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 1987 Cort Star Electric Guitar

So, what in the world is this guitar? What it is is a circa 1987 Cort Super Star made in Korea. How it made its way to a pawn shop in Pennsauken, New Jersey, remains something of a mystery, but that’s where I first encountered it.

Cort was one of the first serious Korean guitar manufacturers, established in 1973 when the late Jack Westheimer, facing increasingly unfriendly yen-dollar exchange rates, decided to begin moving his guitar manufacturing operations out of Japan to Korea. He partnered with Yung H. Park and formed what would become Cort, an abbreviation of Westheimer’s premier Japanese brand, Cortez. They began with acoustic guitars, later graduating to electrics, all OEM products for other companies. Around 1978 or so quality had finally reached a point where they felt they could begin to use their own brand name and Cort guitars debuted.

Vintage 1987 Cort Star Electric Guitar

Cort did well, primarily as a budget brand. As the ‘80s progressed, Westheimer was increasingly interested in moving his brand up-scale. In around 1987, Cort attempted to introduce guitars that would change its image. Among those was the famous Dragon Sto-Stat, a Strat-style guitar with an abalone and pearl dragon inlaid on the top! I suspect the guitar seen here reflects that transitional period of attempted brand redefinition.
Everything about this guitar tends to point, as it were, to around 1987 give or take (there is no serial number). The twin humbuckers may be Mighty Mites—Westheimer owned them—and the Precision Tune vibrato is a take on a top-mounted Kahler. It wasn’t long after ’87 that Floyd Rose successfully claimed patent protection for all double-locking vibrato systems, putting Kahler out of business and pretty much guaranteeing that locking vibratos would be licensed and follow Rose’s recessed designs. Thus, this guitar is unlikely to come from much later than 1987-88. Weird-colored sunbursts were another popular feature of the 1980s, although generally speaking they were big a few years earlier in the decade.

And, finally, the 1980s was THE decade for strange-shaped guitars, especially among Heavy Metallers, although this doesn’t really strike me as a Heavy Metal axe. Some of those really pointy Ibanezes and Arias, a Gibson Futura: Heavy Metal. But a purpleburst star? Not so sure about that. Maybe Prince. Definitely Prince.

Vintage 1987 Cort Star Electric Guitar

As outrageous as this guitar looks, it plays pretty decently…as long as you play standing up. Even then, well, I don’t know about you but I kind of don’t like to play guitars with pointy parts pointing up and down and in all directions, if you take my meaning. The pickups are basic but decent and I do prefer those top-mounted Kahler-style vibratos. While this isn’t a PRS by a long-stretch, it’s a respectable, well-made guitar. (Still a bit leery about those points.)

But, assuming I’m right about this being part of Cort’s efforts to upgrade the image of its brand, it was another dead end. Don’t just take my word for it. How many Cort Super Stars have you seen? Better yet, take a look at it! Yeah. Let’s be honest, I fell in love with it because it was pretty much a joke.

Cort continued to introduce innovations in an attempt to spruce up its brand. By the late ‘90s they were putting out some fine guitars. Their Earth acoustics were all solid timbers and quite elegant, excellent guitars. Electrics like their Matt “Guitar” Murphy Signature, while still not a PRS, were spectacular guitars any company would be proud of.

But the Cort Super Star didn’t quite do the job. Come to think of it, depending on how you feel about tightly choreographed girl-group technopop, I’m not so sure K-Pop is going to rehabilitate the Korean brand either. It’s sort of like sharp points on a guitar. But that’s just me.

K-Pop Star Power (Vintage 1987 Cort Star 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 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

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

You know the evolution of popular music in the late 1970s and early 1980s as well as I, so there’s no need to venture a reading here. But somewhere along the way, the non-stop “heavy metal” of the early years morphed into a poppier hard rock, still full of biting guitar riffs. Then one day, it became a requisite to incorporate a “power ballad” into your repertoire. This was usually a slower love song—still played loud—that featured some generally elementary fingerstyle guitar playing on an acoustic-electric guitar. All well and good. But you had your hard rock image to keep up, and, well, let’s face it, an Ovation with wooden epaulets wasn’t exactly going to cut it. What to do?

