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

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1978 Hondo II Longhorn Electric Guitar

Calling this guitar a Longhorn is obvious because the cutaway horns are, well, long. Duh. But in fact, associating the Longhorn guitar with cattle (though perhaps not cowboys) has a basis in ancient history. Technically speaking, this two-horned body is the shape of a lyre. Lyres were in use in Mesopotamia—a region we know today as Iraq—at least by 2500 BC and probably earlier. Since some of the harps (a related instrument) that have survived from that time were outfitted with elaborately decorated bull’s heads, it is entirely possible that the lyre’s shape was also meant to bring steer horns to mind!

The lyre continued to be popular at least through the flowering of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations and may have survived in one form or another into the early Middle Ages. The shape was actually rediscovered in the late 18th and early 19th as Europeans became interested in unearthing ancient cultures. By the mid-1800s guitars with lyre arms began to appear. Indeed, they may have been responsible for the invention of harp guitars, but that’s just a guess. Lyre guitars continued to show up in the hands of cute babes on postcards up until World War I after which they slipped from memory, until Nate Daniel brought them back in the late 1960s.

1978 Hondo II Longhorn Electric Guitar

Most of us probably know this longhorned guitar shape from the legendary Danelectro Guitarlin. Indeed, this Hondo guitar was intended to be a tribute to that ‘60s beauty. Danelectro bit the dust in 1969, yielding to the beginnings of international guitarmaking. Ironically, it was in that same year that the Hondo brand was born, soon to become the first significant guitars coming from Korea. Hondo was owned by International Music Corporation (IMC) of Fort Worth, Texas, which was run by Tommy Moore and Jerry Freed. In 1969 IMC had a relationship with Tokai in Japan and in ’69 traveled to Korea and entered into an agreement with a relatively new company called Samick. IMC upgraded the Samick operation with technology from Tokai and began to import Hondos.

To be honest, the Korean Hondos weren’t all that great, but Hondo kept working with Tokai, and some of its deluxe models continued to be made in Japan. Which brings us to this Hondo II Longhorn, which was introduced in 1978. This is actually a swell guitar with a mahogany body and 31-fret fingerboard. It was probably made by Tokai. The active 12-hex-pole pickups were powered by an onboard preamp that let you kick this puppy into overdrive at the flick of a switch. Giddyup!

It’s not clear how long this model was offered by Hondo, but probably only a year or so. By the time this beast was history, so pretty much was the classic celluloid image of Texas, replaced by the post-modern cynicism actually introduced by those Spaghetti productions. Indeed, the Hondo II Longhorn itself was the beginning of a post-modern heritage of tributes that includes the early ‘90s hybrids assembled by Tony Mark and the excellent reproductions still made by Nashville’s Jerry Jones. Nevertheless, when you pick up one of these kick-ass, steer-inspired Hondo Longhorns and throw that pre-amp switch, you’re deep in the heart of Texas!

Roundup for a Texas Longhorn (1978 Hondo II Longhorn Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com