell in 1975).

1968 Danelectro Sears Silvertone Electric Guitar

In their last years, all of these companies would make some changes, hoping desperately to cling to their former market share. In Dano”s case, the biggest change when ownership switched hands to MCA in 1966 was the end of the poplar and Masonite guitars that had so defined the Neptune maker”s sound for over ten years. The last year and a half, Danelectro produced actual WOOD guitars, the top of the line being the classic 3 pickup Vinnie Bell signature model with the wonderfully psychedelic pickguard and the zippy quick neck.

The bottom of the line? The wood one-pickup Silvertone model from the Amp-in-Case line. This was still called the 1448 in the 1968 SEARS catalog, but it is a slightly different sounding little beast from its earlier and more prevalent semi-hollow 1448’s. The AC/DC (sans power transformer) amp in the case is the same (not nearly as cool at the great 1457’s single-ended 6V6-driven amp with tremolo. BUT, this guitar is arguably a better little axe than its predecessors. It’s at least as good and different enough that you should get one if you can.

It’s a killer blues and garage guitar. The skate key tuners hold surprisingly well, so long as you drop some graphite (or the lube of your choice) on the sticky, but great sounding, aluminum nut. The rosewood bridge is just like on the older models… simple, but effective. And, of course, the key to the tone is still there – the brilliant lipstick tube low-output (with plenty of volume…ohms ratings and volume are not the same) Danelectro pickup is worth all of the hype it receives. There’s just nothing quite like them, and if you want that full voiced twang and snap…well, you need an original lipstick Dano. There is truly no substitute.

1968 Danelectro Sears Silvertone Electric Guitar

And in a wooded solidbody, rather than the more common (and great, make no mistake) hollow Masonite-topped models, the pickup really shines. Crank your amp and turn up the guitar volume for some great smooth overdrive. Roll back the volume knob and the guitar cleans up, while retaining its treble response (unlike many great vintage garage guitars like Harmonys, which get muddy and murky very fast with their original volume knobs turned down at all). This is a clear, clean and articulate tone monster that responds well to every amp in the house (at least in this house of too many amps, it does).

The short scale makes for easy playing, smooth bends and surprisingly good intonation up the neck when set up well. Plus, this model, like later Danos, has a very cool, very figured fretboard for a “budget” instrument. And, of course, it comes, like its older Masonite siblings, in a wonderfully cheesy black metaflake finish.

This is one pawn shop surprise you should pick up when and if you see it. Like I said, they’re rare – or they’re “Silvertone Rare” at any rate. They show up on eBay a LOT less often than the standard, more common 1448’s, so if you see one in good playable shape, do yourself a favor and dig this last-of-the-breed from Neptune.

1968 Danelectro Sears Silvertone Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

1981 O'Hagan Shark Custom Electric Guitar

I didn’t really pay much attention to electric guitars during the 1970s and early ’80s – I had my face glued to 18th and 19th Century guitar music – but I did peruse the pages of Guitar Player. It was there that I first laid my eyes on a curious guitar called the O’Hagan Shark. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but once I’d been bitten by guitar collecting, a shark immediately showed up on my radar – uh, sonar – screen. Back then, no one was looking for O’Hagan Sharks, so I had no trouble scaring one up cheap. This was back in those pre-internet days when you eagerly looked for the next catalog mailer from big dealers.

I got one in black, but I think something was changed out on it, so I swapped it for this all-original Custom. I never liked black guitars anyway. That it looked like its namesake was obvious, but what the heck had I gotten? This set me on one of those classic investigations. I got some brochures and learned that they were made in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. A few calls to local guitar dealers led me to none other than Jerrel (or Jerol, aka Jerry) O’Hagan himself, the designer of the Shark and the other guitars offered by the Jemar Corporation of the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park. Jerry filled in the blanks for me.

1981 O'Hagan Shark Custom Electric Guitar

O’Hagan had been a music teacher specializing in clarinet in the Twin Cities area in the early 1970s, and then became a music sales rep. As a rep he discovered high-quality Yamaki acoustics from Japan and in ’75 went into business importing them as Grande guitars. Unfortunately, he was just in time to see demand for acoustics evaporate. Out of that failed venture came the idea of making good, affordable electrics in the US to compete with Japanese imports. The O’Hagan Shark was born in 1979.

Whether or not the “Shark” name came before or after the design is unknown, but Jerry was inspired by Gibson’s Explorer. Again, whether or not he intended it, his new Shark was more comfortable than an Explorer to play sitting down. The notion of improving on Gibson was being pursued at the same time by Dean Zelinsky (Dean) and Jol Dantzig (Hamer) a few hundred miles down the pike in Chicago.

1981 O'Hagan Shark Custom Electric Guitar

O’Hagan Sharks were a pretty good compromise between high-end guitar and affordable. They were neck-through-body and sported top-notch Schaller hardware and hot Mighty Mite humbuckers. By the time this guitar was made, they’d switched to DiMarzios. Brass appointments to increase sustain. The mini-toggle is a phase switch. Early examples often featured fancy woods, though they got plainer by the time of this guitar. Later Sharks featured Schaller pickups. Bottom line: O’Hagan Sharks are really nice guitars! Comfortable, hot, flexible. Way cool!

A number of other O’Hagan models were introduced, including the double- and single-cut NightWatch, the Twenty Two (Flying V), and Laser (Bizarro Strat). A lot of custom options were offered. Problems inevitably developed and notes were called in, O’Hagan was broke, and the I.R.S. liquidated it all in 1983.

Only about 3000 O’Hagans were ever made, most Twenty Twos. There were only about 100-150 Sharks. All are pretty rare. Sharks (and Lasers) are the coolest. With tons of bite, like you’d expect from a maneater from Minneapolis!

This Guitar Bites (1981 O’Hagan Shark Custom Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1987 Cort Dragon Electric Guitar

Well, it’s always best to go to the source when you have a mystery (if you can), so I called Jack Westheimer to get the true story about my find. Jack’s name, unlike Leo or Orville, is probably not on most guitar fan’s lips, but he brought us Teisco (and other brand) guitars from Japan at a time when most folks in America didn’t think much about products from the Orient. There’s a whole lot more to this story that we don’t have time to get into here, but, long story short, Jack transferred from pioneering guitars in Japan to pioneering guitars in Korea. He took his Japanese Cortez guitars to the Peninsula in 1973, partnering with Yung H. Park, to create Cort guitars. Today they are one of the world’s top guitarmakers, and many Cort guitars are quite simply excellent instruments.

However, as you might expect, this quality achievement did not happen overnight. By Westheimer’s own assessment, it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that they felt quality was at a competitive level. But how to show it? He needed a guitar to make an impact on the U.S. market.

1987 Cort Dragon Electric Guitar

It was one day in around 1986 or ’87 while pondering this problem that Jack took a walk through an outdoor market that thrived outside the factory. There he encountered some of those gift boxes inlaid with fabulous pearl and abalone dragons. Maybe this was just the ticket. After a few inquiries he learned that the inlay work was done by craftsmen on a small island. He decided to take some Cort Strat and Explorer copies and have them inlaid with dragons.

1987 Cort Dragon Electric Guitar

What do they say about the litter on the road to success? Despite his best intentions, the project was doomed. The cost of the inlay was reasonable, but Cort had to finish the bodies, carefully pack them up, ship them to the village where the work was done, then have them shipped back, touch up any dings, then proceed to clear-coat and complete the guitar. By the time you added up all the extra handling, the guitars had to be sold for a pretty penny once they arrived Stateside. Dealers wouldn’t pay the freight for a Korean guitar, no matter how fancy.

1987 Cort Dragon Electric Guitar

Their loss was my gain. This is a swell little guitar with neck-through construction (my favorite) and even if it didn’t play well, which it does, it would be fun to stare at all day!

The Cort Dragons are pretty rare, uh, dragons. About 400 Explorers and 100 Strats (StoStats) were built in 1987. Most were Corts, but some came labeled Lotus. Of those, most were made with laminated bodies like this one; only 50 were made of solid timbers toward the end of the run.

In the long run, it only took time, consistency – and a mature global economy – to secure Cort’s reputation. They didn’t need the Dragons. But this one, at least, ended up in my treasure hoard, and every time I open the case it’s like Chinese New Year to me!

