With the wide range of musical instruments, a guitar is one of the most common instruments that you will find among many musicians.  There are different types of guitars that you can choose, depending on your preference and taste. With the latest technology in the modern world, there have been so many variations when it comes to guitars. However, some people still prefer using vintage guitars as compared to the contemporary guitars, why? Let us find more details about vintage guitars that you should know.

What Exactly Is A Vintage Guitar?

This is probably the question that is running through your mind. Let us first understand what is vintage. In simple terms, vintage refers to something of the past, and it is of high quality. There is no specific definition of what qualifies a product to be called vintage. However, vintage guitars are guitars that have been around for around 30 years or older. Basically, we refer to things that were made before 1980 as vintage.

Why Buy A Vintage Guitar?

Why would someone consider buying a vintage guitar, yet there are so many modern guitars with improved designs and features? What is so unique about vintage guitars? Well, there are so many reasons why people prefer buying or collecting vintage guitars. 

First of all, vintage guitars are beautiful. For instance, if you have a close look at the Martin 0-38 Parlor guitar (1985), you will be impressed with the looks of this guitar. This guitar features a spruce top, rosewood sides and back, ebony fingerboards and bridge and a herringbone inlay. All these make this guitar one of the most beautiful vintage guitars.

Another reason why people prefer to buy vintage guitars is because many people believe that aged wood provides better sound quality. On top of that, anything of the past has a history and so do vintage guitars. 

Either way, now that you have made up your mind you want to buy a vintage guitar, you might be wondering where to begin. You don’t have to worry because I have got you covered. This article covers everything that you need to know about vintage guitar. I will also give you some tips that will help you select the best vintage guitar.

Important Information You Should Know About Vintage Guitars

Vintage Guitars

When shopping for a vintage guitar, there are several things that you need to know so that you can pick the right guitar. The following are the things that you should check.

• Who is selling the guitar?

You definitely want to know who is selling the guitar. Ask a lot of questions prior and evaluate the seller to ensure that you get an authentic guitar. In most cases, buyers prefer buying vintage guitars from a local store because they are sure of professional reputation and in-house repairs.

• Condition of the guitar

Of course, you don’t want to end up with a guitar that will disappoint you may be due to poor quality craftsmanship. Therefore, you should not be afraid to ask any questions that you have in mind before buying. If you are buying from a professional seller, then they should give you details or any issue. While not all the problems can prevent you from buying, some minor problems you find might not affect the tonal quality or the guitar playability.

• Originality

In most cases, you do not expect to find the guitar in the same condition that it was when it was made. And for many players, their priority is finding a vintage guitar that plays well and provides a high-quality sound output. In fact, you will find that many vintage guitars that are not all-original will work well and meet your needs.

• Mode of payment

When you are buying a vintage guitar, you should also consider the mode of payment that the seller accepts. Most sellers will accept PayPal, among other payment methods.

How to Choose a Vintage Electric Guitar

Vintage Burns guitar

Now that you know some essential things you need to have in mind before buying a vintage guitar let us go straight to a simple buying guide that will help you pick the right vintage guitar. The following tips will help you choose the best electric guitar for newbies.

Tone

The tone is the most important things that you should check. Even if the guitar looks great, it should provide you with a crisp and clear tone.  And if you experience problems setting up the guitar, you can seek help from a guitar professional.

The vintage

What is the vintage of the instrument? Check for details such as finishes, serial numbers, workmanship, hardware, electronics and wood among others to get the clue.

Material

Vintage guitars are scarce, so you need to consider rare woods and other materials. If you find vintage guitars made of Brazilian rosewood, ivory, tortoiseshell and ebony inlays, then this is an indication of a quality instrument.

Guitar condition

You should also check the quality of the guitar before you buy. For instance, you should pay attention to whether there are scratches, worn frets, warped neck, or glue separating the joints. The presence of these might affect the overall value of the instrument.

Age and alteration

How old is the guitar? In most cases, older guitars have a greater value as compared to a new one. Additionally, you should check if the guitar has been altered. Look for a guitar with very minimal alterations and few scratches on the original parts.

Don’t worry about weak neck

With time, the solid body of the guitar begins to lose stability so it can’t stay in tune. So the neck can become unstable because of old age, and this should not worry you.

Final Words 

They say that old is gold and most players understand this in regards to vintage guitars. If you want to enjoy a beautiful design, great sound, and easy playability, among others, an old guitar can be a great purchase. I have provided you everything that you need to know if you are considering to buy a vintage guitar as well as buying tips to help you land on the right model.

Vintage Electric Guitar Buying Guide: What You Need to Know from MyRareGuitars.com

The original Airline guitars were cheap, plastic (or rather, “Res-O-Glass”) models made between 1958-1968 and sold by Montgomery Ward via shops and catalogues. They were never intended to be great-quality instruments – but cheap alternatives for beginners who couldn’t afford bigger brands such as Fender, Gibson or Gretsch.

Most Airlines were made of Res-O-Glass simply because it made them cheaper and quicker to be put together – with no particular regard for quality or tone.

However, this characteristic made those guitars quite unique, and eventually a few professional players started to appreciate the qualities of the Res-O-Glass tone as “a thing”.

One of the first performers to be closely linked to the instrument was bluesman J. B. Hutto, whose red Airline must’ve been one of the inspirations for Jack White playing one, decades later:

Ah yes… Jack White. Despite the fact other musicians over the years have opted for vintage Airline Guitars (PJ Harvey, Calexico, Black Keys, Brian Jonestown Massacre) it was Jack White who most certainly brought the brand (especially the now-iconic JB-Hutto guitar shape) to the attention of a wider audience.

Jack White live with his Airline Guitar, in The White Stripes

Vintage Airline Guitars vs. Eastwood Airline Guitars: What’s the Difference?

When considering which one to buy, it’s important to remember a few things.

1) The first is this: Jack White didn’t really like his Airline guitar. 

Yes. True. He, basically, thought they were terrible. Not long ago, White described his experience playing them: 

“If people only knew how hard it was on these shitty guitars …  because I didn’t know!”

New Airline guitar headstock – it is what it says it is… an Airline!

The inside of a vintage Airline guitar… not a pretty sight!

Airline 59 2P – the current version of the classic Airline model, by Eastwood

But, of course, there are other, less obvious but very important changes – or, as should we call them, upgrades: the tone-chambered mahogany body, Airline vintage voiced Single coils (Humbucker-sized), tune-o-matic bridge and bolt-on maple neck. The new Airlines sound great, rich, and are more comfortable and familiar to play than vintage ones.

The vintage Airline Res-O-Glass guitars are undoubtedly cool, and any guitarist will get extra kudos for owning one. If you got one dirty cheap in the 90’s, that would’ve been definitely 100% worth it, even if no one wanted to buy one anymore, today. But now… are they really worth the price tag they go for today, after the Jack White hype? Mmmm…

So, the big question, then: are the new Airline guitars by Eastwood better than the originals? We would say so – just as many professional musicians playing one, worldwide also would. Let’s face it, a tone-chambered mahogany body beats plastic any day. There’s a reason why most guitars by most brands are made of wood, after all.

But we’ll leave the final answer to you – after all, in everything in life, and certainly when it comes to guitars, your own taste is what matters, and it’ll change from player to player. If you ever come across a Res-O-Glass guitar, by all means have a go – you might even love it. But will it be worth the investment, especially if you’re a gigging musician? Perhaps… perhaps not. 

Watch: Vintage Airline Guitar vs. New Airline Guitar by Eastwood

Vintage Airline guitar demo:

New Airline guitar demo:

What’s the Difference Between Vintage Airline Guitars & New Airline Guitars by Eastwood? from MyRareGuitars.com

I have a buddy who used to write about cheap vintage gear—this is going back to the late 90’s and early 21^st century (maybe up till about a decade ago) when there were still steals available left and right on the vintage market. He’s asked me to not name him, as he still writes about gear and tone, but mostly for newer boutique amps and obscure, cool, and great guitars. But he was the friend who taught me a lot about finding, buying, repairing and selling some of these unsung beauties, and for a while about a fifteen years to a decade ago, I was doing really well. On all fronts. Tone, fun, and money. Guitars, too. This was a time you could pick up most Harmony models for $200-$500 (nothing like a like $250 Rocket-ha!). I got an Espanada for $500 (to be fair, the seller knew nothing—don’t you love those sellers?—and there was only one picture so fuzzy I couldn’t tell if it was a 1446 or an Espanada…though I couldn’t have lost either way). 

This is also when you could get great deals if you tried every misspelling of an old Harmony or Kay or Dano you could think of. And if someone tipped you to the fact that a “Holliday” was a Harmony, and so on. With this news, I ended up picking up a perfect Holiday-branded Harmony H-19 for $100. Free shipping, as I recall! And this went on with many other brands…like Custom Craft and Regal and more from various—usually Chicago—makers. Jack White had already jacked up the Airline Jetsons model, but there were still deals on even Airlines, which were gaining perhaps the most notoriety.

My buddy gave up on the funky stuff when, according to him, “it got way to expensive for what it was.” And I can see his point—to…well, a point. I go back and forth. When I first started buying up catalog guitars and obscure amps in the early 2000’s, there seemed to be astounding deals everywhere. I was always a sucker for a good dual 6V6 amplifier with a single 12”…and, of course, the Holy Grail of said amps was/is the 5E3 Fender Tweed Deluxe. After that, everything behind it became, “the poor man/woman’s deluxe.” And, worse, he was seeing his articles quoted in eBay listings (in the days before Reverb.com), driving up the price of the cheap stuff he loved. It seemed annoying enough to him that he was quoted without credit, but even worse was this conclusion: he said to me one day, “I’ve totally doomed myself (he used stronger language).” When I asked what he meant, he pointed out that the gear he’d been buying for peanuts only a few years before, was now much more expensive—largely because of his spreading the word about how great they were. And now he could no longer afford the guitars he’d done so much to make popular in review after review.

But/and back to the poor man’s/poor woman’s (and, hell, I suppose poor circus clown’s and phlebotomists, as well…why limit any of the poor in need of tone?) Tweed Deluxe? What was there out on the market that could be snatched up cheaply and either fixed and flipped, or fixed and used? 

Silvertone 1483 amp

There were so many to take a cheap chance on…I’m mostly talking about the selection of dual 6V6 single 12” amps, but there were deals for bigger amps, as well…I once got an inexpensive Teisco Checkmate 100 that had a VU meter on the front! Did it sound that great? Well, not really. But that, in this case, was not the point: it had a VU meter on the front!  

But back to the single 12”s. They were almost always a very satisfying choice. There was a time not so long ago that you could buy the Silvertone (made by Dano)1472, or the slightly more juiced up 1482 (the better amp, really, but both are very cool) for prices between $150 and $200. You could sometimes get one on the cheaper end of $150 with the (also) Danelectro made Airline 62 9012A. Two hundred or so seemed the standard for years. Both of these were/are great amps. I have a slight preference for the Airline for seeming to have a slightly tougher cabinet (that said, it’s hardly a Fender or a Traynor since those guys used, you know, wood for these cabs and heads), though the Silvertone wins the looks and cool factor with the side knobs, cool gray color and the mod TV-looking front. 

Then there are some of the fabulous Lectrolabs/Sound Projects amps out of Chicago (still something of a mystery, that company) which, while they made amps under their own name and for Harmony’s 300 series, were one of the stranger Chicago companies in that they would sometimes venture into EL84 land for their output. One of the greatest amps I ever owned was a single ended EL84-powered twin 8” amp. The only better model with this set up I’ve ever heard was a friend’s similar Valco/Supro (his with, I believe, a 6V6…though it may have been a 6973) that, to be fair, kind of kicked my amp’s doors in.

Speaking of Supros/Valcos, even they were relatively inexpensive…except when the seller was one of the ten thousand bozos who claimed (no matter what the model) that THIS was the model Jimmy Page used (boy did JimmyPage use a lot of Supros for a guy who only used one Supro). Which did send Supro prices all over the map for a while.

Vintage Supro, just like Jimmy Page’s. No, really!

But I had just about every cool off-brand single 12” I could find for quiet a while (and others, but this was my main addiction, amp-wise). I also suffer from a condition (I used to be even more afflicted) many of my guitar friends seem to have. We want what we don’t have, and we don’t appreciate something we had until it’s gone. And more expensive. More than once, similar friends with the same affliction sit around in a group and one says, “what the hell is wrong with us?” A question their partners, other friends, and spouses have probably been asking for years.

To backtrack a little (or a lot), I started as a pretty stupid kid with this syndrome, but for dumber, younger reasons. When I was sixteen (please keep this age in mind. Please), I traded a 60’s Silverface Deluxe Reverb for a…wait for it…Peavey Renown. I’m not even sure I have the right spelling of Renown, but I’m too depressed, even thirty-odd years later, to even look it up. All I knew (thought) at the time was that my Deluxe wasn’t loud enough. And the Peavey, whatever else it was or wasn’t, was very loud. A ton of solid state watts with a 4X12” cab. I knew nothing about tone (perhaps you have already conclude this). I only knew that volume knob went all the way to the right. Other knobs be damned. I’m sure whatever audiences we drew were thrilled. And deaf.

But over the years (with classic mainstream gear and with the help of some folks like my buddy who was hip to funky gear), I started to understand tone. I got less interested in pedals and more interested in amps (not that they can’t go together). I dug into the history of the catalog guitars and found not only Airlines, and Silvertones, and Harmony, but figured out rarities like that Holiday. I bought an Estey/Magnatone 422 for $40 and it worked perfectly. It was my go-to recording amp for years. But these were all so intoxicating to get on the cheap, they were often even more intoxicating to sell at a decent profit (especially when I’d fixed them up). There are so many more brands I haven’t even touched upon—the Magnatone 213, the Hilgens (who tended to use EL-84’s)…some of the great Japanese amps like Guyatone and Univox and so many others. Forgive me, but I can’t list them all (I don’t even know about all of them, I’m certain).

Big regrets from this period? The DeArmond duel 6V6 single 12” (the same amp was also made and branded as a Martin). These were made in the late 50’s and early 60’s. And while they are a fine sounding amp, their value skyrocketed mainly (as far as I can tell) after a Tonequest review that called them the greatest 6V6 single 12” ever made. They are not. I’ve seen them go from $5,000 and up of late. Which, frankly, despite it being a fine amp, is an astonishingly large gap between quality and price. You can still find a Tweed Deluxe for less. Still, the Martin version had a rad grill cloth. Not a five grand grill cloth. But, pretty cool, nevertheless. 

I bought one of those in excellent condition for $300 in the early 2000’s. Sold it for maybe $500 a couple years later. Clearly, I wish I’d held on to it. At least long enough for this insane bump in price.

The best of these models I ever owned, however, was a two-toned (cream and red) early 60’s Kay. I think I paid $250. It was mint. I traded it for…something. Nothing that could have been as good for me as this model. It had two interactive channels (standard “Micraphone” and “Instrument” inputs…sadly, no hilarious “Accordian” input like so many Ampegs and Maggies). The cleans were lush and sweet and had depth and clarity. The overdrive was amazing…after about one o’clock to two o’clock on the dial, with more grit and volume when you played with the unused channel (just like a Tweed Deluxe). I have no idea who made it. I’ve always guessed it was some Chicago company, because all the Chicago guitar companies used local amps. Another buddy who knows very much about catalog/off brand equipment thinks it may actually be a Kay. It had the cool Frigidaire chrome handle like the Kay 507 model. In fact, it looks like it is may be made by the same company/in the same era as the 507. But, I have no idea. The amp had the two channels, with the second channel having a great tremolo—which was controlled with much smaller knobs than the volume and tone knobs. 

Times have changed… and so have the prices

But back to these amps in general. Now, all those prices have gone up. Some considerably. None are shockingly good deals anymore, because they have been discovered by so many players. But they are still affordable (to some people…other refuse to pay this kind of money for catalog amps) with great tone. Consider this:

The $99 Danelectro/Silvertone Amp-in Case (both the hollow 1457 and the solid 1452 guitars) would be roughly $814 in 2018 dollars. It sounds like a lot of money (and, to be fair, it kind of is a little head spinning compared to what they were…it is a lot of money), but think about getting a very cool, very good playing guitar that nothing else—not a single brand—sounds like along with what is pretty much a Champ-type amp in the case. The price for the vintage equivalents would easily be more than a grand. Or course, if you bought one new, you might want the guitar to have a better system for intonation, but…well, it is still a Dano.

The 15-18 watt 1482 (the 1472 looks much the same—albeit with a cooler handle—and has the same tube lineup but was listed at a curious 12 watts…not sure what gives there) listed for $68.95 when it debuted in the 1963 Sears catalog. Adjusted for inflation, that comes out to about $525 dollars in 2018 (which is, more or less, a little below what they’re selling for now on the used market). And, not much different from a new Fender Tweed Blues Deluxe…which is a fine amp, but isn’t hand built like a 60’s Dano. Of course, the expense of the labor Dano had would make it highly cost prohibitive today.

So the question is, are these great, cheap amps still great cheap amps? Well, they are still great amps if that’s the tone you’re going for (and to me, it’s a glorious tone…sound of hundreds of thousands of garages all over America in 1965-1968). No doubt about the great sound. But are they still cheap? Well, they are as affordable as many assembly line tube amps today, and they are easier to maintain being hand-wired and lacking tiny circuit boards. However, their cabinets are still cheaply made (very cheaply made in some cases), and lack the toughness and durability of similarly priced amps today. Most importantly, I would argue they sound a good amount better than their $450-600 contemporary counterparts.

But, sadly, I don’t think they really fall into the cheap category anymore. They are still affordable, for sure. And they have a sound you can’t really replicate for anywhere near the price. Actually, no boutique amp I’m aware of sounds anything like the catalog amps of the 60’s either. So many are great, but it’s simply not a tone a lot of newer boutique makers are shooting for). If you want that tone, it’s the way to go. Just, sadly, don’t expect to get them for a steal anymore.

And if you bought any of them for $150-$250 ten or so years back—don’t be stupid like me. Hold onto them. Unless it’s that Kay model. In which case you should sell it to me. Preferably for $150. Those old catalog amps aren’t worth much more. Trust me. 

The Golden Era of Vintage Catalog Amps from MyRareGuitars.com

I’ve always thought it highly ironic that among the “holy grails” of guitar collecting are the truly “rare birds” that were made in the smallest of quantities, yet most of the action is in the most common mass-produced guitars of the F and G variety.  But then, I’ve always been somewhat off-kilter.  But if you were to be impressed by the truly rare birds, you’d have to be taken by the Kramer Triaxe!

The Klingon-shaped Triaxe was built back in 1986 when Kramer was flying high—as it promoted itself in advertising at the time—as the world’s largest guitar company.  This was a little bit of hyperbole, but they probably were making and selling more guitars than any other brand name guitar company.  If you were to look at OEM manufacturers—companies that produced guitars for other companies (such as Cort or Samick)—(who were making guitars for companies such as Kramer itself), the claim might have been somewhat specious.  

In any case, you have to hand it Kramer for being an amazing bit of American guitar history and a major innovator.  There’s been a lot of mis-information published about Kramer guitars, some of it propagated (quite innocently) by me.  So much of the story is “anecdotal,” being derived from 1^st-person interviews, which provide so much rich detail, but which can also be subject to misremembering!  This is not the venue to set any records straight.  If Gary Kramer’s own account can be relied upon, it was Kramer who bankrolled Travis Bean’s aluminum necked guitar venture “in the early 1970s,” most sources say.  Bean applied for his patent in October of 1974, so 1974 seems as good as any date.  There may have been another person involved.

