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

1984 Takamine Solid Body Electric Guitar (Model Unknown)

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

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

1984 Takamine Solid Body Electric Guitar (Model Unknown)

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

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

1984 Takamine Solid Body Electric Guitar (Model Unknown)

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1968 Teisco May Queen Electric Guitar

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

Let’s take the plus side first.

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

Vintage 1968 Teisco May Queen Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1968 Teisco May Queen Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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