Celebrating the Chinese New Year, Korean Style (1987 Cort Dragon Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1965 Avanti Electric Guitar

It’s amazing how little you know when you’re in the middle of things. Especially when you’re young. Even though I was prime-time ’60s, I didn’t really become aware of Italian guitars until I began writing about them several decades later and, with a personal attachment to Milwaukee, learned of the Lo Duca Brothers and EKO guitars. It was talking with the Lo Ducas that I learned of the accordion connection. Duh.

That’s because those very accordions I’d hated as a kid were the equivalent of what the guitar became a decade later. Very popular. And very Italian. The piano accordion “with keyboards instead of buttons” was invented in Vienna in 1863 and brought to the area of Castelfidardo on the eastern coast of Italy. The instrument was embraced and a lively accordion manufacturing industry grew up in the area. It’s still a major center. While accordions were also made in Germany and Sweden, the vast majority played during the 1950s were from Italy.

1965 Avanti Electric Guitar

As fate would have it, the rage for accordions in the US at least passed by the mid-’50s. Accordion makers struggled to replace the lost business. Lucky for them Baby Boomers like me came along with a taste for playing guitars. Doubly lucky for them, there was a long tradition of guitarmaking in the same part of Italy. When the American electric guitar market exploded in the early 1960s, the Italians were among the first European sources of guitars for meeting the demand. One of the hallmarks of early accordions was the use of plastic covering. Thus it was natural that, when switching to guitars, they should be plastic covered, which brings us back to this Avanti.

Avanti guitars were probably made by the Polverini Brothers of Castelfidardo for European Crafts of Los Angeles beginning in late 1964. For this one, they chose a really cool rootbeer-barrel colored faux-rosewood plastic covering. Most early Italian guitars had either pushbutton or rocker controls adapted from accordions, but this is unusual with a fourway rotary select that let you choose each pickup individually or all at once. All in all a sensible arrangement. Whether the pickups are really humbuckers or single-coil is unknown, but they have that bright ’60s sound, and, anyhow, you really want an Avanti because it looks like rootbeer candy.

1965 Avanti Electric Guitar

Italian guitars continued to be plastic-covered through 1965 or so. By 1966 guitar players were becoming more discriminating and Italian guitars switched to more conventional finishes. Though not for long. Rising wages and slacking demand, plus implacable competition from Japanese guitarmakers, led to the demise of Italian guitars by 1968 at the latest, at least in the American market.

Since discovering these plastic-covered marvels I’ve become more interested in the piano accordions that spawned them. I’ve even contemplated picking one up to play it. But one thing they haven’t done. And that’s change my opinions about watching the Lawrence Welk show, no matter how wonaful it may actually have been.

Unexpected Eye Candy (1965 Avanti Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Back in the day Kay was actually called Stromberg-Voisinet and actually produced the first documented electric guitar, the Stromberg Electro, in 1928. Good idea but it had some problems and promptly disappeared. Kay didn’t exactly rush back into electrics with any alacrity, but after the War, when it became clear that the electric Spanish guitar was going to be viable, Kay took the plunge like everyone else. Some of its guitars from the 1950s, like the Thin Twin, are classics of the era, though a little stodgy.

1965 Kay K350 Titan I Electric Guitar

By the ’60s guitar boom, of course, Kay was pumping out trainloads of guitars. The market for these mainly beginner-level electric guitars was, of course, young Baby Boomers. By around 1960 Kay was making attempts at upgrading its image to a hipper one, with truly ugly guitars like the Solo King or “State of Ohio” guitar that we’ve talked about before. One of Kay’s improvements was the adoption of chrome plastic pickup covers with etched lines often called “Kleenex boxes” by collectors. They look cheesy to me, but cool cheesy, in a tacky sort of way, if you know what I mean.

But it’s really all about that headstock. Someone at Kay thought they needed to hippify the heads on their solidbodies and came up with what many collectors call the “bushwhacker” design. No chance of being sued by Fender on this puppy! What’s particularly amazing about it is that it must have been a bear to produce. The lower edge or throat is beveled away from the face, while the tip on the upper side is also beveled out, but just beyond the tuner buttons. There’s a ton of carving here in the days before numerical carving machines.

1965 Kay K350 Titan I Electric Guitar

The head, as goofy as it is, isn’t the only impressive feature of the Titan. Those angled double parallelogram inlays are real pearl. Routing for those much have been fun. Then dig the body. Again with the bevels. Everywhere! On a two-piece solid mahogany body. With a good, tight, snug fit for the neck.

And, I guess while I’m complaining, who could love that awful plastic Kay logo? I guess someone did.

1965 Kay K350 Titan I Electric Guitar

In any case, this all came together in 1965 to form the Kay Titan I, a remarkably nice little guitar despite it’s looks. Technically, the Kay Titan I lasted only one year, although it was still around as the Kay Titan II beginning in 1966, when the juke box company Seeburg purchased the company. Little other than names changed with the Seeburg possession, so they obviously didn’t have any objection to bushwhacking or plastic parts. But then again, have you ever seen a juke box? Also cool, but hardly models of high art or great aesthetic taste. More like, “Hey, look at me!”

Come to think of it, maybe it’s NOT the goofy headstock or plastic parts that make this guitar odd. Maybe it’s the really nice mahogany that’s the problem. Maybe the Titan I just needed some pink and green lights and a mirror-ball finish to complete the “Hey, look at me”… Oh well, let’s face it, if guitar designers didn’t come up with some klinkers once in awhile we wouldn’t have the fun of coming up with such goovy descriptions as Kleenex box and bushwhacker.

Bushwhacked by the Past (1965 Kay K350 Titan I Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1963 Framus Television 5/118 Electric Guitar

What I’d gotten in that dark, dusty Philadelphia guitar shop was a 1965 Framus Strato Deluxe, essentially a solidbody version of the hollowbody 1963 Framus Television 5/118 shown here.

Now, you have to be careful about ethnic stereotypes, but since I’m half German, perhaps I may be permitted to agree that there is a Teutonic affinity for engineering. I see it in myself. You see it in German cars. And you see it in German guitars from the golden age of the 1960s like these Framus’ better models!

1963 Framus Television 5/118 Electric Guitar

Germany has a long history of instrument making going back at least to Medieval times. Framus, short for Franconian Musical Instruments, dates to 1946 when Fred Wilfer set up shop in the American controlled part of Germany in Bavaria. While they made lots of different instruments, by the mid-1950s guitars were Framus’ main product, mainly for exportation. After the Beatles hit, the American market for electric guitars mushroomed and Framus became an early supplier of the demand. Their primary American distributor was Philadelphia Music.

’60s Japanese guitars copied this neck notion. Framus was also known for its light-touch vibratos, augmented by a flip-up bridge mute for rhythm work.

1963 Framus Television 5/118 Electric Guitar

But the main attraction of Framus guitars was under the hood, in the electronics. Powered with three fat single-coil pickups, each operated by its own sliding on-off switch. Then of course there was a master volume and three tone controls, with separate on-off switches to bypass tone controls on the neck and bridge pickups.

But best of all was the spigot, known officially as the ‘Orgeltone,’ or Organ Tone, a manual tremolo with, of course, its own on-off switch. Can’t have too many of those! Basically the spigot was a volume pot that was reverse wired and spring loaded. The spigot was simply a hefty hook that you wrapped your right pinky around. As you picked the strings, you curled your pinky up and down to modulate the volume downward (reverse). The effect is a lot like an onboard Hammond organ! Orgeltone! It takes a little practice and coordination, but once mastered it’s a pretty cool low-tech engineering effect.

Framus guitars thrived as low-cost alternatives in the US until cheaper Japanese guitars and higher European labor costs phased them out. By that time the Orgeltone was also history. Gone but not forgotten, because whenever I feel like it I can limber up my pinky and let the tremolo kick in for a nifty doppelganger effect. And bring back fond memories of my first encounter with German electric guitars that fateful day in that Philly guitar shop when I was first introduced to the spigot!