Leave it to Kramer Guitars to come up with the perfect solution in around 1986: Kramer Ferrington acoustic-electric guitars. Make the acoustic-electric look like a way-cool solidbody electric and you could be both tough and gentle at the same time!

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

Ferrington was not a made up marketing name. Rather, it was the last name of Danny Ferrington, somewhat of a celebrity luthier living in Nashville at the time who’d built guitars for a number of stars. Ferrington’s main thing was to design guitars with asymmetrical or unusual shapes. I’m not sure whether Ferrington made the Strat- and Tele-shaped designs before hooking up with Kramer or not, but he designed these, the KFS-1 and KFT-1, for Kramer and they debuted in 1986, made in Korea. I interviewed Mr. Ferrington when reviewing a book on his guitars that came out in 1992. That book, by the way, was asymmetrically shaped and beautiful. It didn’t sell well, so you’re likely to find copies still available and should pick one up for your library.

Kramer Ferringtons had very lightweight bodies and came in black, white, red, and sunburst. They had a transducer pickup under the saddle with volume and tone controls. The necks were bolted on and featured a variety of headstock shapes and fingerboard inlays that evolved over the life of the line. By 1987 some plainer KFS-2 and KFT-2 models were introduced, mainly without neck binding and with dot inlays. The KFT-1 seen here was built in 1987.

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

In 1988 Kramer introduced Ferrington Signature models which were supposed to be made by Danny Ferrington himself in the U.S., or at least under his supervision. Marketing and reality are often at odds when it comes to classic Kramer guitars, so who knows! But they probably were American made and not Korean. These were upscale guitars with solid spruce tops, set-in necks, and asymmetrical Ferrington shapes. I think these are pretty rare birds. I only ever saw a couple of them in stores and they were pricey and hung around for quite awhile.

The Kramer Ferrington line lasted until the end in 1990, when Kramer imploded. Danny Ferrington relocated to Los Angeles and marketed the KFS-1 and KFT-2 with the Ferrington brand name for a bit, but the guitars trailed off fairly quickly. I don’t know if the Korean-made Kramer Ferringtons were plentiful or not, but it’s fairly easy to find them for sale. Kramer was pretty good at selling guitars.

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

Likewise, I don’t really know if these guitars made it into too many hard rock acts. They certainly had a rock ‘n’ roll vibe and would look cool on stage. They’re fully functional, but, frankly, if you’re into real acoustic-electric guitar, they’re more of a novelty. They might make you look good jumping off your amp, but if you want a really good acoustic-electric sound, you’re going to go for one of the solidbody guitars like a Gibson Chet Atkins or, for that matter, an Ovation (with wooden epaulets).

Not long after Kramer Ferringtons bit the dust, the power-ballad-infused hard rock that was their reason for existing also fell from grace, replaced by the “alternative” sound typified by Nirvana et al. History was off on another dialectical tangent.

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

The Softer Side of Hard Rock (Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1981 Renaissance Bass Guitar

Now, basses have rarely spoken to me. I was always a 6-string man. Although, that said, I actually did play bass (and sing) briefly in a band for a few months back in 1967 (a rent-to-own, baby blue Hagstrom, as I recall). Most of the time, in a shop or at a show, I usually walked right past the bass guitars.

In any case, the road to my Renaissance began in the shop window of Society Hill Loan on South Street in Philadelphia. I used to work in an office tower near City Hall. I was a writer and no one paid attention to us, so I found that on my lunch break I could zip out, hop on a bus, and in a few minutes find myself walking down 7th Street toward Temptation. South Street was home to a lot of clubs and young hipsters, so naturally Society Hill got lots of interesting instruments.

Vintage 1981 Renaissance Bass Guitar

One day I walked up to the corner display and staring back at me was a clear Plexiglas bass guitar bearing the Renaissance brand. This was one of those RARE instances where the guys in the shop actually knew something about Renaissance. They knew they came from the western suburbs of Philly, maybe Newtown Square, and a music store called Dragonetti’s. This was way more information than the usual shrug and “I dunno” that I usually got. A red hot lead!