1986 Kramer Enterprise

According to Kramer’s account, he was not happy the Bean had filed for the aluminum neck patent under his own name.  In addition, Kramer asserts that Bean began to get distracted from building guitars at the time, which could be true.  He also claims that the Bean design was too heavy for constant gigging and he wanted to improve the guitar, make it lighter.  There was also some resistance among guitar players to the “metallic feel” of the necks.  Kramer found himself selling Beans to a store in New York City, where he met Dennis Berardi, reportedly a partner in a music store.  He and Berardi hooked up with an ex-Gibson executive Peter LaPlaca to form BKL International in 1975 to produce a better guitar to be called Kramer.

To get around Bean’s patent, Kramer came up with the idea of a wood insert in the back of a T-shaped aluminum neck, lightening the guitar and adding a more “wooden feel” to the neck.  Anyhow, in 1976 Kramer aluminum-necked guitars debuted.  Shortly thereafter they brought in the owner of building they were leasing, Henry Vaccaro, who helped finance the operation.  These new Kramer guitars were very well received and the company began to grow.  Kramer, for reasons as yet not adequately explained (he claims extraordinary pressure to ramp up production), left the company not long after its founding and now makes Gary Kramer Guitars.

However, as the 1980s dawned, aluminum necks were becoming passe.  Kramer began switching over to wooden necks.  They were just in time for the rise of Heavy Metal, and, along with that, a taste for weird pointy guitars and for double-locking vibrato systems.  Kramer came up with the Pacer in 1983, one of the candidates (among others) for “first SuperStrat.”  Kramer managed to get an endorsement from one of the preeminent guitarists of the day, Eddie Van Halen, and signed an agreement to become the exclusive distributor of Floyd Rose locking vibratos.  

1986 Kramer Triaxe

Not only did Rose let Kramer sell his whammy bars, Rose also began designing certain models for Kramer, including the Floyd Rose Signature and the two alien beings that debuted at the 1986 NAMM show, the Triaxe and the Enterprise, the not to Star Trek pretty obvious.  Reportedly, only 4 of each were made for the NAMM show.  These never went into production, for obvious reasons.  Even a good CNC program ain’t gonna make many of these guitars!

I once owned this Triaxe and have played an Enterprise.  These are not bad guitars at all, with great sound and comfortable to play, but if you tried gigging with one you’d be living in immortal dread of running into a mike stand or an amp.  Especially since they are really, really rare birds and by now worth a lot of money!  

Kramer continued to thrive and grow as the ‘80s progressed.  The sky seemed to be the limit.  Then all of a sudden, they were gone.  There are a lot of rumors surrounding this demise, some probably true.  They may have gotten over-extended into concert promotion.  For sure they were about to run into a wall called “Nirvana.”  By 1991 Kramer guitars were gone.

Henry Vaccaro ended up holding the bag and the Kramer name.  He tried to revive the brand in 1998, as original (more or less) aluminum necks.  However, the finances didn’t work and to get capital he sold the brand to the House of Brands, Gibson, which proceeded to import inexpensive Asian made Kramers that were pale reflections of the glory days.  Vaccaro tried to market his own Vaccaro brand aluminum necked guitars, but, as cool as they were, the market was gone.  As were those fascinating space opera relics, the Triaxe and Enterprise!

By Michael Wright, The Different Strummer

Beam Me Up, Scotty: 1986 Kramer Triaxe from MyRareGuitars.com

Where were you when Bob Dylan switched from acoustic to electric guitar?  I know that may seem like a wholly rhetorical question to many of you reading this, since a lot of you probably weren’t around yet.  But when Bob Dylan picked up a Stratocaster, he helped change the course of popular music—and definitely the history of guitars.  Introduced in 1963, this Guild S-200 Thunderbird would have existed anyway, but Dylan’s plugging in certainly helped propel it into the limelight.

Guild s200

In the summer of 1965, Folk Music was still the most popular music in America, well, among a lot of young folks, at least.  Oh, there were the Ventures and The Beach Boys, both semi-Surf bands, and there was that little quartet from England with a hit in “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”  But Hootenanny was a hit TV show and the Folkies who played on it were religiously acoustic.  Bob and his compatriots played “vintage” Martin and Gibson guitars.  The concept of “vintage” wasn’t invented back then, but that’s where it started.  

In the Spring of 1965 Dylan released his album Bringing It All Back Home, half acoustic, as expected, but the other half backed by a rock band.  Less than a week before his appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in July Dylan released the rock classic “Like a Rolling Stone.”  At Newport Dylan played backed by Mike Bloomfield and other electric musicians.

The reaction to Dylan’s “going electric” was swift and hostile.  I was teaching and performing folk music back then and subscribed to Folkie rags like Broadside and Sing Out!.  They were full of op-eds loaded with righteous indignation.  Electric guitars just weren’t…well, correct!

It took about 5 minutes for the electric guitar to become “correct.”  A once-venerable jug band became The Lovin’ Spoonful, with Zal Yanovsky playing lead on a Guild Thunderbird.  A relatively minor, up-and-coming folksinger named Jesse Colin Young became the leader of The Youngbloods who had a major hit with “Get Together.”  He hired a lead guitarist named Lowell Levenger, who went by the moniker Banana, and was one of the few bold enough to play the distinctive Guild Thunderbird. 

Watch: The Lovin’ Spoonful ‘Do You Believe In Magic’?

Guild really went out on a limb with the S-200.  Professional musicians mainly played Gibson or Fender guitars, occasionally a Gretsch.  Guild had made its reputation with its fine acoustic guitars in the ‘50s.  Someone must have been smoking something when they designed the Thunderbird!  Or was a big fan of Gumby.  What made Guild’s move even more bold was that this was the time when Japanese were making their move on the American guitar market and those guitars were, by U.S. standards, often a little bizarre.  Especially from the perspective of the time, still heavily influenced by World War II.  Guild risked the chance of being identified with what were considered to be “beginner” guitars.

But the Guild Thunderbird was anything but a “beginner” guitar!  Despite the somewhat goofy appearance, the 1966 S-200 seen here was actually a guitar engineering marvel.  The S-200 Thunderbird was actually unveiled in 1963 along with two down-scale companions, the S-100 Polara and the S-50 Jet-Star, all similar with fairly equal cutaways.  

By 1966, the Thunderbird had evolved to have more offset cutaways and remarkable electronics.  The “Frequency Tested” humbucking pickups were not especially powerful by today’s standards, but few pickups were back then.  Like other more advanced guitars of the time, the Thunderbird had both lead and rhythm circuits.  In lead mode you got a volume and tone control with a lower value capacitor that gave you more treble, plus access to a phase switch for the funky tones.  In rhythm mode the tone control had a higher value for more bass, of course, bypassing the phase switch.  The two smaller knobs are then master volumes for each pickup, to “preset” the balance.  The sliding switches chose lead or rhythm mode and activated the phasing.  Of course, you get breaks when you play a gig, so the Thunderbird came with a built-in stand on the back, a chrome bar you could snap out to lean the guitar on.  Oh, and a couple of rubber feet on the bottom wings to keep the wood off the floor!…

As unusual as the Guild Thunderbird looks, it’s a pretty remarkable guitar, with a set-in neck, and those are pretty nifty sounds available, especially for that time.

Dan Auerbach and a vintage Guild S200

Folk music and electricity seemed to be Blowin’ In The Wind.  The Lovin’ Spoonful and The Youngbloods weren’t the only bands plugging in.  There was this little group called The Byrds.  Critics had to invent a new term: Folk Rock.  By 1967 even the venerable Folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary were singing “I Dig Rock and Roll Music,” which was supposed to be satire but was almost universally accepted by their fans as gospel.

The Guild Thunderbird was actually offered from 1963-1968, but I don’t think it was very popular and I doubt if a whole lot were sold.  Still, it’s a unique American guitar design that reminds us of what a big deal it was when Folk musicians finally plugged in!

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

The Times They Were A Changin’: 1966 Guild S-200 Thunderbird from MyRareGuitars.com

Back at the beginning of the 1980s I became enamored of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (I didn’t make that up; that’s what it was called) and especially the sub-genre that emerged from it called “neoclassical metal.”  Music by the likes of Randy Rhoads, Tony MacAlpine, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc.  So, naturally, a little later, I became interested in guitars especially designed for shred-meisters…and those wannabees who actually had to buy their own guitars.  The Ibanez Saber was one of my favorites.

Neoclassical metal has nothing to do with classical music in general, except maybe that sometimes it reminds me of Chopin or maybe occasionally Bach on steroids.  And, that it almost never employs the blues scales so ubiquitous in rock.  Nor does it have much in common with classical guitar—an idiosyncratic finger-style learned from musical scores—except for one thing: classical guitarists and many neoclassical shredders like wide, flat (almost no radius) fingerboards.  This is certainly not universal, for metallurgists, at least.  Narrower fingerboards with a decent radius fit the hand nicely when you’re chording.  Wider, flatter fingerboards make it easier to play fast melodies, keeping the notes clean and separate.  Since I play classical guitar, it was natural that I’d be at home on a guitar built for shredders.

Ibanez RS540S Pro-Line Saber

However, I probably would never have known this piece of arcane obscuranta had an art director I worked with at an advertising agency not played in a band.  He favored his Stratocaster, but his working-horse guitar was an Ibanez Saber.  I was the copywriter, so we were the “creative team.”  On rare occasions, between jobs, we’d jam a little, to get our creative juices going.  Every once in a while a nearby conference room would be in use and the account executive would come in and ask us to turn it down.  Yeah, right!  Everything up a notch…  In any case, as a guitar player, I found myself mildly competitive with my team-mate, so I was mightily pleased when I, too, got ahold of my own Ibanez Saber.  

The Saber was part of the 1986 Ibanez Pro-Line Series that essentially replaced the Roadstar II line of guitars.  It was the Roadstar II line that really established Ibanez as a powerhouse guitar brand—partly for the quality and style of the guitars and partly because they hit the market in the early 1980s just at the time that most young guitar-players couldn’t remember the resentment against Japanese products that lingered in Americans for many years following World War II.  With the Roadstars, Ibanez finally began selling enough guitars to become really profitable.

The Pro-Lines weren’t necessarily an “improvement” so much as a next evolutionary step.  I don’t know exactly why they ware called the Pro-Line but Ibanez was beginning to garner a lot more professional endorsements, and the Pro-Lines were what a lot of them played.  The top of the line was the magnificent 1770, with sleek lines and push-button controls.  The others included a trio of uniquely styled SuperStrats: the super-thin-bodied Saber (played variously by Frank Gambale, Jennifer Batten, Reggie Wu, Scott Henderson, Larry Mitchell), the teardrop-shaped Radius (which would become the Joe Satriani signature guitar), and the Power, kind of reverse offsets (played by Alex Skolnick).  All were perfect for the virtuosic styles popular at the time.

The Saber was/is a remarkable guitar if your taste runs to light-weight and powerful.  That super-thin mahogany body is almost invisible, a mint that melts in your mouth.  The neck is also pencil-thin but relatively wide and flat, perfect for blazing runs.  These necks are really fast if the action is set up right.  The pickups are IBZs, which was a collaboration between Ibanez USA and DiMarzio, and they’re screamers.  Finally, these had Ibanez’s “The Edge” version of the Floyd Rose locking vibrato, a knife-edge unit that’s feather-touch sensitive, if you like that sort of thing.  I don’t dive-bomb, so I’m happy with a Mosrite, but the Edges are sweet.

The Saber, Radius, and Power lasted as such through 1990.  By 1991 the Saber had become the Frank Gambale FG series, the Radius had become the Joe Satriani JS series, and the Power was gone.  

Also in 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind and music changed.  Oh, all the fine neoclassical metal players continued to play.  Some changed styles, some didn’t.  But all of a sudden guitar players wanted funky pawn shop guitars, “alternatives.”  For the next few years guitar-makers struggled to figure out “what’s next” and always seemed to be 2 steps behind.  

I liked those new guitars, too, but then I like pretty much all guitars, so that means nothing.  I never did learn to shred.  Maybe I will some day.  Still love that Ibanez Saber, though. 

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Heavy Metal Thunder: 1988 Ibanez RS540S Pro-Line Saber from MyRareGuitars.com

When I pick up a guitar to plunk on these days, 99% of the time it’s to play classical guitar, something I returned to after about a 30-year hiatus.  But I’ve enjoyed playing all kinds of guitar over the years, including electric guitars.  There’s something especially exhilarating about hitting that first “power” chord, an electronic signal passing through some tubes or transistors and coming out a speaker amplified exponentially.  I’ve used pedal effects, too, but beyond that my electrical engineering skills pretty much evaporate.  Which is probably why I’ve never tried to master the Patch part of this special Hagstrom Swede!

I’m sorry, this sounds like I’m advocating for another instrument, but this is yet another story that begins with…accordions.  Yep.  Hagstrom began as an accordion-maker in Sweden.  Indeed, that’s probably what gave them a leg up because they opened up an office in the United States in the late ‘30s just before World War II with a view to exporting squeezeboxes.  

Hagstrom was one of the first European manufacturers to see interest in the guitar on the rise and thus was one of the earliest exporters of electric guitars to the U.S. in the late 1950s.  This would be those sparkle-plastic-covered “Les-Paul-style” hollow-body guitars with interchangeable pickup modules.  Or, you were supposed to be able to play these acoustically, too.  Right!  Still, it was a pretty cool idea, actually.  These early Hagstroms weren’t all that successful, but Folk Music was all the rage at the time and, well, you weren’t going to pull out a blue-sparkle guitar to accompany “Tom Dooley” or “Kumbaya.”  

Hagstroms held on throughout the 1960s, even with the Japanese challenge, making budget solidbodies.  I played one of their basses a little bit.  Serviceable, but budget, for sure.  

There was a decided drop-off in demand for guitars at the end of the 1960s and a lot of guitar companies in both Europe and Japan didn’t survive.  Hagstrom was one of the few that continued to bring in guitars to the U.S.  Like most companies—from Europe and Japan—Hagstrom had to up its game to compete.  

1978 Hagstrom Patch 2000

Part of Hagstrom better game was the Swede in the line by 1972.  Like a lot of the European makers—and unlike the Japanese—Hagstrom chose to make guitars that were similar to popular American models, but weren’t exactly copies.  The Swede was Hagstrom’s answer to the Les Paul.  It had a solid, carved, bound mahogany body with a bolt-on neck, bound ebony fingerboard, and pearl block inlays.  Hagstrom had always billed itself as having the thinnest necks in the world, which was pretty much the case. 

The Swede’s neck was super thin, reinforced with an elaborate “rail” rather than the usual truss rod.  These sported a pair of humbuckers and the usual controls.  I actually like the Swede a lot.  The mahogany is light weight, the feel great.  These pickups aren’t DiMarzio Super Distortions, if that’s what you need, but they’re clean and responsive.  

In 1974 Ampeg inked a distribution deal with Hagstrom and offered the line for the rest of the decade.  By 1978 the Swede was joined by the SuperSwede, which sported a maple cap on the body and a pair of hotter humbuckers.

But the big news was the introduction of the Patch 2000 version of the Swede seen here in 1977.  This was Hagstrom’s answer to the challenge of keyboard synthesizers that were coming on at the time, fueling Disco, and an alternative solution to the technology being developed by Roland in Japan.  The Patch 2000 Swede had the regular electronics plus a 7-pin DIN cable that plugged into a double footpedal designed to interface with and control your synthesizer modules.  

So, with Roland, you connected the guitar to a synthesizer unit and controlled things with your fingers.  With the Patch 2000 system, you had to use your feet.  Well, you may by now have figured out that we’re way beyond my pay grade.  There was a Swede Bass Patch model, as well.

I don’t think I was the only guitar player who wasn’t motivated to figure this system out.  This Patch 2000 is the only one I’ve ever seen.  Roland’s concept fare a bit better, but then Disco fell out of fashion and most guitar players decided to leave the synthesizing to their keyboards man.  

WATCH THE HAGSTROM PATCH 2000 SWEDE DEMO:

I don’t know for sure how long the Patch affair lasted.  They were introduced in 1977.  This guitar dates to 1978, so maybe a year, or less.  Hagstrom got out of the guitar game in 1983, although the brand was revived—the line very similar to the late 1970s—in 2004.  I think the Hagstrom Swede with a Patch 2000 system is cat’s pajamas, but I think the only pedal I’ll be using in the forseeable future is my little old classical guitar footstool.

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Synthesizers with Fancy Footwork: 1978 Hagstrom Patch 2000 Swede from MyRareGuitars.com

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

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

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

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

Picture: 1968 Yamaha SA-15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Eastwood Custom Shop SA-15

The Eastwood SA-15

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

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

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

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

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

Picture: 1974 JG 300

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

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

History seems to go in cycles, it appears.  Not perfect circles, but close enough.  When it comes to guitars we seem to go through periods when guitar designers go nuts and start pushing the envelope with whacky shapes.  Now, I’m one of that subset of guitar fans that’s always a sucker for really oddball guitars.  I mean, Les Pauls are wonderful, but show me something straight out of the Jetsons like the Gretsch Astrojet and I’m hooked!

The Gretsch Astrojet is an artifact from the early 1960s.  The music industry didn’t know it yet, but it was beginning to lose its grip at the time.  Music has always been led by popular tastes, but the “product” was always fairly tightly controlled by managers, promoters, record companies, radio.  When “folk music” hit big in the late 1950s it introduced a wild card: musicians from outside the “business.”  Outsider art.  Then came rock ‘n’ roll. Rock was fickle, unpredictable.  Just what did those Baby Boomers want?

1964 Gretsch 6126 Astro-Jet

For electric guitar-makers this was an important question.  Gibson had tried something new back in the late ‘50s with the holy trinity of the Explorer, Flying V, and mythical Moderne, all of which totally bombed (except with Lonny Mack).  Folk music was still riding high, but folkies played acoustic guitars.  But then there were these surfers and the Ventures.  And those Chicago dudes playing electric guitars.  What was happening?  Maybe, thought some brainiacs, we need a guitar that’s “far out” for the Boomers.  (OK, “far out” came a bit later.  I was there.) 

Maybe the kids would want a Gumby guitar!  Guild introduced its S-200 Thunderbird.  WITH a built-in stand so you could set it up on stage during your breaks between sets.  Yeah, like that flimsy piece of metal would keep your guitar safe!…  Except for Banana of the Youngbloods (from whom I bought a cool old banjo a few years back), almost no one would touch the Gumby-shaped Thunderbird.  (I have one.)

Gretsch considered the same conundrum.  Why don’t we ask Jimmie Webster?  You youngsters may not know who Jimmie Webster was, but he was a great champion of “tapping” technique decades before Eddie Van Halen.  Actually, Jimmie, born in Ohio, learned tapping from Harry DeArmond, the famous pickup manufacturer from Toledo who produced Gretsch’s pickups.  Exactly what that transfer of knowledge was we don’t know, but Jimmie tapped.  His “Webster’s Unabridged” album is one of the great guitar records.  