A Nice Faucet But Can You Play It? (1963 Framus Television 5/118 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Teisco TRG-2L Electric Guitar

Like in most major TV markets, the stations where I live have a roving reporter who gets to go around and do stories on the strange and unusual. You know, pieces about people obsessed with carving pumpkins at Halloween and guys with like 8,000 Lionel trains their basements. I guess I fell into the latter category. Somehow one of these reporters found me out and called to do a story on the weirder parts of my guitar collection. Some might argue that’s the whole thing, but he meant the old Kays and Harmonies and Teiscos he remembered from his youth. I reluctantly agreed and he said “Ok, bring a couple hundred of them into your living room.” Right. You gonna carry them? Expletive deleted. But I picked about 30 or so and spread them around.

Vintage 1965 Teisco TRG-2L Electric Guitar

Anyhow, on the appointed day the reporter showed up, interviewed me, and started making fun of my guitars. As he worked the room he got to this Teisco with the built-in amp. He threw the switch and hit a chord. Vroo-crackle, crackle. It crapped out. On TV. Ho, ho, ho. More mirth. Oh, great. Doh!

Vintage 1965 Teisco TRG-2L Electric Guitar

Then again, maybe having an amp built in to your guitar is something to laugh at. The idea isn’t new. Back in the 1930s both National and Harmony, at least, built cases with amps for their lap steels. But it was left to modern transistorized electronics, and the Japanese application of them to the earliest consumer products, to put the amp into the guitar itself. The result was this TRG-2L, one of several models introduced in 1965 that had a small amp and 3″ speaker built in, operated by two 9-volt batteries. These came in a kind of Stratish shape and a sort of Tele-ish shape. One or two pickups. These were the first of their kind.

Ok, the TV performance aside, these actually do work and are kind of fun to play. You can walk around the house and strum without the tether of a cord. Wanna go to the beach? No need for a plug to entertain that campfire circle. Louie Louie, Oh yeah, we gotta go now. (Or were there other words?) And, like most Japanese guitars from this period, they’re really quite well made – and play well – once you set them up properly. The body is solid mahogany (maple neck), and, in case you’re not at a pig roast, there’s even a headphone jack if you want to use this as a practice guitar.

Vintage 1965 Teisco TRG-2L Electric Guitar

Of course, practice and Pignose amps came much later. But guitars like this Teisco were revolutionary in their time and are still fun to play. You can even run them through a regular amp if you want to make a different kind of impression.

Although you might not want to do it on TV. If these early Japanese guitars have a flaw, it’s in the use of extremely thin wire and economical use of solder. Easy to get that crackle, crackle when you least want it. I’m told the video of me trying to salvage some respect for my goofy guitars still circulates occasionally on late-night Philly airwaves (and cable whatever they are). At least it wasn’t me who lost it on TV! Blame it on time and the Teisco. And that darned cynical reporter.

Losing It in TV? (1965 Teisco TRG-2L Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1978 Kawai KS-700 Electric Guitar

It was 115 degrees in the shade – of which there is none – in Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps. I was there for a scientific conference and found myself with an open early afternoon before the next session. I’d heard about this hot strip club on the edge of town and thought, “What could it hurt to spend an hour or so enjoying the local sights?” So I hopped a bus and headed out toward the desert. I got off the bus and walked toward the club door full of anticipation. Doors opened in about 2 hours. Right!

1978 Kawai KS-700 Electric Guitar

Then heaven intervened. I turned my gaze across the street and what should I see? Two blocks (two blocks!) of pawn shops! Hmm. Let’s see. Beautiful naked girls. The chance of a guitar find. It took about 2 seconds to place that bet! A sure thing was calling!

A number of interesting possibilities presented themselves before the spirit led me to a dark corner in a cage and this Kawai. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was cool and I’d never seen another. Done.

What I’d found was a cool 1978 Kawai KS-700, a rare artifact from that brief period in time in the late 1970s when the realities of global guitar trade were finally hitting home. The “copy era” had revealed both the excellent skills of Japanese guitar makers and the lack of direction of the American establishment. This culminated in the famous 1977 lawsuit of Norlin (Gibson) v. Elger (Ibanez) that put at least a temporary end to copying. Japanese companies rushed into the breach with a number of original designs, many inspired more or less by the popularity of Alembic at the time (think Musician, Rev-Sound, etc.).

1978 Kawai KS-700 Electric Guitar

This Kawai was part of that response, but also but reflects an earlier related development. As early as 1975, the Japanese, feeling confident in their abilities, wanted to establish more of a Japanese design identity. The result was both some of the most interesting “conventional” solidbodies of the ’70s – like the Ibanez Artist, Aria Prototype, and Yamaha SGs – and some of the more curious designs, including the Ibanez (and Greco) Iceman, the Lucky Cat guitar, the legendary Kawai Moonsault and others, all decidedly Japanese.

The Kawai KS-700 shows all the “natural” predilections that surrounded the Alembic aesthetic (the brown sunburst), plus overtones of guitars such as the Artist. Unlike many of its contemporaries, this features passive rather than active electronics (the mini toggle is a coil tap), though the amount of shielding is remarkable. But what makes this really cool is the head treatment, which reflects the Japanese design movement. Use of the retro slotted headstock allowed Kawai to create a design inspired by the Torii gates that mark the entrance to Shinto shrines. No way Gibson could mistake this puppy for trademark infringement! Talk about a statement!

The Kawai KS-700 was only made until 1980. It’s not even certain that it was ever marketed in the US. I’ve never seen another. How it made its way to a pawn shop across from a strip joint in Sin City remains a mystery. But one thing’s sure, if someone’s hand hadn’t closed the doors of that strip joint in the heat of day, this nifty guitar never would have made its way into my hands. And that would have been a sin.

The Wages of Sin (1978 Kawai KS-700 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

To own an original Bigsby electric you’d probably need a quarter mil of the ready. But maybe not! You might be lucky enough to find one of Bigsby’s Magnatone creations for a heckuva lot less.

1956 Bigsby Magnatone Mark III Electric Guitar

Magnatone’s True Vibrato appeared in 1956, the same year a lesser known event occurred in that storied company’s history. That was when they contracted with one of the legends of guitar history, Paul Bigsby, to design a line of electric Spanish guitars for them. Magnatone had been a major player in the Hawaiian lap steel game ever since its founding by the Dickerson Brothers back in the late 1930s in L.A. We all know Bigsby as the inventor of the hand vibrato that still bears his name. But he also gets credit for making the first ‘solidbody’ electric guitar for Merle Travis in 1947 (it was actually semi-hollow). The same guitar that another amp guy named Leo Fender took quite an interest in shortly before coming up with his Broadcaster.

1956 Bigsby Magnatone Mark III Electric Guitar

Bigsby’s first “commercial” design for Magnatone was the Mark III, a neck-through-body semi-hollow guitar, Bigsby’s take on a Ricky Combo. We know some of these were built because one turned up a few years back at an L.A.-area yard sale (how often have you had that fantasy!). But it appears that Magnatone’s production folks made some changes and almost all that are found with solid bodies and a glued-in neck with a “tongue” extension that slips in under the neck pickup. The formica pickguard and Daka-Ware knobs are a little dated now, but back in ’56 they were strictly the cat’s pajamas!

The Magnatone Mark IIIs are pretty cool, but aren’t truly professional guitars, like the spectacular Mark V that followed in 1957. These actually garnered a bunch of professional endorsements. Nevertheless, all these Bigsby Magnatones were among the better guitars of the 1950s.

1956 Bigsby Magnatone Mark III Electric Guitar

How many early Magnatones were actually produced is a mystery, and they didn’t seem to do that well. They were gone by 1958 and replaced in ’59 by a new line designed by former National exec Paul Barth, though no Magnatone guitars ever conquered the guitar world, even when guitar ace Jimmy Bryant endorsed them in the mid-1960s.

So, next time you?re prowling a back rack or a yard sale, keep your eyes peeled for one of these Magnatones. It’s a genuine Bigsby and, when you push the large single-coils through True Vibrato, you get a classic ’50s sound that takes you to paradise! True words of love!