I didn’t buy the bass that day. In fact, in a rare occurrence, I didn’t even own any Renaissance gear when I tracked the company down. Which wasn’t all that hard. I just let my fingers do a little walking—this was way before you “Googled” anything—and found Dragonetti’s Music located in Newtown Square, PA, in Ma Bell’s Yellow Pages. A quick call and I reached store owner John Dragonetti. “You know anything about Renaissance guitars,” I asked. “Do I? You can’t imagine how much that cost me.” Pay dirt!

Turns out Dragonetti marked the end of the Renaissance saga, not the beginning. The story began in around 1977 when a young John Marshall decided to go into guitar making instead of college. Marshall had learned how to build guitars from Eric Schulte, a well-known local luthier living in Malvern, PA, a far northwestern suburb of Philly a few miles north of Newtown Square. Marshall got together two partners, recording studio owner Phil Goldberg and studio guitarist and manufacturer’s rep Dan Lamb and founded Renaissance guitars in Malvern.

Vintage 1981 Renaissance Bass Guitar

In search of something different, the trio settled on using Plexiglas, inspired by the old Ampeg Dan Armstrong guitars of a few years earlier. Marshall came up with the design. Both the guitar and the bass were similar to what you see here. Three shades of Plexi were offered: clear, smokey gray, and black. Prototypes were made in late 1977 and production began in 1978.

This bass is the SPB Gold model built in May of 1979, in the smokey grey known as “Bronze.” The neck is 3-piece mahogany. What you can’t see are brass dot position markers along the side of the ebony fingerboard. It has active electronics with two notched filter tone controls, and active/passive switch, phase switch, and a pair of special designed DiMarzio pickups. I’m not really qualified to evaluate basses based on my brief Hagstrom experience, but I think this is pretty top-notch!

However, sales did not go well for Renaissance and the instruments were expensive to make. They needed an infusion of cash. That’s when John Dragonetti was brought in. John Marshall had become disgruntled and left to take a job with Martin. Dragonetti put in some capital and immediately found his new partners absent and in early 1980 pretty much in sole control. He redesigned the instruments in an attempt to make them less expensive to produce, the new shapes reflecting more of a B.C. Rich influence. Sunn amplifiers were interested in purchasing Renaissance, but a fluke accident at the NAMM show scuttled that deal. That’s when the IRS knocked on the door… The end.

Renaissance guitars and basses are relatively rare. Generously speaking there were only about 600 give or take of six various designs. Basses in this design were around 150 in number, divided between two different models, so maybe 75-100 of these were made, at most.

Being Plexiglas, this is relatively heavy. In my dotage, I like light-weight. However, the likelihood that I’ll join a band and play any bass is remote indeed. Also, I tend to stay away from pawn shops, as well. You never know what you’ll learn about, and you know where that can lead…

Vintage 1981 Renaissance Bass Guitar

I Can See Clearly Now (Vintage 1981 Renaissance Bass 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 1985 Austin Hatchet Electric Guitar

Summers famously played a headless Steinberger guitar, which is probably the best known minimalist guitar among guitar fanatics. But it certainly wasn’t the first. I suppose the earliest in the category were the first successful electric guitars, the first Hawaiian lap steels. The legendary Ro-Pat-In Electro “frying pan” had a body, neck, and head, but it sure was minimalist! Most electric laps had these elements, but by the 1940s these were pretty perfunctory. How many lap steels are basically a slab of wood with some pickups, a “fingerboard,” and some tuners, reducing a guitar to its bare minimum?

Vintage 1985 Austin Hatchet Electric Guitar

I’m not sure who gets credit for building the first minimalist “Spanish” guitar. It pretty much had to be an electric guitar, since acoustics depend on having an acoustic chamber to produce their sound. In 1967 Dave Helland, then a music teacher in Green Bay, Wisconsin, got the idea that an electric guitar needed to be nothing more than a 2×4 with a neck. He had a couple dozen of the legendary La Baye guitars built.

Around the same time Dave Bunker, a guitar player and luthier came up with his Astral guitar designs. These looked like a cross between a Star Trek starship and a guitar. However, many of the parts were screwed onto a minimalist core, so you could customize the way it looked when you performed.