Anyhow, after the War Webster became a consultant for Gretsch and was hired to travel around the country demonstrating Gretsch electric guitars using his tapping technique.  There’s a whole class of “tapping guitars” that derived from those workshops, including those of Dave Bunker, who’s produced Bunker guitars since the late 1960s (and the Ibanez USA guitars in the early ‘90s).  

Gretsch asked Webster to come up with a guitar design that would appeal to the kids, and the result was the Astrojet, developed in 1964.  What can you say?  This was like Bizarro to Superman.  I don’t know.  I don’t find many guitars “ugly,” but this pretty much qualifies.  

1964 Gretsch 6126 Astro-Jet… rare and exotic

The name undoubtedly came from the fascination with the Space Race at the time.  The Telstar satellite had been launched in 1962.  The Jetsons cartoon series debuted the next year.  How about we call the new guitar the Astrojet?  

Actually, Gretsch put a lot of effort into the Astrojet. These had solid mahogany bodies with a set-in neck using Gretsch’s unique dowelled joints (that make them impossible to work on).  The fingerboard is ebony.  The pickups are high-end DeArmond Super Filter ‘Tron humbuckers.  (High-output DiMarzio Super Distortions lay more than a decade in the future.)  As you might expect from a guitar designed by a pro guitarist, the Astrojet has pretty interesting controls.  The knobs are a master volume and two tone controls.  The switches include a threeway select, a threeway tone selector, and (my favorite waste of space) a “standby” switch.  The tone toggle let you choose different capacitors giving you a mid-bass range, a treble sound for lead, and a heavy bass tone.

I guess if you had a “combo” of neatly coifed young men in matching Nehru jackets all playing matching Gretsch Astrojets and probably called the Supersonic Four Lads, this guitar might be a pretty cool part of the “look.”  However, by 1965, the year this guitar hit the Gretsch catalog, the Beatles had let their hair begin to grow and they had shed the matching suits for more Bohemian leather jackets and turtlenecks (“Rubber Soul”), a harbinger of what was fast approaching.  Hippies.  

Actually, it’s kind of ironic that the somewhat eclectic tastes of anti-establishment young folks didn’t embrace the rather radical design of the Astrojet.  But I guess it was just too strained, too over the top.  I’m not sure how long the Astrojet was offered but it was not in the 1968 catalog.  I think that Astrojets are pretty rare.  You just don’t see them come up for sale that often.

The Gretsch Astrojet wasn’t the last odd guitar to appear, of course.  There have always been guitar designers whose vision transcends popular tastes.  Just think of the early 1980s when both Heavy Metal and New Wave players stumbled over each other to play exotic-shaped guitars.  But Jimmy Webster’s visionary creation, however near-sighted, puts the Gretsch Astrojet in a class by itself.

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

1964 Gretsch 6126 Astro-Jet from MyRareGuitars.com

Back in the mid-1970s guitar players got a bad scare from Disco.  Hard rock had ruled the roost in the early ‘70s, but what had been a fairly monolithic music industry began to show signs of fracturing.  In terms of guitar playing, two anti-guitar factions emerged.  For those who wanted to be a rock star but didn’t want to bother honing chops there was punk.  Learn a few chords and bash away.  At least they were still playing guitars!  On the other side was the disco crowd.  Don a sequined costume and dance the night away to music based on the lush orchestration and insistent groove of keyboard synthesizers.  

The guitar press began to get worried and doom-sayers predicted the demise of the guitar.  We know that didn’t happen, of course, but it was a frightening period for guitar fanatics.  One approach to answering the problem was the synthesizer industry (if you can call it that) itself: put synth controller electronics into guitars.  The Roland GR-500 of 1978 was the first such attempt, a nice Ibanez-Musician-style guitar made by Fujigen Gakki with Roland synth controls that plugged into a large console that converted the analog signal into MIDI signals that then activated tone generators on the console and any external synthesizer machines connected to it.

As you might be guessing from my explanation of MIDI above, I’m part of that generation that started out writing on typewriters and had to trade them in for a computer keyboard.  I tried, but I never really got guitar MIDI technology. I played around a little with the Roland gear, which was OK because the converters had tone generating filters built in, so you could get weird squeaky tones, but I never knew what to use them for.  As for coordinating between multiple synthesizer machines, that was way beyond my pay grade.  

The Casio MG-500 MIDI guitar

Nevertheless, I thought I might be seduced by the dark side and picked up interesting guitar MIDI gear whenever it came my way, including this Casio MG-500 MIDI Guitar.  If you’re close to my age you knew Casio as the major purveyor of digital watches and calculators.  If you’re young you might not know that there were ever anything other than digital watches and you probably don’t know what a calculator is because all that is done for you on your phone.

Anyhow, Casio got into the synthesizer business with a whole range of keyboard synths that ranged from novelty small consumer-electronics keyboards with a few pre-programmed sounds (“piano,” “saxophone,” etc.) to fully professional units.  During the 1980s, toward the end of the synth guitar debacle, Casio introduced a number of very interesting guitars.  One was a sort of toy version with a touch-sensitive fingerboard and plastic strings, programmed sounds, and even a built-in amp and speaker, though you could output the sound to a real amp.  The other was this guitar, which was a serious attempt at making a MIDI guitar controller.

1988 Casio MG-500 MIDI Guitar

Like the Roland (and Ibanez) attempts at making a guitar synth, the Casio electronics were mounted on a guitar made by Fujigen.  While the first Roland guitar synths were put on a “normal” guitar, the concept quickly evolved that a guitar synth should feature an “exotic” shape.  To be fair, guitars moving into the 1980s favored unconventional guitar shapes.  “New Wave” guitarists like Andy Summers of the Police championed the minimalist Steinberger, while Heavy Metal bands liked Flying Vees, Explorers and even more “non-Spanish” shapes.  So if you were going to be controlling whooshes and chinkles, you needed a guitar that didn’t look like a conventional guitar.

The 1988 Casio MG-500 was very similar to guitars made for Roland and Ibanez.  It was basically like a Strat with all the extraneous wood shaved off.  It had a humbucker and two single-coil pickups like most contemporary “Superstrats.”  It had a “traditional” vibrato.  One of the early problems of guitar synths was that guitarists liked to use the wang bar but MIDI signals had to be precise.  By the time of the MG-500 this technical limitation had been solved.  The MG-500 was the first guitar synth to put the MIDI converter right on the guitar.  You could choose to play just regular guitar, just MIDI, or blend the two, or add in an octave line.  It had a regular 1/4-inch jack and a 5-pin MIDI jack.

The Casio MG-500 was a mind-boggling feat of electronic engineering.  That a guitar could have this sort of functionality is astounding.  

Well, it turns out I wasn’t so unusual in being befuddled by MIDI technology.  A fiveway switch and a few mini-toggles turn out to be about our limit.  There was almost no market for MIDI guitars.  The Casio MG-500 was one of the last MIDI guitars to be produced. Roland continued to make aftermarket MIDI convertors you could mount on your guitar, and, for a time, Fender produced some special-order Strats so equipped.  But Disco was long-gone by this time, and the Seattle Sound and Pearl Jam were just around the corner.  While they eschewed heavy metal solos, they did play guitars and there was no reason to be scared.

As I write these words, guitars are under threat again.  “Pop music” is dominated by producer-assembled “beats” and singers sound good through the application of digital auto-tuners.  Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m ready with my MIDI guitars…  No, I don’t think so.

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

1988 Casio MG-500 MIDI Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

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

EKO guitars were almost archetypically “’60s” guitars.  Cool colors, cool shapes.  And not expensive.  They were the stuff of garage-band dreams, at least before Japanese guitars dominated the budget guitar market.  But, if you’ve ever had much experience with EKOs, you know they were not especially durable, probably because, in the rush to meet the endless demand for guitars back then, the woods weren’t always all that well seasoned.  Thus I was really surprised when I walked into Cintioli’s Music in Northeast Philadelphia and found a batch of relatively upscale EKOs…from the 1980s!  What’s up with that?!

EKO guitars were made by Oliviero Pigini & Company of Recanati, Italy, just north of Castelfidardo.  Castelfidardo was and is pretty much the center of the accordion manufacturing trade, which arrived there—according to legend—in the 1880s.  Accordions as in “piano accordions,” with a full keyboard, not the older, little button types.  Piano accordions came to the U.S. during the early 20^th Century, mainly played by Italians.  Fast-forward to the early 1950s when there was a major fad for accordion playing, perhaps due to the popularity of the Lawrence Welk Show on television beginning in 1951.  Accordion manufacturers in Italy (and elsewhere) ramped up production and accordion distributors and music studios proliferated throughout the U.S., including the LoDuca Brothers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which became the exclusive American distributor of Pigini-made accordions.

1982 EKO CX-7 Artist-T CU

At its peak, the LoDucas operated a whole chain of music studios and had large orchestras of youngsters all playing squeezeboxes.  Alas, the fad was short-lived, as fads often are, and by the mid-1950s the bottom had dropped out of the accordion market.  What to do?  It was hard times for both manufacturers and importers.

After a number of false starts, the situation was solved by the Folk Revival of the late 1950s, when the next fad—this time for acoustic guitars—began.   Many of the Italian (and other) accordion makers began to add guitar production (or began sourcing guitars from guitar specialty houses).  This included Oliviero Pigini, who began making acoustic guitars carrying the EKO brand name.

The LoDuca Brothers, who had a relationship with Sears, Roebuck and Co. just down the road in Chicago began selling EKO acoustics to the big catalog retailer.  EKO guitars were on their way.  Electrics debuted around 1963, those nifty plastic-covered jobs.  Accordion makers, after all, were pretty skilled at wrapping plastic over their products.

EKO guitars had a pretty good run in the U.S. during the 1960s until the Japanese challenge began to triumph by around 1968 or so.  To be honest, demand for guitars in general began to fall off by that time, and rising European wages began to make their guitars more expensive, increasingly favoring Japanese products.  Plus, Pigini, who loved fast sports cars, got himself killed in an accident about this time.  EKO guitars were pretty much out of the scene by the 1970s.

I wasn’t really aware of EKO guitars during the 1960s until I met my wife, who had been conned into buying an acoustic EKO.  It was totally unplayable with a thick polyurethane finish and about ¾” action.  I did what I could to help, but there was no way, given my admittedly uneducated luthier skills at the time.  EKO guitars didn’t exactly get off on the right foot with me.

Fast-forward again and I became a guitar historian, met some of the LoDuca clan, and acquired a number of cool EKO electrics.  They were better than my wife’s acoustic, but had their share of problems.  Sixties relics.

Then I walked into Bennie Cintioli’s shop in the 1990s.  Cintioli’s was a major local music store back when such things were locally owned, not part of a national Guitar Center chain.  Cintioli’s had been there forever and I pulled many a treasure out of its unsold basement hoards.  

I don’t recall how I first encountered the EKO, but I think they had discovered it in the basement and put it out on the counter as a curiosity.  I took one look and it was a no-brainer.  But what was it?

Turns out that EKO had gotten into the “copy” scene during the 1970s, but most of their guitars were sold in Europe and elsewhere, but not the U.S.  By the end of the 1970s they had become mainly a small “custom shop,” taking small orders from small-scale importers.  Including Benny.

I don’t think the guitars Benny Cintioli imported were designed by him.  More like he picked a few models to sell at his shop.  These included this EKO CX-7 Artist/T that was made in 1982.  I love the dark-stained pine body and set-in neck.  The brass nut, 2-octave fingerboard, and DiMarzio humbuckers were typical for the time.  This was made just as locking vibratos were coming on the market, but didn’t have one yet.  This is extremely light-weight and a really hot guitar, not at all what you’d expect from and EKO.

Shortly after this guitar was imported by Cintioli’s the craze for weird-shaped metal guitars and then SuperStrats began.  These cool EKOs were obsolete, and Benny had an unsold supply in the basement.  Right after this guitar appeared, EKO went bankrupt and that was the end of the story.  To the end, EKO was the stuff of garage band dreams!

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Mama’s Got (No) Squeezebox: 1982 EKO CX-7 Artist/T from MyRareGuitars.com

Guest blogger Michael Wright writes about a very rare, early Teisco guitar. Or, should we say… “guiter”?

For many, many years—can you say “Still today?”—any electric guitar that smelled of being made in Japan (or not obviously American) was labeled as being “made by Teisco.”  This was the equivalent of the labelling of any mysterious American guitar—can you say “Still today?”—as being “made by Regal.”  I admit this intellectual disingenuousness was one of the strong motivators that propelled me into exploring the nooks and crannies of guitar history way back when.  Well, the guitar seen here really was made by Teisco, and very early on.

Thankfully these days there’s a lot more information available to anyone interested in finding out the Plain Truth about where their guitar came from thanks to the efforts of a few intrepid historians and (however much you might hate them) Google.  I made some preliminary contributions with my writing, and Japanese publications like Bizarre Guitars (you need a copy if you like this subject) and Frank Meyers’ recent work help make identifying Japanese guitars much easier, if not yet infallible.  

To be honest, the subject is awfully complex.  Japanese guitar-makers were always allied with various Trading Companies, who were sort of the business bosses, often intertwined through marriages, etc.  Parts might be made by various suppliers within a network and go to different workshops, so things like pickups are not necessarily exclusive to a given brand (unlike, say, a Gibson PAF).  Plus, through the 1970s Japanese Trading Companies made guitars for domestic consumption using their own brand names (which may or may not have been the name of the shop that made it; eg, FujiGen Gakki made Fuji, Greco, and Ibanez guitars, among others) and made guitars for foreign customers either with a different brand name or a name owned by the importer/distributor (which may or may not identify the importing company!).  It’s enough to make your head swim (although it does provide a lot of work for amateur guitar historians).

Teisco J-5 body

Teisco J-5 headstockTeisco was one of the rare Japanese brands that, like Gibson or Rickenbacker, reflected the factory that made the instruments and got exported with that badge.  To be sure, Teisco also made guitars with other names, as well.  But as far as I know, no Teisco guitars were made by anyone but Teisco, except for at the end when they were owned by Kawai and the Teisco plant was closed down in the early ‘70s.  Like I said, it’s complicated!

It gets worse.  You might expect that in a country such as Japan the names and logos on domestic would be in Japanese orthography.  But no, they’re mostly in English, even guitars that weren’t made for export.  You see, there was this little thing called World War II, which Japan lost, followed by the Allied Occupation.  That meant that “domestic consumption” included thousands of English speaking GIs from various countries who were a prime target market.  Indeed, the guitar seen here very likely got to the U.S., where I bought it much later, in the hands of an American GI.

This is a pretty cool guitar, probably made around 1961.  While some of it is primitive, quite a bit of work went into making this guitar.  The neck is mahogany glued into a solid maple body.  It’s called an “Electric Guiter,” spelling error forgiven.  As is the name “Guitar Mike” for the pickups!  The neck is pretty hefty to compensate for no truss rod.  The moveable bridge at first seems like a joke, but then Harmony and Kay used similar designs, and a moveable bridge is not as funny as a fixed bridge in the wrong position!  There’s no pickup selector, but two volume controls with a master tone are actually pretty effective.  I actually like sharp high end of these pickups, although, like almost all early Japanese pickups, they can be fairly microphonic if you like to move around a lot.  To paraphrase the television ad aimed at Seniors, “Just don’t move.”

Teisco J-5

Teisco J-5 , back

I don’t think these early Teisco guitars are all that common.  This really dates from before Jack Westheimer added the “del Rey” to the brand name and began importing them.  By the mid-1960s Teisco del Reys had become pretty ubiquitous.

It’s easy to scoff at these early Japanese designs (although if you like Eastwoods and Airlines, you probably wouldn’t scoff), but back in the early ‘60s what an electric guitar was wasn’t always so well defined.  Or, maybe it was, but just by the big American guitar companies.  Now with hindsight we can appreciate the finer points of this early Japanese design.  Probably not so good for heavy metal but great for Ventures or Byrds tunes (as long as someone plays a 12).  And, for sure, it was really made by Teisco, whatever anyone else says!

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

“It’s a Teisco…Really”: 1961 Teisco J-5 Electric “Guiter” from MyRareGuitars.com

While I consider myself to be a “guitar player,” I actually had a blues-rock band back in 1967 for which I also played bass (Hagstrom) and keyboards (Farfissa).  I wasn’t particularly noteworthy on either.  To be honest, I pretty much played them both like guitars.  The good news is I never got into collecting basses or keyboards.  Unless, that is, they were exceptionally interesting, like Westone’s short-lived The Rail.  How could you not like The Rail!  

The Rail was kind of a perfect reflection of the time it was made, in the mid-1980s.  Now, electric guitars have always had an element of “style” about them.  The fact that they make sound by use of an electronic pickup instead of an acoustic sound box frees them from certain physical restrictions.  As cool as a cigar-box guitar might look, it’s never going to sound as good as that classic Spanish figure-8 shape of an acoustic guitar that’s evolved over centures.  But once you shift the responsibility for making noise to an electronic circuit, you do whatever you want with the rest—or at least with the body.  And that puts you squarely within the realm of style!  The kind of image you want to project when you play guitar determines what kind of axe you’re going to sling.

Prior to the ‘80s styles of electric guitars came and went, of course, but there was something homogenous about guitar styles.  Strats were popular this year, Les Pauls were in the next.  With notable outliers on occasion, like the 1967 LaBaye 2×4!

But as the 1980s dawned, guitar styles—just like popular music styles—began to proliferate, to fragment.  Heavy metal was on the rise and with it a taste for exotic guitar shapes, pointy guitars like Flying Vees even more non-Spanish shapes (to go with the wild hairdos).  Companies like Ibanez, Aria, St. Louis Music, even Fender all introduced pointy guitars in various outre shapes.

For players in a more conventional frame of mind, this period saw the emergence of the Super-Strat, a Strat-style guitar with hybrid electronics combining a lead humbucker with two single-coils and, eventually, a locking vibrato system.

On the opposite end of the spectrum were New Wave bands with slick, tightly arranged pop tunes.  For these groups—like The Police—their style was enhanced by the understated look of minimalist guitars.  This was the era that saw the emergence of headless guitars and basses by Ned Steinberger and others, favored by The Police’s Andy Summers.  Kramer had its Duke.  St. Louis Music had The Rail.

The Westone Rail appeared just as St. Louis Music (SLM) was transitioning to a new brand name.  During the “copy era” of the 1970s, SLM’s Japanese-made electric guitars were branded with the Electra name.  The Electra name continued into the early 1980s.  Most of those guitars were made by the legendary Matsumoku factory in Matsumoto City.  Around the beginning of the decade Matsumoku began marketing its own brand of electric guitars called Westone.  For reasons unknown, the decision was taken to consolidate the Westone brand name with St. Louis Music.  In 1984 the separate Westone line went away and SLM’s guitars became Electra-Westone, ending up just Westone in 1985.  

It was with this transition to Westone in 1985 that SLM entered headless sweepstakes with The Rail, the Super Headless Bass, and the Quantum bass.  The Super Headless Bass had a cool, slim, bi-level offset double cutaway with a headless neck.  The Quantum bass had a sculpted minimalist body looking somewhat like a space cruiser out of Star Wars.  Both these had twin humbuckers.

Of all these The Rail X800 was, to me, the most interesting.  Instead of two humbuckers, The Rail put two pieces of hard maple on either end to two specially tuned stainless steel tubes.  Then it placed a third piece of wood mounted with a single Magnaflux RB pickup onto the rails.  The idea was that instead of two fixed points (neck and bridge), you could fine-tune your tone on a spectrum by sliding the pickup back and forth between those two set points.  The knob on the top is a quick-release tension screw to hold the pickup unit in place.  The only electronic control is a master volume.  Add to that the fine-tuners at the butt-end, and everything is right there under your plucking fingers.