Buddy Meets Bigsby (1956 Bigsby Magnatone Mark III Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1978 Hondo II Longhorn Electric Guitar

Calling this guitar a Longhorn is obvious because the cutaway horns are, well, long. Duh. But in fact, associating the Longhorn guitar with cattle (though perhaps not cowboys) has a basis in ancient history. Technically speaking, this two-horned body is the shape of a lyre. Lyres were in use in Mesopotamia—a region we know today as Iraq—at least by 2500 BC and probably earlier. Since some of the harps (a related instrument) that have survived from that time were outfitted with elaborately decorated bull’s heads, it is entirely possible that the lyre’s shape was also meant to bring steer horns to mind!

The lyre continued to be popular at least through the flowering of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations and may have survived in one form or another into the early Middle Ages. The shape was actually rediscovered in the late 18th and early 19th as Europeans became interested in unearthing ancient cultures. By the mid-1800s guitars with lyre arms began to appear. Indeed, they may have been responsible for the invention of harp guitars, but that’s just a guess. Lyre guitars continued to show up in the hands of cute babes on postcards up until World War I after which they slipped from memory, until Nate Daniel brought them back in the late 1960s.

1978 Hondo II Longhorn Electric Guitar

Most of us probably know this longhorned guitar shape from the legendary Danelectro Guitarlin. Indeed, this Hondo guitar was intended to be a tribute to that ‘60s beauty. Danelectro bit the dust in 1969, yielding to the beginnings of international guitarmaking. Ironically, it was in that same year that the Hondo brand was born, soon to become the first significant guitars coming from Korea. Hondo was owned by International Music Corporation (IMC) of Fort Worth, Texas, which was run by Tommy Moore and Jerry Freed. In 1969 IMC had a relationship with Tokai in Japan and in ’69 traveled to Korea and entered into an agreement with a relatively new company called Samick. IMC upgraded the Samick operation with technology from Tokai and began to import Hondos.

To be honest, the Korean Hondos weren’t all that great, but Hondo kept working with Tokai, and some of its deluxe models continued to be made in Japan. Which brings us to this Hondo II Longhorn, which was introduced in 1978. This is actually a swell guitar with a mahogany body and 31-fret fingerboard. It was probably made by Tokai. The active 12-hex-pole pickups were powered by an onboard preamp that let you kick this puppy into overdrive at the flick of a switch. Giddyup!

It’s not clear how long this model was offered by Hondo, but probably only a year or so. By the time this beast was history, so pretty much was the classic celluloid image of Texas, replaced by the post-modern cynicism actually introduced by those Spaghetti productions. Indeed, the Hondo II Longhorn itself was the beginning of a post-modern heritage of tributes that includes the early ‘90s hybrids assembled by Tony Mark and the excellent reproductions still made by Nashville’s Jerry Jones. Nevertheless, when you pick up one of these kick-ass, steer-inspired Hondo Longhorns and throw that pre-amp switch, you’re deep in the heart of Texas!

Roundup for a Texas Longhorn (1978 Hondo II Longhorn Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1985 Ibanez XV500 Electric Guitar

It was a hot day in August and I was bored at work in Center City Philadelphia. Fortunately for me, no one paid attention to me at the office and that gig came with free parking. Parking with in and out privileges and no valet tips! Slip out a little before noon and you could be up I-95 in a flash, get off at Bridge Street, hang a right onto Torresdale just past the crab house and you were outside the fabled Torresdale Music where my friend Marvin held sway over piles of guitars and amps hanging and stacked everywhere in his little corner shop. It seems like a fantasy dream now.

1985 Ibanez XV500 Electric Guitar

I stepped out of the comfortable air conditioning of my car and entered the dusty tomb, like something out of Dickens. Marvin always had some sort of treasure hidden away in a stack of cases. You scan the tags and pulled out anything that caught your fancy. “What’s that?,” you ask coyly. That fateful day it was this Ibanez that greeted my gaze as I flipped open the case. Was it pink? Was it purple? Yes! One thing for sure, it sure the heck was pointy. I had no idea what it was, but I knew I had to have it. And, since I knew how Marvin coded his costs into his tags (backwards at the bottom), I walked out with my prize for two bucks.

But what did I have? As it turns out I had a relatively rare Ibanez, a relic from the hair band/pointy guitar era of the early 1980s. Fuji came up with this design toward the end of that craze and started production in January of 1985. Besides the nifty points everywhere (which are here miraculously intact), the basswood guitar features a two-tone metallic finish that splits the guitar diagonally between the pink and purple. How could you deny such a beauty? For two hundred.

1985 Ibanez XV500 Electric Guitar

Ok, but does it play? You bet. It’s well balanced and hot, with two V5 blade-pole humbuckers. Plus, Ibanez’ Pro Rock’r version of a locking top-mounted Kahler, my favorite setup. Not to mention other cool features like a slippery graphite nut and the ‘crystal cut’ edges. Oh, yeah.

In the BigCity, there’s a guitar for everyone and someone for every guitar. I guess like an eHarmony match I was one of the few for this baby. By the time this model bit the dust in November of 1985 only 626 had been made in this finish, with another 709 in I think it was a two-tone blue. I don’t know if this is a match forever like the folks think on the eHarmony commercials, but it’s the kind of guitar that’s my kind of guitar story from the BigCity.

Flip Flop Fantasy (1985 Ibanez XV500 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood 12-String Electric Guitar

Whether some cat took LSD, or anything lighter, while playing this guitar is also unknown. But there’s NO doubt drugs were involved. That’s because this is a Wildwood. And we’re not talking Jersey Shore here.

Well, ok, we really don’t know for sure about the sex and rock. This is a Fender electric guitar, after all, and I don’t think someone bought it to play jazz standards. Or Kumbaya. So that’s a yes on rock ‘n roll. And, anyone who’s ever played rock, by definition, had to think playing it would lead to at least the chance of a score – I know it’s circular logic, so let’s move on to the drugs.

1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood 12-String Electric Guitar

The Wildwood concept was invented by a Danish inventor, who hit on the idea of injecting dyes into growing beech trees. As the trees matured, their wood grain colored in green, gold and purple, gold and brown, dark blue, purple and blue, or blue-green. Someone at Fender, thinking this must be what the kids were looking for, bought the idea of making guitars out of Wildwood. Groovy.

The task of designing Wildwood guitars fell to Roger Rossmeisl. Roger is hardly a household name among general guitar fans, but he’s known to cognoscenti. Rossmeisl was born in Graslitz, Germany, in 1927. He learned guitarmaking from his father, Wenzel, who built Roger archtop guitars during the 1930s and introduced the first electric guitars to Germany in 1947.

1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood 12-String Electric Guitar

In 1952 Roger came to the US and landed a job with Gibson. The gig did not work out. Persistant, Rossmeisl went West and hooked up with F.C. Hall and Rickebacker. Accounts are fuzzy about the next facts, but by 1956 Rossmeisl was responsible for designing the Combo 600 and 800 series solidbodies, the legendary 4000 bass, and the Capri lines. He introduced both the top-relief German carve to American guitars (cf Mosrite; Semie Moseley briefly worked for Rossmeisl) and the more specific cresting wave design.

That alone would be enough to secure his fame, but Rossmeisl next approached Leo Fender about designing a line of bolt-neck acoustics in 1962 and was hired. In 1963 Fender’s broomstick acoustics debuted with a support dowel running from heel to tail and, significantly, exotic woods. Not new but cool. And not popular.

Roger is supposed to have known the Danish drug dealer and brought him to Fender. The Wildwood acoustic dreadnoughts and thinline electrics debuted in 1966. Which brings us back to this Coronado XII. The colored graining is in nifty green. The construction is solid, though hollowbodies without a log are not my favorite. And, even though my father hailed from Toledo and I’ve lived there several times, the Glass City’s DeArmond pickups have never been on my must-have list.

Fender Wildwoods officially lasted until 1971, but they were hardly a success, and are now a part of guitar legend. Japan’s Teisco company produced some knock-off Wildwood-style guitars, but they were not any more popular. Roger Rossmeisl returned to Germany and eventual obscurity. Leaving us only, I guess, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll – and the Fender Coronado XII Wildwood.

Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll (1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood 12-String Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1965 Alamo Fiesta 2586R Electric Guitar

If you’re like me, you totally missed Alamo guitars. I only became aware of them in the 1990s when a dealer friend of mine almost shyly revealed he had a whole collection of them in his basement.