Neither the La Baye nor the Astral guitars were particularly successful, so you’ll be lucky to ever play one. The ultimate in minimalist guitars were probably the so-called “fishbone” jobs built by Alan Gittler in New York during the mid-1970s. These reduced the guitar to a tubular spine and tubular “frets.” Indeed, Andy Summers played one of these for one of his Synchronicity videos. Only 60 of these were ever made before Gittler moved to Israel, where he became Avraham Bar Rashi and contracted out another 240 or so of a slightly more substantial version, still remarkably minimalist.

Vintage 1985 Austin Hatchet Electric Guitar

Around the same time that Gittler was building his fishbones, Ned Steinberger was coming up with his small-bodied, headless design, which was produced by Stuart Spector. These went on to become the most famous of minimalists, thanks, in large part to The Police. Steinbergers were, however, expensive. To help fill the void, Cort licensed the design and began producing cheaper versions, bearing the Cort name as well as others, including models for Hohner and Washburn. I have one called Blake that used to be my “shore guitar.” In 1981 Kramer threw its hat in the ring with its aluminum-necked, headless Duke guitar.

None of the guitars mentioned so far were “travel guitars,” strictly speaking, though it was nice that you could pop your little minimalist guitar into the overhead compartment or on top of all your vacation luggage. There were travel guitars in the game at the time, including the little yellow Hondo Chiquita Banana. They were only minimalist in the same sense as the early lap steels in that they were small.

In any case, this was the environment in 1984 when Jack Westheimer of Cort got the idea to come up with his own cross between a minimalist and a travel guitar and designed this guitar. Actually, Westheimer’s inspiration was less the Steinberger or Duke or Chiquita and more the Colt 45 handgun. Yung Park tweaked Jack’s design and in 1985 the Cort 45 debuted. Jack used to laugh that he was the only one who ever connected either the name or the shape of the guitar to a pistol! Obviously the big distributor Targ & Dinner didn’t because they called their version the Austin Hatchet, seen here.

Vintage 1985 Austin Hatchet Electric Guitar

If you like playing minimalist guitars, this actually isn’t too bad. The neck-through construction gives it a solid feel. It’s powered by a pair of Korean Powersound humbuckers that are actually pretty darned hot. One of the mini-toggles is a threeway while the other reverses phasing. The headstock and tuners do make it a little top-heavy since there’s not much body to act as a counterweight.

I’ve never seen a Cort 45 and only a couple Austin Hatchets. That’s no evidence, but I don’t think these were too popular! They seem to have been gone by 1986. While other minimalist guitars like the Steinberger soldiered on (even they started getting bigger bodies), the craze for minimalist guitars had pretty much run its course. Which, come to think of it, pretty much also describes The Police, who broke up that same year. I can’t recall listening to any other “pop” bands since then either.

Off With Her Head (Vintage 1985 Austin Hatchet 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

Kawai Moonsault Guitar (circa 1980s)

One of the most unconventional and impractical body shapes from the electric guitar world, this Kawai Moonsault was a big hit in Japan. Really. The initial production was 1982 and the build quality was superb as Japanese guitar manufacturing had hit its stride in the early 1980’s, many producing better quality guitar than those in USA. It was available in two models, both with master volume and two tone controls. The tone pots were push/pull for coil splitting, and the other model (pictured below) had additional switches for phase switching and active electronics. I am not sure of the date of this guitar as they continued production into the 1990’s, but very few made their way to North America.

It is a surprisingly lightweight guitar (good, because you’ll have to be standing to play it) that has a fabulous neck profile and Mother of Pearl binding on the headstock for an exotic look. They even had the different phases of the moon depicted in the fretboard inlays. The huge array of tonal options are a highlight to this monster of a guitar, as you can move from single coils to humbuckers with alternate phase for each pickup configuration, then add a 9v battery active boost to all those and you’ve got one versatile player. But remember to stay on your feet!