The scale on these was 32.5” with a two-octave fingerboard.

The first Rails were produced in a satin black finish.  In 1986 the line was expanded to include the X800RD in red and the X800SW seen here in white.  The list price on these was $565 with a gig bag.

Since I’m not really a bass player, I can’t really opine about how effective this design is.  Give the geography of the string length between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge, the moveable pickup gives you the equivalent of about 3-1/2 pickups.  I don’t know how much of that is useful from a tonal perspective.  Plus, you have to think about what position the pickup should be in before you start to play.  On a traditional instrument, you just have to throw a switch, which you can do in between beats!

I never played this bass much, but I did used to take a headless Steinberger copy with us on vacations down to the Jersey Shore; it was a great travel guitar that fit in the corner of my car trunk.  But I always found my left hand slipping off the end of the fingerboard because I couldn’t get used to playing with no headstock…

I don’t know how popular these were back in the day, but interestingly this example has a serial number of “5.”  That suggests that the catalog claim of “Limited Production” is probably accurate!  I think I’ve only seen one other of these over the years.  It didn’t help that the Matsumoku factory closed down in 1987.

The rage for headless instruments had pretty good staying power, lasting pretty much through the ‘80s.  Steinbergers and others continued to be made, and I recently noticed there’s at least one dealer who specializes in headless instruments.  But with the ‘90s came Nirvana and the “alternative” Seattle sound that more was anti-style than anything else.  Still, you gotta admire the chutzpah of The Rail bass, whether you’re a bass player or not!

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

A Bass With Style: 1986 Westone The Rail from MyRareGuitars.com

Guest blogger Michael Wright takes a look at an Eighties rarity – the O’Hagan Nightwatch. It’s more than a SG/Melody Maker lookalike, you know…

To guitar lovers, the O’Hagan name will probably always and forever be attached to the legendary O’Hagan Shark, a kind of elongated Explorer with a big tail fin (which we discussed here a few years back).  But Jerrel O’Hagan built other guitar models including the Nightwatch, which came in a roughly “Les Paul”-shaped single-cutaway model and a roughly “SG”-inspired Double Cutaway model seen here.

1981 O’Hagan Nightwatch Double cutaway

As I’ve said on previous occasions, one of the coolest things about being a guitar historian is that I get to track down people like Jerry O’Hagan, interview them, and rescue their recollections…while they’re still with us.  Alas, I’ve missed a few folks through slow reactions over the years.  But I did catch Jerry on the telephone many years ago, although I don’t recall how I connected with him.

Jerrel O’Hagan was a clarinetist who found himself working as a rep for a regional music distributor up in Minnesota during the 1970s, chiefly handling imported Japanese guitars.  Unfortunately, his employer wasn’t one of the mega-distributors, so he could never be sure of getting a steady supply of instruments—bigger orders always got filled first.

1981 O’Hagan Nightwatch Double Cutaway HS

O’Hagan briefly imported his own line of Grande acoustic guitars from Japan in around 1975-77, but the market for acoustic guitars for singer-songwriters was moving on to harder rock ‘n’ roll.  That’s when the idea came to him: why couldn’t reasonably priced electric guitars be made in the U.S. of A.?  And, anyway, this craze for foreign-made guitars was bound to pass anytime soon, right?  O’Hagan’s market analysis skills weren’t his strong suit.

In 1978 Jerrel O’Hagan set up the Jemar Corporation in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, to produce solidbody electric guitars.  The first guitar was the aforementioned O’Hagan Shark.  That was a neck-through-body beauty—neck-through guitars by the likes of Alembic and B.C. Rich were just beginning to penetrate the guitar-playing world—that looked a little goofy but was actually a swell, well-balanced guitar.  This was the time, you’ll recall, that other Midwesterners were also starting specialty guitar companies, including Hamer, Dean and others.  The Shark hit the market in 1979.  

The Shark, which was heavily promoted in Guitar Player advertising, was moderately successful, enough to encourage O’Hagan to introduce new models, including the Nightwatch single- and double-cutaway models in either late 1979 or early 1980.  While certainly not as exotic as the Shark, O’Hagan’s Nightwatch models proved to be much more acceptable to average guitar players, many of whom can be pretty conservative in their tastes.  

The Nightwatch Double Cutaway seen here is a 1981 done up in a funky blueburst finish.  The “sunburst” finish goes back at least to the 1930s when it was known as an “antique violin” finish, and it’s become one of the standard, prized finishes.  But it got a really weird twist in the late 1960s when Fender botched the finishes on some Coronados.  They managed to salvage the mistake by coming up with the opaque “Antigua” refin, a sort of dark brown to tan sunburst.  It wasn’t too successful.  Fender brought the Antigua finish back in around 1977, transposed into a grey scale.  Gibson picked up on this in 1978 and introduced a greyburst Les Paul, which was put on a number of Gibson models into the early 1980s.  This was apparently moderately popular and a number of guitar companies came up with copies and variations on this opaque, often metallic “’burst.”  The O’Hagan blueburst was one of those variations.

This is a neck-through body guitar, but otherwise pretty conventional.  It has a pair of DiMarzio pickups with two volumes and one tone control.  The brass nut was the cat’s pajamas back in the day, believed to add sustain.  The basic Nightwatch cost around $450 with a $90 upcharge for the special blueburst finish.  The Nightwatch models were by far the most popular O’Hagan models.  The Nightwatch was a straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll machine, not particularly flexible, but a pretty darned good guitar.

Legendary O’Hagan Shark

O’Hagan added several other models to its line, including a V and a bizarre Strat, but by 1983 an economic recession, some dissatisfied investors, some distribution issues, and a big bank note came calling.  Followed by the I.R.S.  The dark of night fell over the O’Hagan Nightwatch and everything else.  Jerry got out of the guitar business and into the jazz orchestra game.

About 3,000 O’Hagan guitars were made from 1979-83, not especially rare, but not especially plentiful, either.  The bluebursts were special orders, so this would be a much smaller subset.  Plus, DiMarzio pickups were only used in 1981, giving this a pretty small production window.  Still, you’d probably rather swim with an O’Hagan Shark!

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Blueburst Fantasy: 1981 O’Hagan Nightwatch Double Cutaway from MyRareGuitars.com

Peavey T-15 guitar – sunburst

I was talking to my buddy – a professional blues player – a great player who has an impeccable ear for tone, telling him about my new (well, used…but new to me) really outstanding amp, a Peavey Delta Blues. He said to me, “you lost me when you used Peavey and Blues in the same sentence.” And while I could have gone on about some of the southern blues players that, in fact, did and still do use Peaveys (both guitars and amps), I kept my mouth shut. I could have even gone into a minor history lesson about Lynyrd Skynyrd using the very powerful and tuneful competition for the 70’s Fender Twin Reverbs – the Peavey Mace (with SIX 6L6 power tubes inspiring all those Zippos to flame up every night during “Free Bird”).

But if you think many guitar players’ reaction to Peavey amps is dismissive, just try selling them on the brilliant (Yes. Brilliant. There. I said it.) T-Series of Peavey guitars (many made from the late 70’s-mid 80’s, though most dying a quiet death in the early 80’s). At best, you may get a chuckle that suggests you know nothing. Or a comment about how ugly they are (not an uncommon thought…and actually, with some models, perhaps the most valid criticism of the series). Or even an incredulous reaction: “Are you kidding? Peavey? Peavey guitars? Please.”

But why this reaction to Peavey guitar equipment? Especially the guitars themselves. So long as we’re not talking about an abomination like the pink Adrian Vandenberg signature model of the late 80’s…ouch. Yes…Peavey deserved all mocking and humiliation for that clunker.

One of my main theories for why Peavey is taken most seriously for their PA’s and audio equipment, and at times very seriously for their amps, and almost not seriously at all for their guitars (especially, paradoxically and oddly, for what is their classic period when they were making as good or better guitars than either Fender or Gibson) is for one unfortunate reason: they had almost no recognition at the time as a guitar builder. And they committed a cardinal sin in the guitar business: they were (and still are, for many players) pretty uncool and, at best, aesthetically boring. No way to get a new line of guitars off the ground.

Peavey T-15 and some better-known models

And while we guitar players tend to think we are somewhat radical and hardly conservative, consumers in the guitar market are like consumers in most other markets – they go with brand names they know other people think highly of. And in the late 70’s, that meant—more or less—Fender and Gibson. Even if those companies were producing, it is now widely agreed, some of the worst instruments they have ever made.

Of course, this is an oversimplification—the very existence of Eastwood Guitars points to the fact that there is a market for guitar players who want to stand out from the Strat, Tele, and Les Paul crowd. But, I’d argue, that market was pretty much absent in the late 70’s. It’s only over the last 15-20 years that we have seen a steady growth of interest in some of the most interesting and wild guitars of the 60’s.

The Rare Guitars Revival

The (steadily over the last fifteen/twenty years) increasing interest in Harmonys, Danos, Valcos, some of the best Kays, and others has been caused, I’d argue, by a two-prong desire among guitar players:

1. As vintage Fenders and Gibsons—and brands Guild, Gretsch, and Epiphones and others—started to skyrocket in price, players on a limited budget still wanted to get their hands on a piece of guitar history and vintage gear. And,
2. Players discovered (or rediscovered, as many baby boomers first instruments were affordable 60’s models) that a lot of these budget/catalog guitars from the garage boom of the mid 60’s just happened to be pretty great guitars.

And they were—and this is not to be minimized—cool. In 1979, just about everyone was playing a guitar by a major company. And many of these were the traditional, yet boring designs that hadn’t changed much from the 1950’s.

Even before players such as Jack White brought his radical, funky red resolglass Airline to the masses, you’d had a quiet, yet growing groundswell of underground 80’s and 90’s bands playing inexpensive guitars that are now classics—but were, at the time—simply affordable, weird guitars that set them apart from mainstream bands. Hey, if your band wasn’t mainstream, why play a mainstream guitar? This was even true of some of the higher profile players/bands, with people like Elvis Costello and Tom Verlaine and Steve Wynn dusting off Jazzmasters—which, by the late 70’s, were considered pawn shop crud. Or, if not crud, hardly a guitar that had been by far Fender’s most expensive guitar in the 1963 catalog. By comparison, Strat was very fairly priced (by comparison…it was still pricey for the day), and Teles and Esquires (not to mention, later, Mustangs) were positively relatively cheap.

But even lower on the food chain were the Airlines, the Silvertones, the Harmonys, the Danos. In the early 80’s, Karl Precoda used a Silvertone-branded Harmony H78 (with a missing middle goldfoil) on the Dream Syndicate’s classic The Days of Wine and Roses, an album that was widely praised at the time for bringing back long and aggressive duel guitar to underground rock—with a band that owed more to, say, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Velvet Underground than to any South Bay Hardcore. All of this with Precoda’s feedback-laden killer tone out of his Harmony.  East Bay Ray, from the Dead Kennedys, was famous for using off-brand guitars, often seen with then forgotten/unknown various Valco/Airline resoglass models over a decade before Jack White hit the national stage. No one was like him in bands of the time.

And then perhaps the band who perhaps most single-handedly showed their audience a plethora of cool 1960’s rare and funky and (at the time) forgotten guitars: Anton Newcome’s hollowbody Vox Cheetah he uses this day…over the years, he’s also used a Silvertone 1454L (the Silvertone model number for the Harmony/Airline H78—one of Eastwood great Airline reissues), Vox 12 strings…while brilliant former lead guitar player Jeff Davies was seen on stage with Hagstroms and Harmonys, and sometime bassist/sometime guitarist Matt Hollywood was often seen with a two pickup Rocket.

Brian Jonestown Massacre, dusting off vintage guitars…

Peavey T-Series

But, back to the Peaveys of the early 80’s. In some ways, picking a guitar (at least in part…no one plays a piece of crap just because it looks radical and unique) because it looks cool seems like a pretty shallow reason for picking you main/stage guitar. Because it is.

Still, I can understand why players might have shied away from the T-Series at first. The flagship and top of the line, the T-60, is a pretty unattractive guitar. While some people who LOVE them tend to say things on forums like, “it’s so ugly, it’s beautiful.” And while there are some people who do actually think the T-60 is a good looking guitar, they are in the vast minority. And remember, these are on forums for people who absolutely love these guitars. The general guitar playing public, if they are at all familiar with the T-60, tend to think of them as pretty uninspired designs at best, and pretty damn ugly at worst.

Peavey T-60: ugly, or so-ugly-it’s-beautiful?

But the T-Series was built in a way that revolutionized the guitar making industry. Peavey was the first to construct necks with a computerized copy lathe. By using computers, every neck came out exactly the same for the first time in guitar making history. This is now used throughout the guitar industry. This technology also allowed Peavey to produce guitars that were at least the equal to the quality of Fender and Gibson, yet significantly lower their production costs.

In 1978 (the first year of the T-60’s production), these were the prices of Fender’s Strat, Gibson’s Les Paul, and Peavey’s T-60:

Les Paul: Nearly $1,000

Stratocaster: $790

T-60: $375

And maybe that was another problem for Peavey. Maybe guitarists had the perception that a guitar that sold for so much less couldn’t possibly be the equal of the big names. But that simply wasn’t true (even if they weren’t nearly as good looking).

But the best—or most compelling and surprising—guitar in the T Series may be the T-15. This was a guitar that Peavey marketed as a beginner’s guitar, or a professional guitar for “players with smaller hands.” It’s become known over the years as the “Mississippi Mustang”—a reference, obviously, to Fender’s much more famous short scale classic—the Mustang.

Peavey T-15 in sunburst

The Fender Mustang had/has a 24” scale and a fast, comfortable neck that not only makes single note runs easy to speed up, but also offers a comfortable reach for more complex chords than many longer scale guitars allow and, lastly, makes bending easier up and down the neck. 

If you’re a player who enjoys playing the Mustang’s 24” scale, you might well love the T-15’s 23.5” scale. This, combined with a thin, flat, very fast neck, makes for an ease of playing that’s hard to describe. I’ve never player another guitar quite like it. It not only allows all of the benefits I mention above with the Mustang, but it makes double country bends enormously easy once you get used to the effortlessness of the bends. It may be why the guitar found early popularity with country players—with its ability to lend itself to complex country pedal steel-like bends. I have fallen in love with the 23.5” scale—which happens to be very rare and the same scale as the Gibson Byrdland (a short scale that’s also a favorite of Ted Nugent, which I pray is the only thing he and I have in common with the exception that we are both carbon based life forms).

Though, while the whole T Series of Peaveys first found the majority of their players in the country field, the T-15 is becoming more and more popular in indie rock. Some of the big reasons for this could be the one of a kind Peavey Super Ferrite pickups, which sound like a powerful cross between P90’s and some of the twang of a bridge Tele. But they have a sound all their own. Peavey also has the nice feature of there being no treble loss when you roll off the volume knob—the guitar keeps its tone no matter how low you roll off the volume.

Peavey T-15 in natural

Other features of the guitar are a three way pickup switch and a single tone and volume knob that controls both pickups. There’s a metal nut much like some of the classic Danelectros, which is nice because they never seem to wear down like many of the plastic ones that need to be replaced after many years of work. And while some of the higher end models, like the T-60, are famous for their excessive weight (some are reported to weigh more than a Les Paul—though the colored and sunburst ones supposedly weigh less than the more common natural wood finish), the T-15 is a very light and comfortable instrument. It, too, came most often in a natural wood finish, with much more rare versions made in both sunburst and walnut. According to Peavey’s literature at the time, the T-15’s body is made of “southern hardwood” whatever that might exactly be. The radius is 12”. And the neck is made of hard rock maple. It all adds up to a first-rate guitar. A Mississippi Mustang, indeed.

Lastly, while most of the T-15’s came with Peavey’s custom fit plastic cases, some (hardly all, but some) came with a 10 watt solid state amplifier in/with the case—harkening back to the classic Silvertone (made by Dano) Amp-in-Case of the 60’s.  The better one, of course, being the one that came with the two pickup 1457. Complete with a deep tremolo and a great tube sound driven by a single 6V6. While the T-15’s Peavey solid state amplifier hardly comes close to the greatness of the Silvertone Amp-in-Case, it does have some beautiful cleans and serviceable overdrive. But it’s hardly the same, even if it’s a cool and nostalgic feature.

For now, the T-15’s are still pretty affordable for such a great, professional grade guitar. They play like butter, and they have pickups like you’ve never heard, but will want to her a lot more once you do. Grab one before the price starts going up. The T-60’s have already been discovered. Grab the T-15 while you can.   

– guest article by Rob Roberge.

WATCH: PEAVEY T-15 DEMO 

Peavey T-15: the “Mississippi Mustang” from MyRareGuitars.com

David Bowie has had many different faces and personas over the years, but, surprisingly, one has been overlooked by most – David Bowie, the guitarist. In a way, it’s not very surprisingly, considering he was far from being a guitar hero, and, most importantly, has collaborated with some truly stellar guitarists who contributed greatly to his music, including: Mick Ronson, Carlos Alomar, Earl Slick, Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Nile Rodgers and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Quite an impressive list!

Which Guitars Did David Bowie Play?

Though not primarily a guitarist, Bowie had a consistent taste for vintage, rare guitars and his choice of instrument often changed with his ever-changing musical directions. Here’s a guide to some of his most notable guitars. We usually talk about electric guitars, but in Bowie’s case we can’t help but mention a few acoustics, too… after all, he was a huge fan of 12-string acoustic models, throughout his career! In any case – Bowie was a true connoisseur, and his choice of guitars over the years is nothing short of fascinating! 

Here’s Bowie’s career – in 20 rare, amazing guitars.

1) Framus 12-String Acoustic (1965-66)

Of course, many of you will know that Bowie started his musical career as a saxophone player, and then became the frontman of different bands (The Mannish Boys, The Lower Third) but never playing a guitar. This pic of an young David Jones with a Framus 12-string  is the earliest photograph of Bowie with a guitar.

David Bowie circa 1965-66 with Framus 12-string 

According to Bowie biographer Paul Trynka, Bowie bought a guitar in late 1965. Considering Bowie’s well-documented taste for 12-string acoustics in later years, it’s fair to assume that the Framus in the photograph was indeed his first guitar, though there has never been any specific information about it. It’s interesting to note that his guitar had pickup, volume and tone controls – perhaps it was modded and bought second-hand by the still struggling Bowie. Little trivia: the guitar was redburst. 

Playing guitar was an important step in David Bowie’s career, as he started to use the instrument to compose songs, such as “Maid Of Bond Street” and his first true classic, “Can’t Help Thinking About Me”.

2) Gibson B45 12-String (1968-69)

Bowie performing with Feathers

After the commercial failure of his 1967 debut album, Bowie tried other directions, including joining Lindsey Kemp’s mime troup, buddhism and forming folky trio Feathers with his girlfriend Hermione Farthingale and John Hutchinson. During this period, Bowie used a Gibson B-45 12-string acoustic.

Gibson B-45, as played by David Bowie

He’s never been seen or photographed with this guitar again, after the end of Feathers. We actually believe this is the first time this guitar has ever been mentioned in relation to Bowie, as we couldn’t find anything else elsewhere. Well, now you know!