Learning about Alamo guitars put me on the scent of a story and, with a tip from Chris at Krazy Kat Music, I found myself on the phone with one Charles Eilenberg, born in Newark, NJ, then living in San Antone. Eilenberg had studied electronics and after World War II was recruited by Milton Fink of Southern Music, the Texas publisher and distributor, to set up a manufacturing operation. In 1947 Alamo began making phonographs and battery-powered radios. Alamo guitars and amps entered the world in around 1949-50.

1965 Alamo Fiesta 2586R Electric Guitar

Alamo actually may have had higher pretensions to quality in the early days. Some of its early tube amps are pretty good and compare favorably to other smaller ’50s producers like Premier. But in around 1962 Alamo struck a distribution deal with C. Bruno & Son and basically began competing at the low end of the market, a poor man’s Danelectro (check out the bridge) or Harmony or Kay. Even Teisco. Their distribution appears to have been regional and spotty, which explains shy I’d never seen them before. Indeed, Eilenberg described a brisk trade South of the border, including into South America.

Early Alamos were somewhat inspired by Rickenbacker guitars, but by 1965 their designs had clearly gone over the top. In fact, it’s safe to say that, even in a whacky pack like that of the mid-’60s, Alamo guitars were among the boldest in America! Like this 1965 Alamo Fiesta Model 2586R!

1965 Alamo Fiesta 2586R Electric Guitar

While these look like solidbodies, they’re actually hollow, with birch plywood top and back over a hollow core, a construction method Alamo preferred until the final days, when true solids joined the line.

As cool as the Alamo eye candy is to look at, these pretty much play like you’d expect from road kill! Actually, the little single-coils are no worse than much other ’60s fare, but let’s just say they’re an acquired taste!

Pee Wee didn’t find his bike when he reached the Alamo because, as you’ll recall – in an epiphany of disappointment that ranks right up there with Voltaire’s injunction to tend your garden at the end of Candide – there’s no basement in the Alamo! For me, the Alamo basement treasures my friend introduced me to did let me reach Mr. Eilenberg, a lucky fate because before I was able to get his story into print, he’d passed away to meet his fate. If I hadn’t talked to him, we might never had been able to properly remember these Alamos.

Remember the Alamo! (1965 Alamo Fiesta 2586R Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Collectors note: This commentary does not address the investment aspect of vintage guitars, we all know by now that if it is an original vintage guitar, bought at a fair market price, it is basically a no-brainer. An A rated guitar like a 50’s Les Paul or a Pre-CBS Fender will increase in value at a 5% to 10% rate yearly. Where I find the excitement is in the C rated guitars and even certain reissue Gibson’s they are sometimes a real neat investment. Check out what has increased below the radar in the past and buy accordingly.

Link Wray & the Wraymen (Slinky Album Cover)

Vintage Gibson Guitars:

If my opinions here are controversial, that’s okay. I am the guy that said Link Wray was a more important guitar player than Joe Satriani (sorry paisano).

To my ears, a vintage Gibson does sound different and in most cases better than the reissues. One of my contentions is that the more complicated construction of the Gibson as opposed to the Fender makes the aging aspect a big factor. For years I have heard guitar players all over the globe speak about giving a Martin guitar a chance to “break in”. I believe that this is true on all guitars, not just acoustics (I know some guitar players who are still waiting for their 70’s J-200’s to “break in”).

Some of you that might be thinking “okay, but if my reissue guitar ages it will sound the same”. ..maybe. The quality of materials and workmanship has a big factor here so the best I can say is, we’ll see. I believe that vintage Gibson’s (pre 1972) sound more “woody” with a bit more high mid’s, they also seem to be a bit more touch responsive. I would say IMHO that this is material and workmanship mostly and a bit less leaning on electronics. As a sidebar I think that the black sticker patent pickups give the PAF’s a run for their money as far as overall sound (not characteristics). Every pickup era has its own characteristics these should factor into your choice when you evaluate their place in your sound.

Many of the reissue and Historic Gibson’s are as far from being “historic” as you can get, period. The sound is okay and they look fine but in the sound department they cannot cut it as far as I can see but, there are exceptions. I was amazed at my ability to cop the Bloomfield “Super Session” tone playing a 2001 58 Authentic Flametop Reissue through a blackface Twin. They certainly got that one right for sure.

In conclusion I would say that vintage Gibson’s do sound better then the reissues across the board especially the semi-hollow and hollow bodies. Please A/B these guitars yourself and remember take no ones word as gospel unless you have done the comparisons yourself.

Vintage Guitars: Gibson Les Paul & Fender Telecaster

Vintage Fender Guitars:

What a feeling it is to hold a vintage Fender in your hands and play one, it’s like having dinner with Ann Margaret, circa 1967. The mojo factor in these guitars is unreal, maybe it’s the whole California mystique, I dunno. But lets face it, it’s a basically a piece of maple screwed onto a slab of ash. The simplicity of its construction and design are what make them IMHO “the guitars”. If I had to have one guitar for the rest of my life it would be a Telecaster, no doubt!!! You can play anything on that guitar, blues, country, rock, surf, and even a credible jazz sound with a Tele. My testing in these guitars is a lot more extensive as Fenders are my primary axes.

The aging factor is still a very important factor when it comes to sound, but I believe that the bare bones construction of Fenders make this not as crucial as the Gibby’s. Pickups are a factor but also remember that the gradual unwinding of the pickups initially make the guitar sound “funkier” but in time make the pickups microphonic. Here’s another tidbit for you – microphonic is not always bad. I was told by a longtime Ovation employee that Glen Campbell preferred microphonic pickups on his Ovation electrics as they were more responsive. I agree!!!.

Playability wise I think the reissue Fenders play better, I cannot say that the fretwork on a reissue Fender is as good as the originals because that is on a guitar by guitar basis. I have actually over the years played real “closet classics” and guess what the low E string still buzzed from the first five frets. Here’s another controversial statement for you – if you like buzz free low action and that’s your primary goal – play a Gibson!

My curiosity has made me swap vintage Fender pickups into reissue Fenders (with pre-existing quality pickups) and they did change the sound, but not better or worse just different. Again it’s all what you see as part of your sound. It’s all about your sound!!!

In conclusion I believe that sound and playability wise the reissue Fenders are the way to go, not necessarily the high end ones either (sorry boys!). It is on a guitar by guitar basis – a good Fender is a good Fender – the matching of the necks and bodies as far as fit, density and balance are the real telling factors. See you next month with some amp talk.

Joey Leone in Chopshop

Joey Leone Says: Vintage Guitars vs. Reissue Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Wandré Modele Karak Electric Guitar

Of course, you know the answer is yes, although it only later that I learned of the maker’s affection for bikes. Wandré guitars were the brainchild of a flamboyant Italian conceptual artist named Wandré Pioli (1926-2004). Pioli had been an anti-fascist partisan fighter during World War II, and afterward he studied engineering. In the mid-1950s he became interested in guitars. In 1959 he built a revolutionary round factory in his native town of Cavriago and started production. Virtually all Wandré guitars had aluminum necks, most outside the body like this, though there were some with internal necks and some with bolt-ons. Many were hollowbodies, but some were solid. There were a ton of cool Wandré models, including the famous Bikini with a built-in amp and the BB, a tribute to French sexpot Brigit Bardot. However, almost no two Wandré guitars are the same. He liked to use other odd materials, including vinyl piping and fabric soundhole covers. The backs of his necks are given shape with molded polystyrene plastic. This guitar appears to be built of a composite material similar to masonite and is coated rather than painted.

Vintage 1965 Wandré Modele Karak Electric Guitar

Most of Wandré’s electronics were provided by his friend and collaborator Athos Davoli. Sometimes the Davoli name on the pickups is the only identifier of a Wandré guitar, causing some to mistake the maker, but once you’ve seen a Wandré you won’t miss it. Pioli favored “blobby” shapes, both for his guitars and inlays, and usually somewhere there’s a “W.”