Back Catalog Memories: Kawai Moonsault 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

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

Vintage 1984 Quest Atak-6 MK II Electric Guitar

I first encountered a Matsumoku guitar (I didn’t know what it was at the time) back in the early 1990s. I was hanging out with Mac and Joe at the Axe Factory in Southwest Philadelphia (long gone) after work one evening. They were just about to close down when a car pulled up to the curb and out came two guitar cases. One was a ‘70s Gibson Les Paul and the boys started to drool over it. The other was the most spectacular flametop guitar I’d ever seen, an Electra Endorser (recently profiled in Vintage Guitar Magazine). Without taking their eyes off the Paul, they sold me the near-mint Endorser for three bills. I walked out like the Chesshire Cat. Later I found out that beauty was made by Matsumoku.

Matsumoku Motto (or the Matsumoku Industrial Co., Ltd.) was founded in 1951 to manufacture sewing machine cabinets. They were located in an area with a long tradition of musical instrument making, so when the demand for guitars heated up in the early 1960s, it wasn’t so big a stretch to apply their woodworking talents to guitars. They began building guitars in around 1963.

Vintage 1984 Quest Atak-6 MK II Electric Guitar

Early Matsumoku guitars display that tentative awkwardness shared by most Japanese guitars of the time, but the workmanship is almost always a notch up compared to, say, Teisco, Kawai, or Zen-On. One of the early brands produced by Matsumoku was Cortez for Westheimer Music, the name that eventually gave us Cort guitars. By the middle ‘60s the factory was producing Arai and later Aria Diamond and Aria guitars. In around 1975 the luthier Nobuaki Hayashi managed guitar production and Arias became Aria Pro II. Meanwhile Matsumoku was producing guitars for St. Louis Music (SLM), including some, if not all, their late ‘60s Apollo line. When SLM changed its brand to Electra in 1970, the better models, at least, came from Matsumoku. Matsmoku also made the first Japanese Epiphones for Gibson beginning about this same time.

Another brand associated with Matsumoku was Univox, promoted heavily from 1968 on by the company known as Merson Musical Products, A Division of Unicord Incorporated, A Gulf+Western Systems Company. In 1975 the Merson part departed and the company became Unicord, Inc. In 1976 Unicord introduced the Westbury line, made by Matsumoku, which replaced Univox in ‘78. In 1979 and 1980 Matsumoku made the Washburn Wing and Stage Series guitars. In 1982 Matsumoku took over production of the D’Agostino Bench Mark series.

Vintage 1984 Quest Atak-6 MK II Electric Guitar

The Merson folks moved to Garden City Park on Long Island, New York, and became Musical Technologies, Inc. (MTI). This company would eventually bring Korg to the U.S. and still exists. In 1981 the Westone brand appeared in the U.S. This may have been a proprietary brand name owned by Matsumoku because, while it was appropriated by SLM as its brand name in 1984, other Westones continued to be sold outside the U.S. until the end. Anyhow, it appears that MTI began to sell Matsumoku-made Vantage guitars in 1982, at least.

Which finally brings us to Quest. With heavy metal riding high, a taste for weird-shaped guitars developed. In 1984 MTI introduced a new line of Matsumoku-made guitars called Quest by Vantage. These were a little more outré than the Westone/Vantage aesthetic, but why they felt they needed a new brand name remains a mystery. But included in the new line was the Quest Atak 6, kind of a take on the Ibanez Destroyer. In the brochure were the A-6 of laminated mahogany and the A-6TX with a bound ash body. This example has “Mark II” on the truss cover and is like the A-6TX but with a bound spruce top over a solid mahogany body. With an SN of C400578 this dates to March of 1894. Controls are volume and two tones, with the volume a push-pull coil tap.

The only brochure seen for Quests is from 1984. I own two and both are from mid-1984. If they lasted beyond that, it’s unknown at this time. In 1987 Matsumoku was purchased by the Singer Sewing Machine Co. and guitars were not in their future. It’s not clear if production ended immediately, or if they limped on until 1989 or even into 1990. At some point in the early 1990s the Vantage brand was transferred to the Samick company in Korea, mainly Gibson and Fender inspirations, sold by Music Industries Corporation of Floral Park, New York. These were certainly produced from 1995-97, and probably before and after.

Active sales of the Vantage brand have since ceased. Music Industries now rents instruments. I love the Quests, and many other Matsumoku guitars, but nothing is as sweet as that first kiss…er, Electra.