3) Hagstrom 12-String Acoustic (1969-1972)

Bowie live at the Beckenham Free Festival in 1969, with his Hagstrom.

This is perhaps Bowie’s most legendary guitar. It’s believed it’s the one he used to write his first hit, ‘Space Oddity’, as well as used live and to write most ‘Ziggy Stardust’-era songs, including ‘Starman’.

Curiously enough, the guitar is now on display at the ‘Beatles Story’ museum, in Liverpool. At some point, it seems to have had pickup and tone & volume controls added to it, though it’s not shown with this configuration in any Bowie photos.

David Bowie’s Hagstrom on display in Liverpool.

4) Espana 12-String Acoustic (1969)

Bowie and his Espana 12-string

This guitar was used on a famous promo shot for the ‘Space Oddity’ single, but strangely enough, there’s not a whole lot info about it. It might have been used just as a prop for the photograph. It looks very similar to the Hagstrom 12-string, and it could indeed be the one he’s using in other pics and footage, but it’s hard to be sure!

5) Guild 12-String Acoustic (1971)

David Bowie live in 1971 with Guild 12-string

When David Bowie toured the US for the first time, to promote ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ in 1971, he could be seen playing a Guild 12-string acoustic. There’s no report or pics of him using one before or since, so he probably just borrowed it for the tour.

6) Harptone 12-string (1972-83)

Bowie and his Ziggy-era Harptone 12-string

This Harptone 12-string is “the” Ziggy-era Bowie acoustic. He used it when touring with the Spiders From Mars and this guitar can be seen on most footage from the era. 

Curiously enough, it seems Bowie decided to dust it off years later, after the release of Let’s Dance, as this live pic suggests:

Eighties Bowie meets Ziggy-era acoustic.

7) Harptone 12-String Jumbo (1972-75)

Bowie Harptone 12 Jumbo

Many people don’t realise this, but Bowie also regularly used ANOTHER Harptone 12-string, which at first sight looks similar to the previous one, but you’ll notice that it has a different scratchplate and is also bigger. He used this model on the second, Ziggy-era “Space Oddity” video; during the Ziggy tour and up until the Young Americans- era.

8) Egmond 12-String, Blue (1972)

Bowie and his blue Egmond.

This is one of Bowie’s most important guitars – if not for anything else, simply for being the guitar he used on the watershed moment of his career – playing “Starman” on Top Of The Pops, which finally launched Bowie as a bona fide popstar in the UK! He also used the Egmond on a few promo shots, and that seems to be about it.

9) Vox Teardrop Mark XII 12-String (1972)

There’s no record of Bowie using this cool Vox guitar other than in 1972, for promo pics. Years later, he used a Vox Teardrop Mark VI for the recording of one of his best songs in the Eighties, ‘Absolute Beginners’. The guitar is now on display at the Hard Rock Cafe in Warsaw. There’s no photo of him and this guitar, though.

10) Gibson 1972 Deluxe Les Paul (1972)

David Bowie and a Gibson Les Paul

David Bowie was always very conscious about his image and symbolism. That’s why he posed with a borrowed Les Paul on the cover of the “Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars” album – to show the world he was now a tougher, “rock’n’roll” act.  Maybe for this reason, he was up for using a Les Paul during his 1972 USA tour.

Presented to Bowie by Gibson, he used it live and on the ‘Jean Genie’ promo film. But given his more esoteric tastes in guitars, it’s not surprising that it soon became Mick Ronson’s back up guitar, never to be used by Bowie again. 

11) Hagstrom I Kent PB- 24-G (1974)

Now we’re talking! The red Hagstrom I Kent PB-24G guitar was Bowie’s first truly iconic electric guitar, which Eastwood Guitars are now bringing back – check it out HERE.

Though many fans will recognise and love it, this guitar was only used in promo shots for his ‘Diamond Dogs’ album, and there’s no record of him ever using it elsewhere, apart from a TV appearance:

As most hardcore Bowie fans may know, he played most guitar parts on the ‘Diamond Dogs’ album, but according to those who worked with him, his guitar choice during the sessions was a Dan Armstrong plexiglass model – which he’s never been pictured with… a shame! Unless, those recollections are slightly wrong and they really meant the next guitar…

12) Dan Armstrong 341 (1976)

Bowie’s Dan Armstrong 341

Yes, David Bowie had for sure another Dan Armstrong guitar, but it was not a plexiglass model! Auctioned in 1991, this is an important guitar. Besides featuring on a famous pic used for the Sound + Vision compilation, it was also used to write one of Bowie’s finest albums. According to Bowie, in ’91: “I’ve had this Dan Armstrong guitar since the early 70s. I wrote most of the songs for Station to Station on it.” Considering the cronology, it may have been used on ‘Diamond Dogs’, too.

13) Custom Fender Telecaster, Natural (1976)

Bowie and a customized Fender Telecaster

During the tour to promote ‘Station To Station’, Bowie played a custom Fender Telecaster, with 3 pickups with individual on/off switches. A pretty cool guitar, never seen since.

14) Fender Stratocaster, Red and Sunburst (1977)

Bowie and his Red Strat

Two  more conventional choices, during Bowie’s least conventional period! In 1977 Bowie could be seen playing a red Stratocaster for the ‘Be My Wife’ promo, one of the most commercial tracks from ‘Low’, which became a single. 

Bowie was also spotted playing a sunburst Strat that same year, for his duet with Marc Bolan, on Bolan’s TV show. This guitar belonged to Marc, who gave it to Bowie as he turned up without one on the day!

David Bowie with a Strat and Marc Bolan.

15) Gibson L4, Black (1989-90)

Bowie and his Gibson L4

Owned and used by David Bowie in the studio, on stage and while on tour with Tin Machine, accompanied by a Sound + Vision tour program showing Bowie playing this guitar, a signed letter of authenticity from Reeves Grabels and guitar picks. The guitar can be seen in videos for the Tin Machine 1 album, in Music News reports and was used heavily in the studio for the recording of Tin Machine II. 

16) Gibson Chet Atkins Country Gentleman, Wine Red (1990)

Bowie and his Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman

The guitar was used on stage by Bowie during his March – September of 1990, Sound + Vision World Tour.

Bowie also subsequently used this guitar during studio sessions for his 1995 concept album “Outside.”

17) Takamine FP 400SC (1990)

Bowie and his 12-string Takamine

Bowie used this guitar during his 1990 Sound + Vision tour. It was his main acoustic guitar then, used on classic hits such as ‘Space Odyssey’. The tour included 108 concerts over seven months in more than 80 cities around the world. Bowie promoted the tour as a “greatest hits” tour and stated it was the last time he was going to play songs from his back catalog. 

18) Steinberger GL2, Custom Silver (1991-92)

Bowie and hiscustom Steinberger

Bowie was a big fan of headless guitars, since he saw Tin Machine’s Reeves Gabrel’s: “David saw mine and decided he wanted one like it. My guitar tech, Andy Spray, called the factory in Newburgh to see if they could make another chrome L series. Apparently, they had a guitar they used as a test run for the chroming process. That one had a normal fretboard (it did not have a chromed fretboard) making Bowie’s copycat completely playable while mine was not. The non chromed fretboard is the easiest way to tell them apart.”

19) Supro Dual Tone (2003)

Bowie and his Supro Dual Tone

The Supro Dual Tone is one of his most iconic later-years guitars. He used it during his last world tour, in 2003, and it even appears on his 2010 live album of that tour, ‘A Reality Tour’:

Bowie ‘A Reality Tour’ cover

More recently, Eastwood did a great job at recreating this model (first made famous by Link Wray in the Fifties) as the Airline Twin Tone – a fitting tribute to Wray’s model, but now also a great choice for fans of Bowie who also play guitar…

The Airline Twin Tone DLX, inspired by a Supro like Bowie’s. NOW FOR SALE! Only $754 USD

20) Hohner G2, Red (2013)

Bowie and his Hohner G2

Bowie went back to a headless guitar in the video of ‘Valentine’s Day’, from his superb comeback album ‘The Next Day’. As ever, his choice of instrument was unusual but made total sense with his tastes over the years. Unique just like the man himself.

The Guitars Of David Bowie from MyRareGuitars.com

In my first article, I told you about my background and what I hope to accomplish with this series of articles. Like the title says: I want to help make you a Smarter Guitar Nut. The first thing to know about being a Smarter Guitar Nut is: how to ask the right questions about the guitar you might be buying. I won’t get into the potential issues around a guitar’s cosmetic condition in this article. For now, here’s what you need to ask: Is the guitar in good cosmetic condition and is the finish original or is it a “re-fin”.

What we’ll focus on in this article is the guitar’s functionality; its mechanical and electronic components and, if those are not fully functional, what you then need to consider. Here we go…

Hey, I know the feeling. That first sight of a really cool guitar and that moment when you know (and sometimes even say out loud) “I must have it!” To that, I say: Slow down…let’s have a look…and let’s ask some questions. Asking the right questions can save you hundreds, or even thousands of dollars…and a lot of heartache. Here are some questions to ask, whether you are inspecting the guitar in person or on line:

1 – Questions about the structural condition of the instrument

• Does the guitar have any cracks, broken or missing pieces or other damage?
• Has anything structural been damaged or modified such as extra routing for pickups or a broken or reshaped body, head-stock or neck?

NOTES:

• As you might expect, this is a biggie. A bad crack can mean an instrument is potentially un-fixable. On the upside, sometimes even an awful looking crack can be fixed so it is completely structurally sound.

2 – Questions about the truss rod

• Does the truss rod work properly?
• Is the truss rod nut in good shape, or is it worn or stripped?

NOTES:

• This is another big one. The truss rod must be working properly for the guitar to play correctly and truss rod repairs can be extremely expensive. Basically, a guitar that needs work on its truss rod has either got to be an incredible bargain or something you really, really want almost regardless of the added cost to fix it. The only silver lining on truss rods is that sometimes what seems to be a very serious problem can be fixed by a good repairman.

The cost of truss rod repairs can turn a bargain into a problem …and a broken truss rod can turn a guitar into a “GSO” (see my first article in this series about GSOs). This photo shows the truss rod adjustment nut is in good shape.

3 – Questions about the trueness of the neck.

• Does the neck take its proper shape under string tension once the truss rod is adjusted?
• If not, is the neck still over-bowed even with the truss rod tightened? Or, is it still back-bowed even with the truss rod loosened off?
• Is the neck twisted? (i.e. does one side of the neck – either treble or bass – have significantly more or less bow than the other)

NOTES:

• The “trueness” of a neck refers to whether it can be adjusted into proper shape by adjusting the truss rod with the strings up to tension. As will be fully explained in a future article about truss rods, the “proper shape” of a neck is actually very slightly bowed rather than perfectly straight. A problem with the neck’s trueness can be fixed, sometimes with a heat press to give the neck a new starting point, sometimes – if the situation is more serious or the neck is twisted – by removing the frets, planing the fingerboard, topped off by a re-fret. That’s very expensive!

4 – Questions about the frets

• Are the frets original or replaced? If replaced, what size are they?
• How much fret wear is there? Are there gouges in the frets?
• Have the frets been dressed and re-crowned recently? Is there enough fret left to dress now?

NOTES:

• Everything about frets can be measured to determine what size they are and precisely how much fret life is left. Most cellphone cameras are now good enough to take pictures of fret wear and gouges. A good repairman can (almost) always tell whether frets have been replaced.

5 – Questions about the electronics

• Do all the electronics work and work as they should?
• Are the electronics (pickups, switches, controls, capacitors etc.) original or have any been replaced?
• Have any components been obviously repaired?

NOTES:

• This can be a huge issue, especially if you want the guitar specifically for its pickups. Any serious purchase should be made only after an inspection or photo of the guitar’s inner workings. Rewiring a guitar can be expensive and rewiring a hollow or semi-hollow instrument can be very expensive.

A good photo of the electronics can help determine whether components are original.

6 – Questions about the hardware

• Is all the hardware original or have some parts been replaced?
• If replaced, is the new part the same or different than the original?
• Have any modifications been done to the guitar to accept replacement hardware or for any other reason? Are those modifications reversible?

NOTES:

• This is the area where you can often catch a break because of all the excellent replacement parts available these days. Be careful, though, if the missing or broken part is unique to the instrument, a replacement can be either hard to find, expensive or both.

All kinds of hard-to-find vintage parts have now been reproduced and are reasonably priced.

Once you’ve determined whether an instrument is fixable and how much it will cost to fix, just remember to add that amount to your actual total cost to obtain the guitar and re-do the math. Now, is it still a good deal?

There are two ways to deal with the cost of bringing a guitar up to good playing condition. One way is to simply say: “I’ll pass”, the other is to see if you can get the price of the instrument reduced enough to cover that additional cost, or at least a portion of it. With all these smart questions to ask, now all you need is a trustworthy seller who answers all your questions knowledgeably and honestly, and your trusted guitar tech to back you up the next time a “must have it” guitar comes along. So, get ready ‘cause you know there’s always gonna be a next time!

THE SMARTER GUITAR NUT #2: Good Questions = Good Answers from MyRareGuitars.com

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

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

The Forgotten Offset Classic?

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

Original Teisco TG-64

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

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

Conor Oberst and his Teisco TG-64

Eastwood Custom TG-64 Monkey Grip

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

Eastwood Custom TG-64 Monkey Grip

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

VIEW EASTWOOD TG-64 PAGE FOR INFO

Eastwood Custom TB-64 Monkey Grip

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

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

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

VIEW EASTWOOD TB-64 PAGE FOR INFO

Watch: Teisco TG-64 Demo

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

                                                                                           10. Rickenbacker 620

Chubby, but splendid. The 620 features the unusual ‘cresting wave’ styled body, as well as an oddly shaped pick-guard. Designed in the 50’s, it is less popular than the 300 series although much more bold and unconventional.

                                                                                            9. Ampeg Dan Armstrong

Exactly how it seems, the Dan Armstrong has a ‘see through’ design. Its body is made of clear plastic which may look a little gimmicky on the 2006 vintage edition, but was already played by big names as Keith Richards and Dave Grohl. In other words, the Dan Armstrong is “clearly” weird.

             8. Gibson Explorer 120

Would you dare to play this wild pointy creature? The Explorer was initially marketed as Gibson Futura until its later success. Unsuccessfully released in 1958, it has a classic space-age perfect for hard rock and heavy metal.

 7. Gibson Flying V

This one is a monument. From Jimi Hendrix to Lenny Kravitz, everybody loved its V shaped Maple body. The Flying V was futuristic, light and crazy enough to overcome its rough launch in 1958. Nowadays, it is one of the most iconic models ever made. How about that?

6. Kawai MS-700 MoonSault

Houston, we have landed on a weirdo. The MoonSault was released during Japan’s guitar making boom in the early 70s. Its moon styled body is really one of the most unique guitar shapes ever created! And take a look at the fret markers, they follow the entire lunar cycle with quite some detail. Kawai just made the coolest guitar for a night out!

5. Vox Phantom

Love won’t ever tear us apart. The Phantom is not just a guitar, it is more of a badass violin: light, small and weirdly pentagonal. In fact, its shape became an icon of the British Invasion since the release in 1962. Ian Curtis, huge psychedelic rock legend, owned about 3 Phantoms.

4. La Baye 2×4

The name says it all, 2×4=6 strings and a rectangular shaped body. As simple as that. It may look like a joke, but this one is quite a serious vintage guitar. Devo, probably the most futuristic and quirky band ever, worshiped the 2×4.

3. Ibanez Iceman PS1CM

Madness made in Japan. The Iceman was built with an appealing original design that mixes both classic and modern styles. It was released internationally in 1978 by Ibanez, but its Japanese version belongs to Greco. Paul Stanley, from KISS, is a fan and even signed this broken glass vintage edition. It is as weird as awesome!

2. Gibson EDS-1275 Double-neck

Meet the Frankenstein of all this freak show. The Double-neck integrates 2 different guitars in a single one resembling Gibson’s SG model. Introduced in 1958, it is big, heavy and noisy enough to be a scary scary scary monster. After all, you get 6 strings plus 12 to rock the house down (Jimmy Page’s style).

1. Airline 59 2P

At last, the award for most weird vintage guitar goes to… Airline’s 59!!!

The future is with this one, and it is beautiful. Every part of the 59, from the styled body to the controls or the colours, look as if it was stolen from a Stanley Kubrick’s movie. The Airline 59 model is almost a rock spaceship, a quality futuristic statement embraced by great artists as Jack White or PJ Harvey. And its sound? It is absolutely MIND-BLOWING!

Do you agree with our top 10? What would your weird guitar picks be?

Rock on, weirdos |..|

TOP 10 WEIRD VINTAGE GUITARS from MyRareGuitars.com

Strange but true, reissues can become collectables too (on the left an early ‘60s Danelectro Longhorn, on the right its late ‘90s reissue).

Sound familiar?

While I’ve been a long-time happy member of the Guitar Nut fraternity, I’ve also had a little advantage: I’m also a trained and accomplished guitar tech, and that means I can buy an instrument that needs work and do the work myself, whether I intend to keep it or re-sell it. Often, that’s not just a cost saving, it can also mean the difference between snapping up a bargain on a decent guitar (for fun or profit!) or getting stuck with an unplayable and unsellable pile of wood and metal.

About that “pile of wood and metal”, I’ll mention here that a repair client of mine who is a piano technician once referred to any piano that needs more work than it’s worth as a Piano-Shaped Object or PSO for short. I liked that and have since referred to any guitar as a Guitar-Shaped Object (or GSO) if it is so far gone that its restoration would take much more time, effort and money than it’s worth. GSO…remember that term. It will come up from time to time.

Anyway, that’s the angle I’d like to take in this series of articles for Eastwood: the happy marriage between technical knowledge and smart guitar collecting. For me, it’s a marriage that has worked for more than forty years.  For you, I want it to be an introduction to what you need to know to become a Smarter Guitar Nut too, with a special focus on oddball and unusual instruments. This is, after all, written for Eastwood!

The subjects I’ll cover include:

• Generally, what to look for (and look out for) in a guitar
• How to recognize whether the instrument is in original condition
• What parts can be replaced to improve playability without hurting its collectable value
• What types of repair work or improvements are usually required in most guitars and how to do those repairs without affecting a guitar’s collectable value
• Originals vs. reissues: which is better for you and how a re-issue can become a collectable itself

Probably the most common modification to vintage instruments: New tuners. When should this be done? How should it be done ? And, when should it not be done?

For each of these subjects, I’ll be getting into how you can do these things yourself and when to know that a pro should become involved. Ultimately, the goal is to make you a more knowledgeable guitar owner and collector.

First, here’s a little relevant personal history. I started repairing instruments when I was a teenager. I’d brought my prized Rickenbacker bass to a local shop to have it set up. I don’t think I even knew what “set up” meant…all I knew was it ought to get done. I must have read it somewhere.

When the bass was ready, the shop charged me only $6 rather than the expected $8 (remember, this was a long time ago!) because, as they explained, they couldn’t intonate the E string; the bridge saddle had been pulled back as far as it would go and the string was still slightly sharp when played up the neck. I was happy enough to save $2 (like I said, this was a long time ago) but, as well, my interest was tweaked. I asked what “intonation” meant and the explanation I got inspired me to pursue the issue.

The modern solution for Riks with intonation problems: The Hipshot Bridge. There are many modern parts that can improve vintage instruments without modiufication.