Vintage 1965 Wandré Modele Karak Electric Guitar

Ok, these make groovy art, but are they good guitars? Actually, Wandrés like this Karak can be remarkably good. The pickups are nice, loud, clear single-coils, and the necks allow for a swell set-up. If there’s a down side, the guitars can feel a little delicate. Maybe it’s the thin plastic on the neck. Or the fact that the vinyl starts to shrink over time and is easily loosened. Probably not the guitar you’d pick to play while jumping off your amp stack.

Vintage 1965 Wandré Modele Karak Electric Guitar

Oh yes, did I say motorcycle? At some point Pioli found an old motorcycle and spent much of his life restoring and redecorating his prize, tooling around Italy on it. Whether this love of motorcycles actually informed his guitar designs, or simply reflect his tastes, is unknown. In 1969 Pioli tired of guitars, sold the factory and turned to designing leather clothing. Later in his life he was fond of creating art out of found objects, but it’s for his whacky ’60s guitars that he’ll be most fondly remembered.

Motorcycle Mama (1965 Wandré Modele Karak Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1967 Musicraft Messenger Electric Guitar

I don’t remember exactly when I’d heard about Messenger guitars. But many years later, having a nice collection of guitars with aluminum necks seemed like just what I needed! I needed a Messenger.

Sometimes these things are fore-ordained. No sooner had I decided to snare a Messenger than I scanned the ads in Vintage Guitar Magazine and turned up a minty Messenger for $750. I couldn’t believe my good fortune and got on the horn immediately. He was a nice chap, but he’d already had an offer of $1800. I didn’t want a Messenger that badly. (Little did I know what a good investment that would have been!) Crestfallen, I was about to hang up when he said, “But I’ve got this green pro refin I’d sell you for $350.” New paint or an extra $1500? You do the math!

1967 Musicraft Messenger Electric Guitar

Messengers were revolutionary. While early Electro Hawaiian laps were aluminum “frying pans” and the Italian designer Wandré Pioli had made far-out aluminum necks in the late 1950s, Messengers were the first really modern aluminum-necked guitars. Created by Musicraft, Inc., Bert T. Casey, president, and Arnold B. Curtis, head of marketing, they play like a dream – just ask Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, who used them (modified). The aluminum “chassis” eliminated the need for a heel, improving access, and it was actually tuned to A-440, supposedly to improve resonance. The M logo looked, well, like a big ’60s hairdo. The stereo concept was simple and great (two mono jacks for each pickup, but throw the switch and both pickups go through just one).

1967 Musicraft Messenger Electric Guitar

But, like so many cool guitars, the weak point in the Messenger’s armor was under the hood. Now, I love chintzy ’60s single-coils, even the microphonic units, but if you’re going to create a hi-tech axe, why would you put those DeArmonds on? Why not some Filter Trons? Or Gibson or Guild humbuckers, like John Veleno a few years later? Despite its alloy chassis, Messengers were hardly fit for the emerging heavy metal craze! In the end, it didn’t matter.

By 1968 Messengers had abandoned San Fran for the rarer clime of Astoria, Oregon, for “expansion” purposes. Shortly thereafter the Messenger had departed, if not shot with a smoking gun, certainly dead. And certainly rare. If you could find one, you’d gladly pay the $1800 I once passed on.

Don’t Shoot the Messenger (1967 Musicraft Messenger Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1967 Galanti Grand Prix 3003 Electric Guitar

Accordions were actually pretty popular in the US from the 1920’s on, probably due to their popularity in Vaudeville acts. They were heavily associated with Italians, which is no surprise since the center of accordion-making then and to this day is focused on the area of Castelfidardo on the northeast central Italian coast. The entertainment industry was one avenue open to many Italian immigrants, and by the early 20th Century there were a lot of Italian acts working the Vaudeville circuits, often playing to ethnic stereotypes. Accordions began showing up in Sears catalogs in the 1920s and accordion orchestras for kids began appearing. A number of mostly Italian virtuoso accordionists became popular in the 1930s, although the rise of Polish polka music (with accordions) also had influence in certain areas of the U.S.

But the real rage for accordions came in the mid-1950s with the early Post-War Baby Boom. Suddenly accordions proliferated. Companies built up large chains of music studios and imported and distributed Italian accordions bearing their name. One such was a company out of Chicago run by Frank Galanti.

1967 Galanti Grand Prix 3003 Electric Guitar

Galanti was a well-known Chi-town accordionist, but he was probably also a relative of the firm that made the accordions he imported. Galanti accordions were invented by Antonio Galanti in a small village called Mondaino near Romagna in 1890. Production began in 1917 and, indeed, the company is still in operation.

Unfortunately for all these squeezeboxers, by the mid-1950s the accordion craze had run out of air. Accordions were no longer hip. Then, after some floundering, the salvation arrived in the hands of the Kingston Trio. Significantly, in around 1959 the publication Accordion World changed its name to Accordion and Guitar World! Virtually all the accordion manufacturers added guitars to their lines. The fabled Guitar Boom had begun!

1967 Galanti Grand Prix 3003 Electric Guitar

Few of the early acoustic guitars built by the accordionistas were particularly notable, but especially after the Beatles, they produced some of the classic electrics. This c. 1967 Galanti Grand Prix 3003 (#2843) is a real sweatheart. It’s made out of mahogany and sports a lot of typically European appointments, including nice Van Ghent tuners and three nice clean single-coil pickups. As on many guitars made by the accordion guys, the electronics are inspired by the push-buttons on squeeboxes, so here you get buttons for (in order): O (off, my fave), 2 (middle), 1+3, 3, 1, and M (all three pickups). As on a lot of Italian guitars, there’s not a great deal of tonal subtlety between positions.

Actually, Galanti guitars, mostly finished in subdued sunbursts, were pretty restrained for an accordionista guitar, which typically favored plastic coverings, sparkle, or at least bold color schemes like black-green sunburst. IMHO Galantis were among the best made at the time. They got pretty wide distribution during their day, but drop from sight by 1968. Accordions did rebound a bit in popularity, though never as much as in their heyday. But at least we have them to thanks for cool artifacts like Galanti guitars!

Mama’s Got a Squeezebox (1967 Galanti Grand Prix 3003 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Back in the day, before the Internet brought cool guitars to your desktop, we used to have the pleasure of snooping out guitars in little out-of-the-way shops. Mac and Joe used to run one such parlor out on Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philly, a low-rent district for sure. After work I’d descend to the Green Line and catch either the 11 or 36 trolley, which dumped me full of anticipation in front of their store. What would I find today – a Hagstrom? A Framus?

1983 Electra Endorser X934CS Electric Guitar

One night we were hanging out near closing, when a fellow pulled his car up, ducked in and asked if we wanted to buy a Les Paul. To a guitar dealer, there are no finer words. To me (yawn), it was time to leave. Then he added, “Plus I’ve got this here Japanese Electra.” My ears perked up.

1983 Electra Endorser X934CS Electric Guitar

While Mac and Joe ogled the frankly boring mid-’70s LP, I was ogling one of the most gorgeous guitars I’d ever seen. Later I found out it was a 1983 Electra Endorser X934CS. A set-in neck with no heel. Mahogany with a carved maple cap that had flame so deep you got high staring at it. Finished in cherry sunburst, my favorite. Plus lots of that early ’80s brass for sustain. Sustain? These humbuckers, which turned out to be original and American, scream forever, enough to blister the paint off the other guitar. Besides having push-pull pots with coil taps and phase reversal. I’m a sucker for those every time. The fit and finish were impeccable.

This was my first encounter with an Electra, and I was hooked. Looking back in the pages of old Guitar Player magazines led me to St. Louis Music. A phone call led me to Tom Presley, the man who directed most of the Electra line through the 1970s and actually designed the Endorser. The Endorser actually was a straight, fancy version of part of the earlier Electra MPC line, which had the cool plug-in sound modules.

1983 Electra Endorser X934CS Electric Guitar

This guitar, indeed all of the Electras and later Westones were designed in the U.S. and built by the legendary Matsumoku factory in Matsumoku City, Japan, one of the great guitar makers. Matsumoku produced some of the higher-end Aria guitars (and some Epiphones) of the ’70s, and sold its own very fine Westones before St. Louis Music took over the brand name in ’84. Matsumoku also made sewing machines – go figure – and in 1987 or ’88 was bought by Singer, who shut down the guitar operation. The Yen was so expensive by then that it was pretty hard to export to the U.S. anyway.