Matsumoku’s Atak Gains The Ad-Vantage (Vintage 1984 Quest Atak-6 MK II Electric Guitar) 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

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

1988 Epiphone Spotlight Electric Guitar

Like on the telephone commercials with the wizard, the goofball crew and the “puppy,” I can hear you gasp, “What the…” Epiphone Spotlight? Never heard of that puppy. Nevertheless, this is a real beast.

I too had my doubts when I first laid eyes on this sweetheart hanging in a pawnshop down on South Street in Philly. Like almost everything I bought back in those days (mid-‘90s), nobody knew what the heck it was. The fit and finish (high gloss polyurethane) were too good, and besides it was a neck-through. That means some serious commitment. I snatched it right up for a couple bills, of course. The quilted top alone was worth that! This was a beaut!

1988 Epiphone Spotlight Electric Guitar

But what was it? That’s when I started pawing through the Epiphone paper I’d managed to acquire. There it was, in a promotional pack from Gibson that my friend Michael Lee Allen had thrown in with one of my catalog orders. The Epi…no wait…the Gibson Nouveau series. Curiouser and curiouser!

Epiphone, of course, had been Gibson’s budget brand ever since they bought their fierce rival in 1957. Epiphone had become an imported line in 1971, thus beginning a long and complicated peregrination as an offshore product.

1988 Epiphone Spotlight Electric Guitar

But Gibson would periodically revive the American manufacture of Epiphone guitars, including some of the last guitars made in Kalamazoo before the final move to Nashville. Which is a fascinating tale, but doesn’t explain the Spotlight mystery.

Turns out that sometime after Norlin’s sale of Gibson to its current owners, someone hatched the plot to produce the Nouveau series. In the late ‘80s Japan was still regarded as a prime source of budget guitars (this was about to end). The Gibson Nouveaus were going to consist of parts made in Japan—neck and body—and assembled and finished in Nashville. This would, of course, technically keep them “American made.” This was not uncommon back then; Kramer seems to have specialized in the practice. The project got as far as introductory literature, as my paper stash demonstrates. As this guitar testifies, the rest of the plan was executed as well, but with another of those twists. Somewhere between the manufacture and finishing, these became the Epiphone Spotlight series. Maybe they got cold feet about the sleight of hand.

1988 Epiphone Spotlight Electric Guitar

In any case, the result was ironically a new—and no doubt rare—“American-made” Epiphone! And a fine one it is. The shape of this guitar is suspiciously like that of the brash young guitarmaker from Maryland named Paul Reed Smith, which were just beginning to make some waves at the time. The Spotlights have neck-through-body construction, with mahogany necks and bodies, capped with a gorgeous carved quilted maple top. As befitting the “budget-deluxe” concept, what looks like a two-octave ebony fingerboard is ebonol, like that used on early Kramers. Reflecting the Epiphone-by-Gibson branding used at the time, a pearl diamond engraved with “Gibson” graced the headstock. Pickups were EMG Selects, serviceable if not exceptional, hooked up one volume and one tone, the latter with a push-pull coil tap pot. This version was outfitted with a traditional style vibrato, but I have another one equipped with a locking Steinberger HB vibrato. There were most likely stoptails, as well, but who knows?

This is a really nice guitar. The heavy poly finish is a bit much, but there’s nothing not to like here.

As evidenced by how familiar we all are with the Epiphone Spotlights, they obviously didn’t last long. However many were made seem to be from 1988. A good guess is that probably one shipment of necks and bodies were produced. 50? 100? The two I have are among the three I’ve seen, all in Philadelphia. I don’t know if any of the Gibson Nouveaus were ever made, although the introductory literature shows photos of them, so at least a couple prototypes were probably put together before the switch to Epi. As common as Epiphones may be these days, the Epi Spotlights both uncommon and uncommonly good!

Center Stage in the Spotlight (1988 Epiphone Spotlight 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

1986 Ibanez Axstar AX75 Electric Guitar

While Ned Steinberger is generally the luthier most associated with the appearance of the headless bass and guitar in 1979, the minimalist concept his guitars reflect should really be seen as an evolving process. Back in the late 1930s Les Paul began analyzing the notion of an electric guitar and came up with his famous “log,” an Epiphone archtop that he cut the sides off and inserted a solid chunk of wood to eliminate feedback. His audiences couldn’t get used to the idea, so he had to screw the sides back on for performance, but he was clearly searching for the minimum needed for a good guitar.