I went home and filed the E string saddle slot to enable a bit more backwards adjustment and the operation was a complete success. From that moment on, I was both able to set up my own instruments and do favours for my musical friends. Most important, I’d learned two important basic principles about guitar repair that I’d like to impart to you now:

• If you understand why and how something is supposed to work on a guitar, you will more likely be able to figure out what needs to be done when it isn’t working as it should; and,
• If you inspect the situation, plan and carry out the work carefully, you can be successful.

Should you install side position dots on a vintage neck that doesn’t have them? We’ll discuss.

All that, of course, has to be considered in the context of your skill level with basic repair techniques and tools. At the very least, applying the principles above will help you recognize when you need professional help. It will also make you a much more knowledgeable repair customer. That’s a real head start for you and, again, a potential cost savings.

So, to conclude my own story, I eventually got a job with Fender’s Canadian distributor doing warranty repairs, set-ups and even some custom work on new instruments. I went on to become one of the early partners in The Twelfth Fret, Toronto’s premier guitarists’ pro shop that’s still going strong almost 40 years later. I then formed the Amazing Musical Instrument Company, which manufactured innovative acoustic-electric instruments, primarily violins. For the past 30 years I’ve maintained a shop in my basement to do various repairs for a number of local guitarists and on the guitars that I buy, sell and keep.

In the foreground, this Longhorn has had a metal strap button installed on the horn rather than the heel to improve balance and stability. Ideally, a modification to a vintage instrument should be reversible, like this one.

At each phase of my work I acquired new skills, experience and knowledge that I think will be useful to you and anyone interested in guitars and guitar collecting.

In my next article, we’ll start that process by looking at what you should look for in any guitar to make sure you don’t end up with – as you now know it’s called – a GSO.

THE SMARTER GUITAR NUT #1: So, You Want to be a Smarter Guitar Nut from MyRareGuitars.com

There’s a lot of bad information on the internet, as I was reminded while trying to resuscitate a recent score: a Silver Sparkle 20th Anniversary Squier Jagmaster.

 
Don’t laugh, it’s paid for!

It’s not a guitar for everyone, but I bought my first about five years ago when I started playing guitar again as an adult. It was fun and cheap, and with a little bit of elbow grease it cleaned up nicely and, after a pro setup, played great. Then I set my sights on more “appropriate” guitars and got myself a Fender Highway One Stratocaster, you know, a proper “dad” guitar.

 Selling the Jagmaster was a mistake (as my daughter frequently reminded me), and when I had some “mad money” recently, I started searching for a replacement. A couple weeks later, I picked one up through Reverb.com. It was a little more expensive than I would have hoped and rougher than I expected. The strings were crusty, every tuner and bolt was loose, and the pickguard was warped. But the electronics worked, the neck was straight, and there was almost no fret wear, though they were dull and a little rough.

All that stuff is easy enough to fix as part of a regular cleanup and restring. This one needed a little more, and in addition to my new and regularly applied Dremel and Nu Finish fret polish routine, which I’ll show next, I decided to fix the damn pickguard. I reckon if a third of a guitar’s face looks off, it’s going to show. And at the very least, it’s going to gnaw at me. Forever. Or until I’m done losing sleep over it and fix it, so why not do it now?

A quick Google search brought up no shortage of bad ideas, all suggesting that you essentially bake the pickguard and, before it melts, burns, discolors or sets off the smoke alarms, pull it out of the oven — careful not to stretch it — and stack books on it till it cools and lays flat.

If you’re inclined to follow that advice, I’m going to guess you don’t have enough books around to pull off that stunt. That said, follow the steps below at your own peril, as I did, and don’t do this to a vintage instrument.

            Here’s how I fixed a warped pickguard:

1. Remove the pickguard from the guitar, and electronics from the pickguard.

Here you can see the bowing of the pickguard

2. Clear some space and wash the dishes in the kitchen sink. You’ll want the room to work, and you’ll score some points with the wife or roommate.

3. Find a cookie sheet or cutting board that’s bigger than your pickguard, but that fits in your sink.

4. Boil some water – enough to fill the sink and cover the cutting board and pickguard with another inch or so. I used a kettle and the biggest pot we have to boil some more.

5. Put the cookie sheet/cutting board in the sink, and place the pickguard in face down, so you don’t scratch it up like I did.

6. Pour the boiling water over it, then put the pot, with the hot water in it, on top.

7. Wait 2 minutes.

8. Remove the pot, then the cutting board with pickguard, and re-stack them to cool.

I let the whole thing cool for about 10 minutes after 2 minutes in the sink.

9. Enjoy a victory beer.

10. Buff it out with car wax, I use Nu Finish.

That’s flat!

11. Reinstall, etc.

There are more than a couple benefits to using hot water rather than an oven. It’s a lot more controllable, as you can see the pickguard throughout the entire process, and the timing is flexible without introducing the possibility of smoke, fire or nasty fumes.

How to Fix a Warped Pickguard from MyRareGuitars.com

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

As with our old friend Nigel Tufnel, that more is better goes without saying.  Why play an amp at 10 when you could play at 11?  I’ve bought guitars just because they had 4 pickups.  And I’d for sure be interested in a guitar like this Hagstrom Impala with 8 push-button controls!  Count ‘em, 8! And color-coded!

I find it curious that Hagstrom isn’t better known or regarded by Stateside guitar enthusiasts.  I guess you can say that about most European guitar-makers.  But Hagstrom actually got pretty good distribution here.  Maybe even better than EKO, which somehow ends up being better known (although that’s probably more due to Dan Forte’s—aka Teisco Del Rey—writings than actual familiarity during the 1960s)  But Hagstroms were pretty well made and they actually were among the earliest European guitars to be imported after the War.  In the late ‘50s, with the rising popularity of Folk music, acoustic guitars from Scandinavia were the first imports, guitars made by Landola (Finland) and Bjarton (Sweden) came in as Goyas and Espanas.  In around 1959 those acoustic were followed by the first, short-lived electrics, those wonderful sparkle-plastic covered hollowbody electrics sold under the Goya brand name, made by Hagstrom in Sweden.

Finding a vegematic array of push-buttons on a Hagstrom shouldn’t come as a surprise.  Indeed, those early sparkles had push-buttons.  But when you consider that Hagstrom actually began in the 1930s as an accordion manufacturer.  Accordions have nothing if they don’t have buttons!  American manufacturers hit on the toggle switch early on, but European makers seem to have preferred push-button switching.  Then again, come to think of it, most European guitar-makers started out making accordions!  Except for many of the German makers.  Except for Hohner.

Anyhow, Hagstrom produced some pretty innovative and high quality instruments, although I think their reputation gets a bit tarred by those pretty flimsy vinyl-covered guitars that were their bread and butter through most of the 1960s.  But those early sparkles were pretty interesting.  They had modular pickup assemblies.  You just lifted one configuration out and plugged in a different one, although practically speaking that really only made sense if you were upgrading.  I can’t think of why you’d change out a 4-pickup unit for a 1-pickup unit, since all you had to do was just play one pickup on the 4-pickup configuration, but, hey, it makes for good marketing copy.

            There were guitars like this Impala.  This was a very early neck-through-body guitar made long before that technique became fashionable.  The push-buttons were basically for a variety of tone controls.  The “0” was one of my favorite settings: “off.”  I never really understood why you want to turn your guitar off, but OK.  The 1 button activated the neck pickup, while 2 turned on the bridge unit.  Then there were 3 buttons  for Hi, Mid, and Low, sort of a quasi-EQ presumably with different capacitors.  The Solo button was full out, and Accompaniment was a muted setting for chording.  The sliding lever was a master volume for all the buttons except for knob which was a volume control for when you were in Accompaniment mode.  I love all those buttons but I may be loving a toggle switch more.  Even though the switching is a bit arcane, this is a high quality guitar with a pretty good amount of tonal versatility.

Guitars like the Impala weren’t Hagstrom’s only quality builds or technical innovations.  Later in the 1970s the company commissioned Jimmy D’Aquisto to design a jazz box (dubbed the Jimmy) and they also produced the very nice Swede, a sort of Les Paul-style axe, some of which came outfitted with a Patch 2000 interface pedal made by Ampeg, a pre-MIDI form of synth guitar that combined guitar switches with a foot pedal and was even harder to figure out than the Impala’s push-buttons.  But the Swede/Patch 2000 certainly earned them an A for effort.

Hagstrom, like most other European manufacturers couldn’t survive the Japanese juggernaut of the 1970s and they bit the dust in the early 1980s.  Their labor costs kept going up and up as Europe gradually recovered from the 20^th Century’s hot wars and the political and economic turmoil of the Cold War.  But they did manage to make some significant—or at least some really interesting—contributions to guitar history.  Including guitars with lots of buttons.  Now, if this only had 9 buttons, Nigel would be a happy chappy…

Vegematic Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

The Different Strummer

There are any number of things I associate with pickup trucks (from Handicaps to gun racks), and guitars aren’t one of them.  Yet—as anyone who’s followed the recent advertising battle between the Ford F-150 and its competitors—the two sometimes flirt with the use of aluminum to optimize performance.  Certainly there more than a passing relationship between this Travis Bean TB500 and motor vehicles.

Now, Travis Bean may have owned a pickup truck, I don’t know.  But he for sure was interested in motorcycles, which he apparently raced and presumably worked on.  And it’s almost impossible not to conclude there was some crossover influence between working on motorcycles, being a machinist, and putting aluminum necks on guitars.

However, Travis Bean wasn’t the first to put vehicles and guitars together.  Back in around 1959-1960 Wandré Pioli—another motorcycle fanatic—began making aluminum-necked guitars in Milan, Italy.  Those were way cool, with weird body shapes and exotic one-off paint jobs and great names like “BB” (for Brigit Bardot!).  Some other Italians—well, depends on what you consider Sicilians who emigrated to Paris—the Jaccobacci brothers also used aluminum necks.  As far as I know, they had no interest in either motorcycles or pickup trucks, though I may be wrong about that.  It doesn’t show up in the biographies.  A little later in the 1960s—and I believe totally independently—John Veleno in Florida also used aluminum to build guitars.  He built the whole shebang out of aluminum.  I don’t think John was into motorcycles or trucks either.  He was actually a music teacher who built a guitar-shaped aluminum sign as advertisement.  A friend suggested he make a real guitar out of aluminum, so he did.  In 1967 the Messenger company of San Francisco briefly made guitars with aluminum necks.  (Eastwood offers wood-necked versions of the Wandré and Messenger guitars.)

            Anyhow, in 1974 the Travis Bean guitar concept was born.  The story is somewhat confused, obfuscated by the passing of time and varying accounts.  Bean apparently teamed up with a guitar repairman named Marc McElwee and Gary Kramer.  Kramer’s telling, given long after, has himself as the main money man and sales department.  The chronology is a bit muddled.  According to Kramer, Bean kind of lost interest before things got off the ground.  Kramer left in 1975 to start his own aluminum-necked guitar company and according to other accounts actual guitar production didn’t begin until 1976.  When the company closed down in 1979, a little over 3600 guitars and basses had been produced.

There were basically four Travis Bean models: the TB500 seen here, the slab-bodied TB1000 Standard (the most common), the carved-top TB1000 Artist, and The Wedge, whose shape you can readily imagine.   These got heavy coverage in the guitar press of the time and a lot of big stars toyed with them, including Keith Richards, Jerry Garcia, Stanley Jordan, Ace Frehley, and Slash, to mention just a few.

The TB1000s had teak bodies.  They are exceptionally cool, but also very heavy.  You’d best be in good shape to sling one around an arena rock show.  The TB1000s had humbucking pickups.

The Wedge and the TB500 models are pretty rare birds.  This TB500 was meant to be a less expensive guitar.  This one (#234, 1978) was made of magnolia wood and is considerably lighter weight.   These have single-coil pickups.  I’ve played this guitar and several Standards.  While both models are pretty nifty, I found the TB500 to be a little white bread compared to the Standard (and presumably the Artist, which was just a bit fancier version), but there’s no accounting for tastes, as they say.  Both certainly did give you plenty of sustain.  Then again, the older you get, the less interested you are in a heavy guitar!

The skinny on Beans at the time was that the aluminum  was sensitive to temperature changes, although I’m not sure if that wasn’t more about conservative guitarists trying to find a reason not to like them.  I do know that John Veleno found resistance to the feel of an aluminum neck.  That was part of Gary Kramer’s “improvement” of putting in wooden inserts on the back.  In any case, Travis Beans were a pretty interesting episode in guitar history.

In 1999 Bean announced a big comeback and a revival of the legendary Travis Bean guitars.  There were pictures of revamped, very fancy guitars that I presume were of prototypes.  I’m pretty sure the line ever made it into production, and the aluminum-necked Travis Bean guitars sank back into legend.  (Clifford) Travis Bean passed away in 2011 at age 63.  Both the Ford F-150 and Travis Bean guitars used aluminum to improve performance, albeit for completely different reason.  Even after all this time, the jury’s still out on that!

Hell On Wheels from MyRareGuitars.com

The Different Strummer

It’s curious how wildly tastes can swing in a relatively short period of time.  When, in the 1967 classic movie The Graduate, Murray Hamilton (Mr. Robinson) leans in to advise Dustin Hoffman (Benjamin Braddock) to consider a predictably successful future in “Plastics,” the very concept of “plastic” was loaded with highly negative cultural connotations.  Plastic people were disingenuous, fake, mindless pursuers of a corrupted American Dream that created the Viet Nam War.  Yet only a couple years earlier plastic was viewed as an ideal way to add beauty and attraction to a guitar such as this 1965 Avanti solid-body!

The term “plastic” comes from Greek and more or less means “moldable.”  Moldable natural materials have been used for millennia, but synthetic or man-made plastics date from mid-19^th Century America.  At that time, the economy was shifting from agrarian to industrial.  A part of this shift was increasing demand for consumer goods by larger numbers of people.  Many of these products had traditionally been fashioned from natural materials.  For example, hair combs were carved out of bone.  Tortoise shell used to be, well, tortoise shell!  The problem was that, as demand rose, raw materials became scarcer.  Just one example of how cultural changes affected things: cattle ranchers stopped de-horning their steers, thus decreasing the supply of horn material.

The catalyst for modern plastics was the popularity of billiards in the 19^th Century.  The growing upper middle-class found it necessary to have a billiards room (for the guys to light up cigars after dinner, you know).  Billiard balls were carved out of elephant ivory.  Enormous numbers of pachyderms were slaughtered.  Obviously, this was unsustainable.  In 1863, a contest was promoted offering $10,000 in gold to anyone who could come up with a man-made alternative.  The result was the first celluloid invented by a New York printer named John Wesley Hyatt.  Alas, early celluloid was highly flammable and prone to exploding.  Nevertheless, they eventually got the formula worked out and modern plastics were on their way.

Just when instruments began to be covered in celluloid remains to be elucidated.  However, a good candidate for the first instrument is probably the accordion, which makes sense for this guitar.  Accordion history is far less well documented than that of guitars, but in the 1850s and ‘60s accordion-making developed in and around Castelfidardo, Italy, in the northeast in the Po River delta.  The region also had a guitar-making heritage.  Castelfidardo remains the center of accordion-making to this day.  Accordions came to the U.S. in the early 20^th Century and became popular by the ‘teens primarily through the Italian immigrants Pietro and Guido Deiro, who recorded extensively for Victor.  Sears sold Castelfidardo-brand accordions around this time with glued-on celluloid, including sparkle.  By the 1940s accordion technology had evolved to include covering curved surfaces in celluloid.

In the early 1950s there was an accordion craze among young Baby Boomers—my sister was captivated—but it fizzled out mid-decade.  This left the accordion makers—and importers—sitting with lots of capability and a greatly reduced market.  Fortunately for the accordion makers, the region of Italy where they existed was also home to a guitar-making tradition.  When Baby Boomers started turning to guitars later in the decade and into the 1960s, many accordion makers—EKO most famously (or actually Oliviero Pigini, EKO’s maker)—threw their hats into the guitar ring.  It was only natural that they should hit on covering guitar bodies in celluloid, just like their accordions!

As far as I know, EKO was the first to start making plastic covered guitars in around 1962 or ’63.  This Avanti was imported by European Crafts of Los Angeles I’m guessing around 1965.  European Crafts was importing Italian made solid-bodies at least by December of 1964, most made in Castelfidardo by the Polverini Brothers.  Presumably, this is one of those.  This is actually a pretty serviceable guitar once you’ve set it up right.  There are some amusing features, like the fake truss rod cover (the rod adjusts at the body).  What can I say?  They made accordions, didn’t they?  The pickups are controlled by a 4-way rotary switch that gives you neck, middle, bridge, all.  But really, the story here is plastic meant to look like root beer barrel candy!  Yummy!

Now, there’s nothing I love more than highly figured woods on my guitars, but root beer barrel candy plastic?  What’s not to love?  For better or worse, guitars like this Avanti were kind of yesterday’s news.  They were fine for combos in matching collarless suits with matching guitars.  But Dylan had “gone electric” and folk rock was hot.  And someone was, no doubt, working on the script of The Graduate.  Of course, there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since this Avanti appeared and today we recycle plastic.  So, show me a root beer barrel candy-coated guitar and I’m all in!  Plastics!

Roll Out the Barrel, And We’ll Have a Barrel of Fun! from MyRareGuitars.com

The Different Strummer

It’s odd that I never thought of things this way before but it was encountering Japanese guitars that started me on the road to writing guitar history.  It was probably more about coincidence—and me being cheap—than any sort of far-sighted strategy, maybe salted with a generous dash of aesthetic appreciation.  In fact, it was this very Japanese Yamaha SC-600 that provided the “Aha” moment!

I began shopping for electric guitars in the mid-1980s after I finally started holding on to decent paying jobs.  I’d been an acoustic player for several decades and thought I ought to have a solidbody electric.  I had a radio show at the time and spent a lot of time combing through record bins looking for interesting guitar records.  This brought me in contact with lots of 2^nd-hand stores of various types, where you’d occasionally encounter a guitar.  I was on a record mission at this sort of pawn shop in New Jersey when I found my first, a Japanese-made, 4-pickup 1967 Kent with birdseye maple top and back laminates and this really groovy wide, almost Baroque black and white plastic strips on the side.  It spoke to me and at around $80 was quickly mine.

A few more guitars followed until the day I walked into Lou’s Pawn Shop in Upper Darby, PA.  It’s still there, actually.  That’s when this red beauty reached out to me.  It cost more than $80, but not a fortune.  Back then, Japanese guitars were considered “used guitars,” not in any way collectible.  That denomination was reserved for Pre-War Martins and old Les Pauls and Strats…American guitars.  There were whole books about those.  Nothing about Kents or Yamahas.  Nada.

Every time I would find one of these mysterious beauties, I’d ask the seller, “What’s the story about this guitar?”  And the seller would invariably shrug his shoulders and utter, “I dunno.”  It would kind of annoy me.  But by the time I got to this Yamaha, I’d heard the same ignorant response numerous times.  That’s when, like the Blues Brothers watching James Brown, the light turned on.  I was on a mission from God.  I would figure out the stories of these unloved guitars and tell them.  I called the editor of the then fairly new Vintage Guitar Magazine and asked if he’d be interested in publishing these stories and I’ve never looked back since.  Fortunately, the world has come a long way, baby, since those days in the desert!