1983 Electra Endorser X934CS Electric Guitar

Mac and Joe bought both guitars and continued to “ooh and aah” over the Gibson. I timidly asked how much for the Electra, and they waved their hands as if brushing a fly and said “Three bucks.” I left them to their ecstasy (mental) and, a big grin on my face, quietly slipped out with my treasure to catch the trolley back toward town. This Electra Endorser is still one of my favorite guitars to this day.

Hey, man. Wanna Buy a Les Paul? (1983 Electra Endorser X934CS Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1968 Sekova Grecian Electric Guitar

MusicCity at the time I found it, by the way, was known to a select few as the first Temple of Doom. Sitting on the edge of a down-at-the-heels downtown, it had once been a large regional musical distributor. It had four stories, the upper floors of which were loaded with dusty, unsold new-old-stock musical gear, some going back three or four decades. New, in-the-box ’60s Kapa guitars and ’70s Maestro pedal effects were among the treasures I pulled off the rough plank wood shelves.

1968 Sekova Grecian Electric Guitar

Not much is known about Sekova guitars. They were imported from Japan by U.S. Musical Merchandise of New York City, one of many music distributors that once thrived in that fair city. Who actually made Sekovas in Japan also remains a mystery, but it’s similar to a Greco 921. Greco. Grecian. Geddit? Many, if not all, Grecos were built by the great Fuji Gen Gakki factory, the company that made most classic Ibanez guitars, so perhaps that’s where this originated. The aesthetics of this exotic beast probably place it from around 1968 or possibly slightly earlier. Both the fish-fin headstock, a Kay knockoff, and the gold finish would be plenty enough to do damage to your neck muscles (a lot of these have turned green with time), but the real clincher is the pickup system. Now, a lot of guitar designers have played around with pickup placement. Some tilt the neck pickup backward on the bass side. Others tilt it forward. Some have even used individual poles and coils for each pickup, but no one has come up with such a novel layout as the Sekova Grecian! I can’t say there wasn’t a lot of scientific measurement of frequency response to determine the placement of these units, but I suspect it was more like one of those “Wouldn’t it look cool if” kinds of decisions!

1968 Sekova Grecian Electric Guitar

In fact, the electronics were designed to give a kind of stereo effect, with the three bass pickups controlled by the Mic 1 switch and the treble by Mic 2, with a Mix switch (all), put out through a stereo jack.

1968 Sekova Grecian Electric Guitar

Whether or not there was method to this madness, it didn’t work. As cool as it looks, this Grecian formula sucks big time. The stereo idea wasn’t terrible, but you always had to have two amps to take advantage of it. Plus, the coils are just not big enough to crank out much sound and, like so many Japanese guitars from this era, the wiring is extremely thin and the pots are crummy, so you’re lucky if the thing plays. That being said, the Sekova Grecian is still a boss guitar. Once you strap it on, it’s sure to turn heads, so you can share the whiplash!

Gold of the Gods (1968 Sekova Grecian Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1975 Morris Custom Electric Guitar (Copy Era)

Marvin found this guitar at a flea market and he refused to part with it cheap. But I had Marvin’s number. On one guitar, he knew his cost and he knew what he wanted firm. But if you bought three guitars and presented a lump sum, his math skills went to hell, and you could walk out with a real deal. Instead of $300 he saw $600 and forgot that it was for three guitars! That’s how I transferred ownership on this beauty.

1975 Morris Custom Electric Guitar (Copy Era)

And what a beauty. Morris is the brand name used by a large Japanese manufacturer called Moridira. Little is known about their history, but by the mid-’70s they were a minor part of the Copy Era, though their forté seems to have been in acoustics. Many guitar fans think of the Copy Era as a time when Japanese companies made cheap knock-offs of American guitars and sold them to kids who couldn’t afford the real thing. Some truth, but many of the Japanese makers built excellent guitars and already by 1974 they were innovating. None more so than Ibanez, whose guitars by then were made by Fuji Gen Gakki. Maple fingerboards on Les Pauls, tree-of-life fingerboard inlays, varitone switches, all Japanese innovations. Perhaps the most famous was the Ibanez Custom Agent, which took a swell set-neck Les Paul, gave it fancy inlays and a cool pickguard and topped it with a head shaped like a Gibson F-5 mandolin.

This 1975 Morris Custom attempted to do the Custom Agent one better by using an F-5 body shape as well! Featuring a killer flametop and a mahogany body, the Custom is semi-hollow. The neck is mahogany and set in, with a bound ebony fingerboard and big, real pearl inlays. The humbuckers aren’t Gibson quality, but they’re fine. This guitar plays like a dream, and it’s less than half the weight of a solidbody, which my back likes a lot.

1975 Morris Custom Electric Guitar (Copy Era)

Alas, like so many things, Torresdale music is no more. Marvin had diabetes, but refused to give up a steady diet of cheesesteak sandwiches from Chink’s up the street. Chink’s – periodically the object of controversy because of its politically incorrect name – is a little malted milk parlor whose booths make you feel like you just stepped back into 1940 and that serves up renowned steaks. Bruce Willis always orders them when he’s shooting a movie in town. Marvin’s health deteriorated and the shop was sold, its many wonders dispersed into suburban music stores. The store is now a hairdresser. But at least I have the memories, and the Morris Custom now calls to me from the back of my rack!

The Eastwood 1975 Morris The Cosey tribute model

Eastwood 1975 Morris The Cosey

Those not lucky enough to own the rare Morris original, can at least comfort themselves with the Eastwood 1975 Morris The Cosey tribute, which is an excellent guitar in its own right and won’t disappoint. Watch this demo:

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Mando Mania (1975 Morris Custom Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1950's Kay Solo King K4102 Electric Guitar

Believe it or not, Kay was probably the first company to produce an electric guitar. The Kay Musical Instrument Company began in Chicago in 1890 as the Groehsl Company, changing its name to the Stromberg-Voisinet Company in 1921. (It changed to Kay-Kraft in the early ’30s, then just Kay.) While there are unsubstantiated reports that Gibson’s Lloyd Loar experimented with electricity in the early 1920s, it’s hard to imagine what he could have done. Electronic recording and amplification were not invented until 1924-25. Lyon & Healy reportedly had an electronic bass in 1923, but unfortunately it electrocuted players. Bummer. In October of 1928 S-V introduced the Stromberg Electro, a flattop with an electro-magnetic transducer that was played through an amp with no controls. A few Chicago radio players embraced the new technology, but the technology wasn’t there yet and only a couple hundred Electros were made. Modern-style electrics didn’t appear until 1931. Except for lap steels, and perhaps the early bakelite Rickenbacker Spanish guitars, Depression-era electrics were mainly archtops.

Vintage 1950's Kay Solo King K4102 Electric Guitar

After the War, Fender’s Telecaster didn’t seem to get much attention from mass manufacturers, but the Gibson Les Paul did, and by 1953 Kay, Harmony, and Valco were producing solidbodies. Kay’s, interestingly enough, were unibody construction, which basically means neck-through-body.

It was this concept that still shaped the Solo King, but what were they thinking?! It’s really hard to get your mind around this thing. It also appears to have unibody construction: one piece of wood. With the meat-cleaver head and BuckeyeState profile, it’s like no other guitar before or since. The effect is further enhanced by a – shall wee say – chocolate brown finish. The pickguard is made of a speckled formica. These single-coil pickups, while primitive, are actually not that bad, with a clean, crisp ’50s sound. A single-pickup version was also produced. The archtop-style bridge makes intonation a challenge and the fret job is a bit sloppy, but otherwise this doesn’t play that badly……. If, that is, you have the moxy to appear in public holding one! Can you see in the hands of Duane Eddy or the Ventures?

Vintage 1950's Kay Solo King K4102 Electric Guitar

Needless to say, the Kay Solo King didn’t catch on. The following year someone took a band-saw to the design and rounded off the lower bout to be more like a Les Paul. These were sold through Montgomery Ward. Another even weirder version had the upper shoulder and cutaway lopped off, and was sold as a Spiegel Old Kraftsman.