There are no doubt other examples. Arguably lap steel guitars built since the early 1930s also fit this description. They’re little more than a chunk of wood or aluminum representing the string length of the guitar, with a pickup and tuners that could go at either end of the instrument. About as basic as you can get!

1986 Ibanez Axstar AX75 Electric Guitar

The idea of a minimalist electric Spanish guitar resurfaced again in 1967 when Dan Helland, a guitar player and teacher in Green Bay, Wisconsin, reached a conclusion similar to, but likely independent of, Les Paul’s, deciding a guitar could be no more than a neck stuck on a 2×4. Somehow he connected with the Holman-Woodell guitar company of Neodesha, Kansas, who were at the time manufacturing the solidbodies marketed by Wurlitzer out of Chicago. His design called for a neck stuck on a square slab of wood yielding the famous La Baye 2×4 guitars and basses. He had about 45 of these made and took them to the 1967 Chicago NAMM show where he sold zipity doodah. Helland gave up guitar design and became a photographer.

A little bit earlier another fellow named Dave Bunker of Puyallup, Washington, began to turn his thoughts to a better guitar idea. Bunker (yes, Bunker Hill is named for a relative!), born in 1935, began playing guitar in around 1949 and in around 1951 started teaching in Puyallup. The in 1955 he saw the traveling demonstration show put on by the great tapping guitarist Jimmie Webster and Dave adopted that technique. Conventional guitar design is not optimized for tapping, so naturally Bunker began to experiment and in around 1961 started making his own guitar designs. One of his ‘60s inventions was the idea of the “tension-free” neck. Basically this consisted of a heavy brass nut fixed to a thick brass bar that was attached to another block of metal in the body. A wooden neck was routed out and slipped over this brass core. Strings were anchored into the nut and stretched down to tuners on the butt end of the guitar. The brass neck core took all the tension of the strings, keeping the wooden neck free of any tension whatsoever. Like Les Paul’s “log,” Bunkers guitars often had variously shaped wings that could be bolted on to give more of an illusion of “guitar,” but he was getting down to the bare minimum!

1986 Ibanez Axstar AX75 Electric Guitar

One other name that should be mentioned is Allan Gittler (1935-2003). In the mid-‘70s Gittler began to really, really get to the minimum of what a guitar was to be. In around 1975 he introduced the Gittler guitar, basically a skeleton. The body was a steel tube, with tubular nut/string attachment, tubular frets, about as low as you could go and still have a guitar!

Then came the Steinbergers and Andy Summers and the heyday of headless. Everybody had to have one. Some makers simply ripped off the Steinberger. Others, such as Cort, licensed the design. Others, such as Modulus Graphite and Ibanez, came up with their own unique takes on the popular form. Which brings us to this Axstar.

In around 1985 Ibanez found its sales flattening out and needed something new to pep them up. The result was a new series called the Axstar. Two models were conceived, both to be made for them by Chushin in Japan, rather than the usual Fuji Gen Gakki. One was popularly called the “shark” because of its obviously finned shape. The other was this headless, commonly called the “battle axe,” designed in Bensalem, PA, by Ibanez’s then chief designer Mace Bailey.

There’s actually a lot more to this guitar than just another headless wannabe. It has a carved maple cap over an alder body, for one thing. Secondly, there’s a two-octave fingerboard. Then there are the low-impedence pickups pumped through active electronics with bass and treble cuts for tonal control. Always a winner! The picture is completed with a Steinberger-style bridge assembly. Only somewhat derivative, with enough to make it pretty interesting.

And pretty rare. It’s not known how many of these were produced, because Ibanez production records only exist for the Fuji factory, but not many. Neither Asxtar solved Ibanez’s sales woes. Their next attempt at jump-starting things was the wonderful Maxxas, but that’s another story for another day…

In any case, despite the respectable power train and the sophisticated construction, with no head, the Axstar deserved to be included among the classics of this understated art form!

Off With Her Head! (1986 Ibanez Axstar AX75 Electric Guitar) 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

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

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

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

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

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

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