So, what was it that caught my eye that day?  Obviously being a nice cherry red helped.  And that distinctive shape, which turned out to have more significance that I knew at the time.  Then I saw that it was a neck-through-body guitar, a feature that was highly prized back then.  Then I cast my gaze over that arm contour, realizing that Yamaha had built a “sandwich” with an alder core between a thin layer of mahogany topped with nicely figured ash.  Slice through that sandwich at an angle and you get a really gorgeous guitar!  I’m usually more of a humbucker than single-coil kind of guy, but these are beefy units and the five-way switch gives you those coveted glassy out-of-phase sounds.

It was only years later that I realized that the Yamaha SC-600 was actually a take—sort of a revival of—on a classic Yamaha design from the 1960s, the “Blue Jeans” models that were unique models, sold only domestically (or at least in Asia), inspired by the Mosrite Ventures guitars so beloved in Japan.  Yamaha kind of got sidetracked in the mid-1970s when its SG series of double-cutaway solids found considerable popularity—and great press coverage—thanks largely due to the endorsement by Carlos Santana.

As much as I liked the SC-600, I think I was pretty much in a minority.  The model was not especially well-received, at least in the U.S., and these were only offered in 1981 and ’82.  The SC-600 had a companion SC-400 that was also a pretty guitar, differing in that it had a set-in neck and the body was flat with no arm contour.  I have no idea it these are especially rare, but with such a short production timeline, they’re probably not plentiful.  Contrary to popular opinion, no Japanese guitar companies were selling boat-loads of guitars yet in 1982.  Certainly I had no one competing against me for that SC-600 the day I walked into Lou’s and the salesman shrugged his shoulders in yet another “I dunno.”

One never knows what path his or her life will take, of course.  I may have been destined to write guitar history even if I hadn’t heard the siren call of those Japanese guitars back in the 1980s.  But finding all those great Japanese guitar designs, pretty much unwanted, unloved, and unknown—and not expensive—certainly turned into a mission from God!

Heeding the Siren Call from MyRareGuitars.com

The Different Strummer

Back in the early 1990s I did a few “guitar shows” for my son’s primary school classes, basically a show-n-tell with half a dozen guitars in various shapes and colors.  I’d conclude with “Swamp Thing,” the then-popular TV show theme adaptation of the Troggs’ classic.

At the end, I’d ask the kids which was their favorite guitar.  The verdict would vary except one of the finalists always included the Bond Electraglide.  Dead cool black carbon graphite and LEDs.

Yeah, man, LEDs!  I confess I was probably drawn to the Bond for much the same reasons as those kids!  I mean, what’s not to like about a unibody molded carbon graphite guitar with pressure switches read on LED displays and without frets.

Rewind that.  “Without frets?”  Curiouser and curiouser.

The Bond Electraglide was one of those weird bursts of genius in guitar history that turned into a weird bust.  The Bond in question was a Scotsman named Andrew Bond.  Bond’s original idea was for the fretless fingerboard, which he dubbed a “pitchboard.”  In a Guitar Player product review at the time we learn that Bond originally put one on an acoustic guitar way back in 1972.  For me the pitchboard is the most troublesome feature of the Bond.  Instead of inlaid metal frets, the pitchboard consists of a succession of triangular structures where the angle point serves as the tonal point of contact with the string.  Or the “fret.”  The theory is that this greatly reduces friction and thereby increases your playing speed, I think.  The feel of this design is sort of like a scalloped fingerboard.  My problem when I try to play one of these is that for some reason I have trouble navigating.  I keep overshooting the note I’m aiming for because I don’t feel the metal fret.  Maybe it’s just me.

Well it probably wasn’t just me, because, as you probably know, the Bond Electraglide didn’t take the guitar world by storm.  But then there are those LEDs.  The electronic controls on the Electraglide were designed by one Dave Siddeley.  Basically, those three rocker switches are on-offs for the three pickups, color coded red, yellow and green.  The bridge and neck pickups are humbuckers, with the middle unit being a single-coil.  The top three push-buttons on that five-button assembly are for volume, bass, and treble.  To set the level you hold them down to set from 0 to 10.  The two lower buttons switch the humbuckers in and out of phase.  Now, let’s review.  There will be a test.

1. We may have uncovered another problem with the Bond. While the controls are not difficult, there’s a lot of button pushing to do.  While staring at an LED screen.  Sort of like driving and texting.  You end up kind of figuring out a sound you like and sticking to it.  But the LEDs sure do look cool.

One other person involved with the Bond was Dave Stewart, guitarist with the Scottish duo The Eurythmics.  The guitar does have a look that went with that band’s sort of disco-y, high-tech, New Wavey style.  The Bonds were made in Scotland and distributed in the U.S. by Unicord, the company that did the Univox brand back in the day.  The Bond Electraglide was introduced in 1984 and dropped by the wayside in 1986.  They were pretty pricey, with a list price of $1,195 for a stoptail, $1,295 for a vibrato version.  They came with a transformer box, locking strap, and hardshell case.

The Bond Electraglide provides a great example of how you can overthink things when it comes to guitars.  Guitar players are notoriously conservative blokes.  Give us a threeway switch and a couple knobs.  For the more adventuresome, make it a fiveway!

Then again, those primary school kids who rocked out to “Swamp Thing” are part of the generation that today walks around with its nose in a cell phone, texting and driving.  There was a reason they always picked it as one of their favorites.  Maybe the Bond Electraglide was just way ahead of its time.  Maybe if we added a detachable cell phone to work the controls the Bond Electraglide the next big thing, complete with a dead cool black carbon graphite unibody and brightly colored LEDs.  It’d make your heart sing, it’d make everything…groovy.

Fretless Wonder from MyRareGuitars.com

The Different Strummer

I’ve always been a sucker for oddball guitars.  A LaBaye 2×4?  You bet!  A Bunker Astral Series Sunstar?  Yup!  A Jay Turser Shark?  O’Hagan Shark?  Of course.  So, when a chance to get a moon-shaped guitars beckoned, the call was irresistible.  Now, despite its hallowed place in the annals of electric guitar history, the LaBaye 2×4 is, in reality, pretty much a novelty.  The Kawai MS-700 MoonSault, on the other hand, is one serious guitar.

Ironically, while Japanese guitar-makers made their reputations by making copies (more or less) of popular guitar models since the early 1960s, at least, there has always been an opposing stream of Japanese guitar design.  To the yin of guitars that look like European and American models has been juxtaposed a yang of uniquely Japanese designs.  For every Burns Bison of EKO Violin guitar inspiration there were a a few Kawai Concerts or Teisco May Queens.  For every Les Paul and Strat there were a few Ibanez Icemen or Kawai MoonSaults.

I think in some ways, these original guitar shapes can be seen as a manifestation of Japanese pride.  As in, all right, I’ll make copies of your Les Pauls in order to sell guitars and gain market share and keep people working.  But I’m going to build this totally unique guitar, too.  Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

The Teisco May Queens and Kawai Concerts of the 1960s were a bit too radical to find much acceptance in Western markets.  I don’t even think Japanese companies ever really pushed them for exports and very few American importers were interested in try to sell them.  Plus, those guitars appeared in around 1967 and ’68.  By that time popular music was well on its way to worshipping the guitar god, like Jimi or Eric.  No way either of them would show up to a stadium playing a May Queen.

As near as I can tell, guitars like the Iceman and MoonSault—and a few others—showed up right around 1975 or thereabouts, ironically just as the ‘70s “copy era” was kicking into high gear.  Like I said, it’s hard not to see this 2^nd wave of Japanese designs  as a reaction.  The difference this time was that they appeared just as glam rock was becoming popular.  Axemen in platform shoes, full costumes and Kabuki make-up didn’t have any problem at all showing up with a Kramer Axe or Ibanez Iceman.  It made the act all that much more outrageous.  In your eye, mom and dad!

The Iceman, made by FujiGen Gakki, and Kawai’s MoonSault, seem to be the only of these exotic Japanese designs to make it to North America.  Thanks to KISS, the Iceman was the more successful of the two.  I don’t think that tons were ever made, but it became a mainstay of the Ibanez catalog for some time.  Fuji also made some Greco versions for domestic consumption.  Kawai did promote the MoonSault, but Kawai didn’t have an American subsidiary (Ibanez had Elger Guitars), nor did it ever have a Gene Simmons.  If I’m not mistaken, Devo briefly played a MoonSault, but by Devo’s time serious rifts in the music industry were already becoming apparent, and guitar players didn’t rush out to buy what Mark Mothersbaugh played.  So, Kawai MoonSaults are pretty rare birds.

Of the rare MoonSaults, this MS-700 is an even rarer example.  These were only built from December of 1982 to April of 1983, maybe 5 months.  This guitar has a serial number of D-150, which I presume to mean December, guitar number 150.  The blue-silverburst finish was very popular for a brief period during the early 1980s.  I never cared much for it, even though it qualifies as oddball, I think! 

I don’t know what the body on this is, but the neck is glued-in mahogany and I suspect so is the body.  Note the abalone phases of the moon for position markers!  Many pickups from this era were Gotohs, but I don’t know what these are.  They scream.  There’s a master volume control and a tone control for each humbucker.  Those are push-pull pots that give you a coil tap and phase reversal.  I love this kind of tonal versatility.

The MoonSault offers great visual imagery, but if, like me, you haven’t played in a band for more time than some readers have been alive, you might, like me, enjoy playing sitting down.  A Vee actually sits nicely on your right leg.  The waist of a Les Paul on your left.  A MoonSault, not so much on either!  It kind of slips and slides.  Better for the young.

But that’s no reason not to heed the call if a MoonSault ever beckons you.  This guitar was loaned to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for their ground-breaking Dangerous Curves exhibition of 1999-2000.  You can see it in the exhibition catalog.  It’s now part of the MFA’s permanent collection, a reminder of Japanese pride in their ability to design great guitars!

Bad Moon Rising from MyRareGuitars.com

The Different Strummer

I never really warmed up to headless guitars.  Oh, they were really cool looking and there’s no denying Andy Summers had real style playing a Steinberger for The Police.  But I guess I’m old fashioned.  I need a head to keep me oriented.  Still, present me with something made out of airplane material like this Modulus Graphite Flight 6 Monocoque, and I’m interested, even with no head.

Turns out this guitar is a study in contradictions.  I actually interviewed the man responsible for designing and producing this guitar—I’m pretty sure it was Modulus Graphite founder Geoff Gould, but it was so long ago, I forget.  Modulus Graphite was, as I’m sure you know, basically known for making hollow carbon fiber necks for basses and, occasionally, guitars.  Gould, who worked as an engineer in California’s aerospace industry, got the brainstorm that he could build a stronger, more uniform and more stable by using the tough and strong carbon graphite, which was employed in making lightweight but highly stress resistant components for aircraft.  This was around 1977-78.

Of course, Kaman/Ovation had already had that idea a decade earlier, but for guitar bodies (and tops), not for necks.  And, about the same time Gould was working out his neck ideas, Ned Steinberger was developing his headless, graphite basses and guitars in New York.

Gould’s idea was pretty good and well-received by bassists.  The company had a good long run, only closing down in 2013.  Modulus Graphite’s heart was primarily set on basses, but they did make a number of guitar lines, including the Genesis series and some interesting Blackknife models.  These guitars all had heads.  As near as I can tell, Modulus Graphite’s guitars were never as popular as their basses.  But then, bassists have historically been much more receptive to innovative technology than guitarists, who tend to be stuck in the wooden mud, as it were.

Probably partially inspired by Steinberger’s creations, Modulus Graphite decided to try its hand at a graphite headless guitar.  This effort resulted in 1983 in the experimental Flight 6 Monocoque guitars.  The Flight 6 name is obvious because the carbon graphite that makes up the entire guitar is aircraft material (“flight”) and it’s a 6-string guitar!  Duh.  Monocoque is a term used primarily in the aerospace industry basically meaning surface bearing structure.  In other words, the object’s “skin” provides the structural strength, like an egg.  There is no “frame” or internal structural support.

Basically this is a self-enclosed “tube” of molded carbon graphite.  I don’t really know how they made this thing, but the neck and body are all one and hollow.  There’s a brass plate at the end of the neck, to hold the strings and no doubt to provide access for wiring this puppy.  According to Gould, since this was a “high-tech” guitar, and so as to not take away from the novelty of the guitar design itself, Modulus Graphite equipped the Flight 6 Monocoque with basic guitar electronics.  The pickups are standard Seymour Duncans, a Custom at the bridge and a Jazz at the neck, with a threeway select and simple volume and tone controls.  The tuners are Gotohs.

If it was me I’d have tricked this out like a B.C. Rich, with as much tricky electronics and I could squeeze into this melted Steinberger.  How about a phase switch and coil taps?  And a preamp circuit?  I’m fine with the simple volume and tone, though.  I never could get into fiddling with micro-adjusting each individual pickup’s tone, but that’s just me.  Oh well.  Everything is, after all, a matter of taste.  But this doesn’t mean that any of this makes this guitar inadequate in any way.

This guitar really is a work of art, questions about electronics preferences aside.  It is really comfortable and, assuming you’re going to pump it through some effects, gets the job done.  Gould told me approximately how many of these were made, and it wasn’t many.  I forget the figure after all these years, but it was in the neighborhood of 20 or so.  Enough to qualify as pretty rare.

As I said, most guitar players would rather play a Les Paul or a Strat than a headless carbon graphite monocoque thingy.  Tastes for headless guitars and other oddities come and go.  One thing to consider, though. It’s been more than 30 years since the Modulus Graphite Flight 6 Monocoque guitar appeared.  It’s ultra-light.  Don’t know about you but 30 years on from my prime, I appreciate anything that’s lighter rather than heavier to schlepp around these days.  Prepare for take-off!

Seat-backs straight. Prepare for Take-off. from MyRareGuitars.com

The Different Strummer

Blame it on disco.  I remember it well…as an observer, of course!  The excesses of early ‘70s hard rock inspired a vapid dance craze reaction toward the end of the decade with mirror balls and platform shoes and, well, you know, Studio 54, glitter spandex, and Donna Summer and all that.  The music was mostly played with keyboard synths and drum machines, fairly new technology at the time.  The guitar press predicted: It’s The End of guitars as we know it.  But was it really?  (Obviously, we all know the answer to that rhetorical question!)

I didn’t really pay much personal attention to disco.  I didn’t dance and I didn’t hear too many guitar solos to make me interested in listening.  I was working at a commercial classical radio station at the time and my greatest exposure was a somewhat satirical—and as it turned out quite successful, I might add—disco party for key advertisers, for which I had to obtain the music.  I was mildly alarmed by the press predictions regarding the demise of guitars, but I needn’t have worried.

Anyhow, the response of the guitar industry was to try to turn guitars into synth controllers.  Keyboards are ideal synth controllers.  They are immediate and precise.  You hit a key and you get a clear electronic connection that is instantly, easily, and unequivocally recognized by the machine and its software.  They’re perfectly polyphonic.  And once you eliminate the need for anything but the keyboard—no strings, no soundboard, no pipes—they can become quite compact and portable.

Guitars…well, not so much.  A good clean note is obtained with good clean contact between the string and the fret, but you know how often that doesn’t happen!  We bend notes, even when we don’t intend to.  We move our fingers around to put “English” on the tones.  In short, despite the best efforts of brilliant engineers at Roland, Korg, Yamaha and elsewhere, guitars make lousy synth controllers at best.  To play guitar synth you’d best possess pretty darned good technique.

Don’t get me wrong.  I really admire the synth guitars that were created during the period from roughly 1977 to 1987 or so.  But if you want to play some disco, get a keyboard.

That said, there were some interesting attempts to create a hybrid solution, notably by Casio, like this nifty little 1987 DG-10 Digital Guitar. Okay, I hear you sniggering about this toy guitar.  You might say it doesn’t even look much like a guitar, although, if you recall guitars from the 1980s, you remember there was some weird stuff that was popular, from minimalist headless Steinbergers and Kramer Dukes to Prince’s elaborate guitar sculptures.  All right, I’ll give you that it looks more like a toy than a guitar.

But let’s not focus on what it isn’t, let’s concentrate on what it actually is.  This juicy little “toy” is actually a full-blown amp-in-guitar and MIDI controller.  The fingerboard is a rubber touch pad with, presumably, articulated “frets” with 6 contact points each.  The nylon strings are all like 3^rd strings.  Yamaha did this same thing on its synth controller, by the way.  I suspect that’s to equalize the contact using identical string mass.  There’s a built-in battery-powered amp with 4” speaker.

You can play this like a guitar, or guitars.  On top you can choose from 20 preset sounds.  You can add automatic percussion rhythms.  Pick the tempo.  Punch in sustain and reverb, and change the key.  On the front you have an on/off switch, master volume and rhythm volume.  You can mute your guitar, activate or turn off the rhythm sounds, add in some fill.  Oh yes, and there’s a manual drum machine pad if you’re dexterous, with a choice of cymbals, low tom, hi tom, and snare drum sounds.

And if that’s not enough, you can send the signal out to an external amp.  You can plug in headphones.  Pick two MIDI modes, omni or poly, to coordinate with whatever gear you use.  Plug in a MIDI DIN cable.  And use an AC plug, should you be so inclined.

Yeah, any kid can figure this toy out.  Well, maybe a kid could.  I never got past the amp in guitar with automated drum machine and I hope my life never depends on knowing the difference between omni and poly synths.  Not that I mastered even just playing guitar.  I think I played at a couple of my son’s baseball games, sitting in the bleachers doing “charge” sounds.  But the Casio DG-20, in the right hands, might just be the guitar you need to do disco!

For the record, as it were, I did continue to peruse disco record bins for a few years—disco was LP music, before CDs—and found, to my great surprise and delight, that there actually were some disco disks that featured hot guitar licks!  Metal guitar disco.  Numerous disco-flamenco fusions.  Rasgueado goes great with the turn-around pump of “unh-uhh, unh-uhh, unh-uhh.”  They were never too popular, though.  Blame it on disco.

1987 Casio DG-20 Digital Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

I never really thought much about Japanese guitars back in the day.  By the time they started showing up, I fancied myself a “folksinger” and was plunking on Harmony and Guild acoustics.  I didn’t pick up an electric again until late in the decade and Japanese guitars still weren’t on the menu.  But I kind of shared the standard opinion.

The truth is, of course, that Japanese guitar designers probably could have made copies of Fender Jazzmasters—and, indeed, except for a smaller size and certain details, they did with some early guitars—but they weren’t really trying to.  The Japanese weren’t really thinking about “copies” yet, like they would a decade later.  But they did have their eyes on guitars being made in England by Jim Burns!  As is obvious the moment you ogle those big pointy horns and the nifty multi-part pickguard on this Montclair.

Later, when I became interested in these strange beasts, my opinion began to change quickly.  While these guitars looked a little goofy at times, I began to learn that they weren’t so poorly made, after all.   As Jack Westheimer use to tell his associates about their role, they were there to sell guitars, not set them up.  Make sure the neck angle’s right, set the saddle intonation, adjust the action, optimize pickup height, and these guitars often turn into mean playing machines.  And they don’t sound like a Strat.  That’s the whole point!

Anyhow, I’d seen other Montclairs and really didn’t have a clue about them.  Who made them?  And for whom?  That is, until I started to look into it recently.  I still don’t know who imported/sold Montclairs.   They’re actually fairly plentiful, relatively speaking, so it must have been someone kind of significant.  But now we know a bit more about who actually built this guitar.