All these guitars were gone after 1961 and are particularly rare. I’ve seen guitars shaped like New Jersey, Texas, even the United States, but none really come up to the bad taste of the State of Ohio. Like I said, ugliest guitar in the world.

The Buckeye State of the Art (1950’s Kay Solo King K4102 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Kent Model 742 Electric Guitar

I met my Waterloo at a place called The Trading Post at the Pennsauken Mart, one of those East Coast predecessors to the modern mall, made of cinderblock and full of exotic stalls. But instead of Penney’s and Victoria’s Secret, you would find a butcher, gun shop, Polish imports, dollar stores, short-order counters, and the Trading Post, a kind of quasi pawn shop where you sold stuff, but couldn’t retrieve it unless you bought it back. Almost by instinct I threaded my way past the Fender Strats to the back where I saw this Kent guitar. It had a gorgeous burled maple front and back and really cool black and white celluloid on the sides, giving it the cachet of an ancient Baroque guitar. It even had a real Bigsby. But best of all, it had 4 – count ’em, four – pickups! It had to be better than one with just three! And, at $89, it was priced right.

Vintage 1967 Kent Model 742 Electric Guitar

But where the heck did this guitar come from? I learned later it was a Kent Model 742, made in Japan in 1967. Kent was the brand name used by Buegeleisen & Jacobson (B&J), once a major music distributor in New York City. B&J was one of the early companies to begin importing musical goods from Japan in 1960, starting with microphones and aftermarket pickups, and adding guitars in 1962. By the time this Model 742 was built the guitars had graduated from relatively primitive mahogany planks to sophisticated laminates and trim. Earlier Kents were made by Guyatone, but it’s unknown who created this glam job.

Vintage 1967 Kent Model 742 Electric Guitar

The Model 742 is a beaut. But do the four pickups make it better? Well, alas, poor Nigel, more is not necessarily better, except maybe in the looks department. Indeed, these admittedly handsome pickup units just may have been the worst ever produced! Plus the guitar is wired so that playing all of them decreases further the already crappy output, making the onboard mute switch kind of superfluous! And, maybe they could have used some help on the truss rod design. Ok, so the Kent won’t power my Ventures tribute band. But if its fancy burl, Baroque rally stripes, and especially four pickups hadn’t grabbed me from the back of the rack that day in Pennsauken, New Jersey, I’d never have discovered my love for bizarre guitars and begun my long journey into the dark recesses of guitar history. That makes this Kent an 11 on my list!

Is more better? (1967 Kent Model 742 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

I have been collecting guitars for 25 years. Although I have had many different guitars over the years, my preference is for Vintage guitars, which makes eBay a good place to trade because of the wide audience. So consequently you are probably reading this because you saw one of my guitars for sale on eBay. Welcome!

So, what’s up with the phrase, Even Better Than the REAL Thing!???? Read on…..

In Search of Mosrite: The Mosrite Ventures Model circa. 1987

For the past few years I had been looking for a really nice Mosrite Ventures Model Vintage guitar. Prices ranged from $1,500 to $4,000 depending on the year and the condition. Last year an angel descended on eBay with 35 NOS Mosrite guitars that were built in 1987. These guitars were all brand new and were never sold. They were stored in a warehouse for 14 years. Unbelievable! They were auctioned off one by one, week after week, until they were all gone. I bought the 13th one that sold. I was not disappointed.

1987 Mosrite Ventures Model Electric Guitar NOS

The first day I stared at it, the second day I touched it and on the third day I played it. The fourth day I told the family. The fifth day I told the neighbors. The sixth day, everyone came to look at it. The seventh day I rested. What an incredibly beautiful guitar! In fact, I soon realized that it was TOO beautiful! How could I risk pulling it out of the case every day and playing it? It was like having a bad addiction! I needed a fix! It drove me crazy to know that it sat right over there in the corner, taunting me, yet at the same time I could not risk opening the case for fear of damaging such a wonderful instrument! I needed a solution. Then it hit me… Buy a REALLY nice reproduction Mosrite that I could play everyday! EBAY on: search: MOSRITE.

1970's Univox Mosrite Ventures Reproduction Guitar

I started with this UNIVOX pictured above. Nice looking copy but the neck was typical of any reproduction 1970’s guitar and anyone who has played a Mosrite knows, the neck is what it is all about. Next I tried a Teisco model (below).

Reproduction Teisco Mosrite Ventures Model Guitar

Much better quality than the Univox, much better neck, and a good deal for a $300-$400 vintage guitar, but I decided to keep looking.

1970's Silvertone Mosrite Ventures Model Guitar

This is an early seventies Silvertone. A two notches below in looks, one notch above in feel, but not quite there yet. I also found another Silvertone, different headstock, body a little smoother, similar neck with a white pickguard. I suspect this one was makde by Kawai in the early seventies. Curious how the body and headstock are different, but all the hardware is identical! Here it is…

1970's Silvertone Mosrite Ventures Model Guitar (Kawai)

So, after a significant amount of research, and a great deal of time justifying the outrageous price, I purchased the Japanese made reproduction Mosrite, the one with the “excellent” tailpiece. Here is a picture….

1970's Japanese Reproduction Mosrite Ventures Model Guitar

This guitar retails for $1695 and you can get them for around $1000. Pretty pricey for an reproduction Vintage guitar, I must say. Anyway, I’ll be damned if this Japanese Mosrite isn’t one of the nicest guitars I have ever owned! It looks GREAT, the neck feels GREAT and dare I say, it even sounds BETTER than the 1987 Mosrite! Brighter, crisper, it sounds just GREAT. All of this is fine with me because after all, it is NOT a real Mosrite. No sir, I have one of those over there in the corner. The REAL Mosrite is not for playing, so it doesn’t matter anymore what it feels like and what it sounds like, it only matters what it LOOKS like. And so it should be. Who in their right mind would start bashing away on an instrument that can never be replaced? So, when I looked at the situation in this light, it occured to me that the Japanese guitar is arguably… Even Better Than the REAL Thing!

…and so started my quest.

I don’t think I would ever part with the ’87 Mosrite, but I think I have found a way to live with my addiction, and that is to supplement my real Vintage Guitars…. with guitars that feel, look and sound really good, but at a price point that makes it a no-brainer. It’s almost like buying insurance for the ’87 Mosrite. Now I am not playing it as often as I normally would and consequently I’m maintaining the integrity of the Vintage instrument and allowing it to appreciate.

Since then, I’ve been on a quest to find the ultimate in reproduction Vintage guitars that are qualified to add to the list. In so doing, with my efforts and those of others, I hope that this page can serve as a tool for people that are looking for “everyday player” guitars to supplement their Vintage Collection and also for people who would never buy a Vintage Guitar but want The Ultimate Reproduction Vintage Guitars on the Planet.

Please send along your Even Better Than the REAL Thing! guitar stories, along with pictures if possible, and I will include them. Here are a few examples:

Coral Hornet 1960’s

Vintage 1960's Coral Hornet Electric Guitar

For me, love at first sight. A while back I found one in San Diego. That is a picture of it above, a beauty. Unfortunately they wanted $2,000 for it. They probably still have it today. I’ve played one and they are a lot better looking than playing, primarily because the tailpiece is lousy. The intonation cannot be adjusted because it is a vibrato tailpiece with a piece of wood for a bridge that slides around. Every time you change the strings, you wrestle with it to keep it in tune. That aside, I could not get it out of my mind, so I found one on EBAY that had been refinished and needed a little TLC. With a little work, about $200 in parts (Bigsby and Tune-o-matic bridge) and a few hours of guitar love, I ended up with a real nice looking (some say wierd!?)AND a really nice playing 60’s Coral Guitar. The Gibson Bridge combined with the Bigsby Vibrato make this a NICE player. Stays perfectly in tune for days. Compared to an original at $2000, this one cost about $350. Here is a picture of it:

Vintage 1960's Coral Hornet Electric Guitar (Refinished)

Comments from Buyer: “Whooo–it got here! I was jumping up and down, and I was so excited that I dragged it over to a friend’s house last night. Thanks SO much!!!” Ann from CA.

In Search of Mosrite: 1987 Mosrite Ventures Model Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com