This Montclair is basically identical to an Ibanez Model 3904.  Montclair was just one of the labels produced by Hoshino at its Tama factory beginning in 1962.  In addition to Ibanez, other brands made by Tama included Continental, Goldentone, Tulio, Jason, and others.

According to internet sources—notoriously unreliable—Hoshino/Tama began producing guitars inspired by Burns London—especially the Burns Bison—almost from the beginning.  For sure by 1963, they produced the Models 994, 1802, 1803, 3902, and 3903, the final digit signifying the number of pickup units.  These same sources suggest that these Burns-style guitars were produced at least into 1966.  The Tama factory was closed down in 1967, so that would be the outside limit in any case.  There’s really no way to tell when this guitar was made.  I’ve assigned 1964 to it because I’m pretty certain the 3904 was in production by then.

The Burns Bison was famous for introducing the “Wild Dog” effect. I actually bought a Burns just to experience that sound.  Which was a bit underwhelming.  Actually, it was just two pickups out of phase.  I guess “wild” was a little milder in the early 1960s than today!  Oh well.  The Tama-made Montclair didn’t feature the Wild Dog effect.  But it was relatively sophisticated.  Four sliders activated each pickup, though, as was often the case in the ‘60s, the differences were more subtle than distinctive.  The two other switches let each pair of pickups alternate between solo and rhythm modes, basically toning things down with a capacitor for chording behind your lead singer.  The rollers are tone controls, the knobs volumes.  The 2-piece maple neck is reinforced with a generous piece of mahogany, an idea borrowed from classical guitars.  Plus there’s an adequate truss rod.  The body’s a big chunk of premium mahogany.

In retrospect these Montclairs were pretty decent guitars, available amazingly early, given the old prejudice against Japanese guitars.  No, it’s not a Strat or a Jazzmaster.  But if you have a yen to light up a rave on Apache or Little Deuce Coup, you could do a heckuva lot worse than plugging in a well set-up Montclair Burns Bison copy.  And you’d sure look clean and cool, Fender guitars notwithstanding.

Vintage Surf n’ Turf from MyRareGuitars.com

     Forgive me if I’ve told this autobiographical story before (age isn’t kind to short-term memory), but it’s pertinent to this guitar. I didn’t really become interested in electric guitars until the mid-1980s, even though I’d been playing for 30 years by then.
My first electric was a used Gibson ES-225T in the late 1950s that I used to learn Chet
Atkins licks. I switched over to acoustics when folk music was big, playing electrics
again in the late ‘60s in a blues/r’n’b band. Our best number was a spirited version of
the Box Top’s “The Letter.” Still like that song. Then I became a classical guitarist.
And a writer. These are not, fyi, aerobic activities. And I don’t descend from a line of
skinny people.

By the early 1980s I felt I needed some physical activity. I went to Sears and
bought a primitive exercycle. I got a good set of Koss headphones to hook up to my
KLH. But I needed some juice. Despite playing Bach, Sor and Giuliani for nearly a
decade, I’d kept up with my Guitar Player magazine subscription. In its pages I’d been
reading about Ozzie Osbourne (whoever the hell he was) and his rave new guitarist
Randy Rhoads. So I went out and bought a copy of his record (when a record was a
record, an actual vinyl artifact with 12” cover artwork), Blizzard of Oz.

Indelibly imprinted on my brain is that first bike ride. I set the needle at the very
outside of the lead-in groove and hopped on the bike.
DuddleyDuddelyDAHdadaDuddleyDuddelyDAHdada. To quote a current Hyundai
commercial, “Holy [bleep].” As a guitarist, I hate song lyrics on principle, but when the
singer croons “What’s the future of mankind, don’t ask me ‘cause I got left behind; Don’t
ask me, I don’t know,” well, I’m hooked. Better than “The Letter.” Randy Rhoads? I’d
never heard guitar playing like that. Bach for rock n’ roll.

What followed was a descent into Heavy Metal. I’d missed all popular music
after 1972 or ‘73. Three Dog Night and Jethro Tull were the last things I’d listened to
before switching to Julian Bream and John Williams. By total coincidence I found
myself at the beginning of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, affectionately dubbed
by critics at the time NWOBHM. Hmm…

I bought magazines. I devoured records. I began to notice the guitars. The
tastes of the NWOBHM and the nascent American correlatives, which would eventually
become known as neo-classical metal, liked Flying Vees and Explorers and other
non-Spanish-shaped guitars, often with custom graphic finishes.

It would be a few years before I started collecting electric guitars, by which time
the guitars of the NWOBHM were becoming passé. But my interest had been piqued
and I began picking up some of the more noble examples. Like this 1983 Aria Pro II XX
Deluxe, part of their XX Series.

Basically, it’s a mini-Vee with graphics. I’m not sure
what the body is, but it’s lightweight, maybe poplar or alder. I don’t know who made it.
Aria was/is a trading company. Trading companies did the marketing and distribution,
working with a family of factories to provide whatever product they needed. Many of
Aria’s better models were produced by the legendary Matsumoku in Japan, but these
XXs do not have that vibe. Instead, these remind me more of the Ibanez Axstars of
1986 which were made not at FujiGen but at Chushin, also in Japan. To quote Randy
Newman’s theme for Monk, I could be wrong now, but I don’t think so.

If you’re going to hop around on-stage in Spandex—which I, needing an
exercycle, sure as hell would never do—you could do a lot worse than this Aria. The
neck is lacquered black, which increases speed. The two Protomatic V humbuckers
(probably Gotohs) are decently hot. In 1983, when this was made, locking vibratos had
yet to conquer the world, so we still have a traditional style. This particular guitar was
found as new old stock, never having been previously sold or played. Pretty neat.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since these heavy metal guitars were
popular. Not least of which is being able to buy inexpensive Japanese guitars for sale
in the U.S. Nevermind whatever is the latest iteration of Heavy Metal, which is eons
away from NWOBHM. And my exercycle rides hooked up to my KLH. (Not to mention
even KLH.) For the record (history, not vinyl), I try to walk 3 miles every day, plugged
into an iPod with SkullCandy earbuds listening to…sorry, the latest Solomon Silber or
Ana Vidovic classical guitar CD. But, I confess, every once in a while on my walks I dial
down to Ozzie and Randy wailing on “Don’t ask me, I don’t know (know, know, know).”

Don’t Ask Me, I Don’t Know! from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1967 Guyatone LG-160T Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1976 Burns Flyte Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1983 Jolana Diamant I Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1983 Jolana Diamant I Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1983 Jolana Diamant I Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1961 Fenton-Weill Tux-Master Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1968 Bunker Astral Sunstar Electric Guitar

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

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

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

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

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

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

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

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

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

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

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

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1972 Veleno Standard Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

1973 Ampeg Guitars Ad (Stud Series)

1973 Ampeg Guitars Ad (Stud Series)

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

Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1966 Imperial S-2T Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1979 Ovation Magnum II Bass Guitar

So naturally I’ve always been attracted to Ovation’s solids. I mean, what’s not to like about a battle-axe-shaped guitar like the Breadwinner and Deacon?! Or those nifty Ultra Kaman UK IIs with an aluminum frame and urethane foam body (finished up in really ugly sunbursts)! As you’d expect, the workmanship was always first rate on those guitars. Unfortunately, I was one of the very few who ever liked Ovation solidbodies, because they were notoriously bad sellers. I guess Mr. Robinson liked them too because he’s got a couple of Ovation inspirations in his line offered here, the Eastwood GP and Breadwinner models.

In any case, when I found this Ovation Magnum II Bass with a built-in on-board 3-band graphic EQ, I had to have it! That it was/is exceptionally, well, homely with its lumpy potato shape certainly added to the mystique!

Actually, there’s so much going on with this bass it’s mind boggling. Not only does the neck have a regular truss rod, it’s also got three carbon graphite strips for additional stability/reinforcement. One down the middle of the back and two more under the fingerboard. It’s got that big honking neck pickup which would be cool enough, but it has 4 individually adjustable volume trim pots built in under the cover. You need a little screw driver to adjust them to your liking, picking your sweet spots. Of course the brass saddles on the cast bridge/tailpiece assembly are micro-adjustable so you can noodle your intonation to your heart’s delight, and you can even adjust the tension of the whole tailpiece using an allen wrench. This bass has only mono output, which is a shame! A similar Magnum I was also offered that gave you stereo output, but didn’t have the EQ. So many bells and whistles!

Vintage 1979 Ovation Magnum II Bass Guitar

Maybe too many bells and whistles, truth to tell. I’m always infatuated with being able to adjust the heck out of technology, but maybe Eddie got it right when all he needed was a volume knob. I mean do you really want to be fooling around with trim pots in between songs? You might get electrocuted messing with a screw driver on stage. And is that tail tension just right? Sometimes you can overthink things and that may have been what happened with Ovation’s Magnums.

As I’ve said before, I’m not really a bass player, even though I indulged in playing one briefly back in the day. Still, you just don’t pass up an opportunity to adjust volume pots for each string AND get to play around with a graphic EQ. The Magnum I (1261) and Magnum II (1262) were introduced in 1977 and lasted until around 1982. This one has a serial number B 01259 which dates it to 1979, right in the middle of the production run. I have no idea if these Magnum basses—indeed the entire Ovation solidbody oeuvre—were ever very plentiful, but I suspect there weren’t that many made, and even fewer sold.

Vintage 1979 Ovation Magnum II Bass Guitar

Ovation had actually begun making electric guitars—as distinct from its acoustic-electric guitars—way back in 1968 with its Electric Storm series of thinline semi-hollowbodies, the Thunderhead and the Tornado. They tried valiantly to plant the flag for close to 15 years, to no avail. They finally pulled that plug in 1983 and just said no to making their own solidbody electric guitars and basses. Ovation did pick up a few endorsers over the years. Jim Messina and the Strawbs briefly endorsed them. Johnny Graham of Earth, Wind & Fire was seen playing a white Breadwinner on the 1976 album Gratitude. And Eddie Hazel offers a glimpse of a Deacon or Breadwinner on the back of his album Games, Dames & Guitar Thangs. Slim pickins. As in “not so great,” not as in the country western singing star.

In 1985 Ovation imported some Korean necks and bodies and finished them up in the U.S. plant. These were the Hard Bodies series that featured the aforementioned GP model. In 1987 they imported a line of Celebrity solids completely finished in Korea. In 1988 Ovation just gave up and bought Hamer guitars and finally had a successful solidbody guitar and bass line on its hands.

Still, I love all the techy stuff with this Magnum II bass, even if it’s not always all that useful. Hmm, where’d I put that screw driver?…

Let’s Give Up A Hand for Lumpy Gravy (Vintage 1979 Ovation Magnum II Bass Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Let me start off by saying that the new Magnatone line of amps is no less than stellar! There are three series: the Studio Collection, Traditional Collection and the Master Collection. All exude tonal quality and craftsmanship, and that is before we consider the features of stereo pitch-shifting vibrato or tube-driven reverb. Between the three series or “collections,” Magnatone manages to offer something to meet just about every player’s needs. From five-watt studio amps to 6V6, American-voiced combos to EL34 British-inspired heads and cabs, Kornblum, Khan and the rest of the crew at Magnatone have produced a line of models that covers all of the bases.

Magnatone Amps

Each collection includes three models. In the Studio Collection, Magnatone offers up three lower-wattage, class A tube amplifiers housed in solid pine, finger jointed cabinets covered in either black or burgundy faux crocodile covering.

The Lyric is a no-frills, 10 watt, Class A combo featuring one 12AX7, one 6L6 power tube and a 10-inch speaker. It’s perfect for studio, rehearsal and small club performances.

The Varsity is the big brother to the Lyric. A 15 watt, push-pull class A amplifier featuring two 12AX7 preamp tubes, two EL84 power tubes and a GZ34 rectifier, the Varsity is the perfect size for stage and studio. The combo houses a 75 watt, 12″ custom Magnatone speaker in a box that’s a bit larger than you might expect. The result is an amp with enough power and bottom end to blow the doors off of most joints. One of the coolest features of the Varsity is the Negative Feedback Switch, which acts as a 8db boost/cut, allowing the amp to take on two unique sonic personalities.

The third model in the Studio Collection is the new Panoramic. Debuted at the 2014 NAMM trade show, the Panoramic is a stereo, 5 watts per side, single-ended class A amplifier with two 12 AX7s, a 12AU7 and a duet of 6V6 power tubes. The Panoramic offers the famous Magnatone pitch-shifting, varistor stereo vibrato. Cabinet options include a 1×12″ or stereo 2-10″ speaker cab.

The Traditional Collection showcases the Twilighter, Twilighter Stereo and Single V models. Encased in a classy, brown tolex with retro style, the Traditional series amplifiers would look equally great on stage, in the studio or as a fine piece of furniture in your living room! All three models are American-voiced, push-pull class AB amplifiers featuring either 6V6 or 6L6 power tubes. All Traditional series amps also feature a tube driven, long pan reverb and true pitch-shifting, varistor vibrato which can be switched to conventional tremolo via the FM-AM switch. Each member of the Traditional Collection is an outstanding, boutique, American-voiced tube amp with a warmth and bloom usually only heard in the finest vintage tube amps of the 1960’s.

The Vibrato effect departs from the original vintage design by producing a much more lush and three dimensional quality that can be slowed much slower than it’s ancestors. The result is unsurpassed, dynamic fidelity with a modulation that is mesmerizing.

The Master Collection offers three models inspired by the British amp companies of the ’60s. The Super Fifteen and Super Thirty are 15 watt and stereo 15 watts per side, respectively. They are EL 84, push-pull class A amplifiers designed with sparkly, British styled clean tones as well as full throttle A class overdrive capabilities. Pair that with the option of Magantone’s true pitch-shifting vibrato and you have an amp that will please any die-hard, class A, British-tone purist!

The Super Fifty-Nine head is a unique model, even though it is listed as part of the Master Collection and aesthetically has the same black tolex and white satin grill cloth as its A class siblings. The Super Fifty-Nine is a British behemoth that features a two EL34, 45 watt, push-pull class AB power section. With two channels, the Super Fifty-Nine has the ability to straddle vintage British tones as well as more modern, gainy rock tones of the ’70s and ’80s. With an input layout similar to a vintage Bassman and the pitch-shifting vibrato circuit available in the classic channel only, one can bridge the two channels to produce a warbley, uni-vibe effect that conjures the soul of Hendrix and Trower. After hearing the Super Fifty-Nine, it comes as no surprise that the model was developed in conjunction with Billy Gibbons and has been the Reverend’s go to rig for the last year or so.

Each model is unique yet consistently voiced in the new Magnatone tradition. Most models come with either Magnatone branded, WGS designed speakers, or Celestion Gold Alnicos (Lyric is supplied with a Jensen P10R). Some models include a two button footswitch, and a 20k expression pedal is also optional for hands-free control of the vibrato speed.

Although Magnatone is currently offering amplifiers only, plans are underway to offer high end Magnatone guitars with the help of Boise-based luthiers John and Jake Bolin of Bolin Guitars.

So while we currently live in the golden age of boutique gear, it may seem an impossible feat to offer up something unique both in aesthetic style and high fidelity that balances the much sought retro tones and looks of the great classics with the needs of modern players. Yet Ted Kornblum, Obeid Khan, and the team at Magnatone have managed to do just that! With great tone, vibe and style, the Magnatone line of amplifiers is a home run, and the redesigned, true pitch-shifting, varistor vibrato is just the icing on the cake.

Magnatoneusa.com

Written by: David Anderson

Magnatone Amps – The Evolution of Boutique Tone, Yesterday & Today (Part 2) from MyRareGuitars.com

White used a truly unique collection of instruments to propel his no-frills style into the limelight. As you will see, his equipment choices evolved slightly through the years depending on which of his many projects he was working on. Here is a breakdown of the guitars he has used through the many phases of his career.

The White Stripes:

1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Ward Airline
This is the most iconic guitar in Jack White’s arsenal of rare axes. This model was made for Montgomery Ward department stores in the early 60s.  This guitar was White’s workhorse throughout his time with the White Stripes.

Jack White with his 1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Ward Airline Guitar

White’s vintage JB Hutto Airline became so popular that Eastwood began producing a replica around 2000, however the replica features a chambered mahogany body instead of the original fiberglass model:

The new Airline 59 2P by Eastwood.

The one-pickup version from Eastwood, the Airline 59 1P, is also a good choice for players who aim to emulate Jack White’s tones:

It’s interesting to notice that during the Get Behind Me Satan tour, Jack started playing a modded Airline, with only one pickup – he removed the neck pickup and the control knobs:

24 Jun 2005, Somerset, United Kingdom — Jack White of “The White Stripes” performs on the first day of the Glastonbury music festival in Somerset.  — Image by © Eddie Keogh/Reuters/Corbis

1950s Kay Hollowbody
This vintage hollowbody was one of the three guitars White used with the White Stripes. The Airline was his primary axe, but White frequently used the Kay Hollowbody as his slide guitar. Kay Instruments was one of the first companies to make an electric guitar. Blues legend Howlin’ Wolf–a major influence on White’s style–was among the most visible artists to use the Kay Hollowbody. This is the guitar White uses for “Seven Nation Army,” arguably the greatest guitar riff of the past decade.

Jack White with his 1950s Kay Hollowbody Guitar

1915 Gibson L-1 Acoustic
This guitar is commonly referred to as the Robert Johnson model. White began playing this guitar on the White Stripes’ Icky Thump album. For live performances, White uses a tape-on pickup. In an interview for Gibson’s website, White reveals that this guitar is his personal favorite.

Jack White with his 1915 Gibson L-1 Acoustic Guitar

The Raconteurs:

“Triple Green Machine”
This custom-made guitar started with a Gretsch Anniversary Junior. White enlisted Randy Parsons to modify the body and add a slew of bells and whistles, creating a truly unique instrument. He installed the same electronics from his Gretsch Triple Jet, a bigsby tailpiece, a lever-activated mute system, light-activated Theremin and a retractable bullet microphone. This guitar is also featured in the film, It Might Get Loud.

Jack White’s Triple Green Machine (Gretsch Anniversary Junior Guitar)

Gretsch Triple Jet
White is just as particular with the aesthetics of his equipment as he is with their performance. With the Raconteurs, White plated all of his equipment–pedals, amps, guitars–in bronze. This customized axe is based on a Gretsch G5445T Electromatic Double Jet. White added a third pickup (hence, “Triple Jet”) and an onboard MXR Micro Amp. The result gave White a a bronze-plated axe with built-in overdrive.

Jack White’s Gretsch Triple Jet Guitar

Dead Weather:

Gretsch G6199 Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird
This guitar was intended for White’s tour with Alicia Keys in support of their James Bond theme, “Another Way To Die.” Keys had the box-shaped Bo Diddley model, and the idea was for White and Keys to re-create the image of Bo Diddley and the Duchess. When White’s neck injury sidelined that tour, he took up the same idea with Alison Mosshart in the Dead Weather.

Jack White and his 1957 Gretsch G6199 Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird Guitar

1957 Gretsch G6134 White Penguin
Another one of the rarities in Jack White’s collection. Gretsch only produced 12 of this specific model. White found the guitar while touring through Texas in 2007. The white guitar was a natural fit in White’s Dead Weather color scheme. This guitar was also used on the later White Stripes albums.

Solo/Misc.:

Fender Telecaster
This may be the tamest piece in Jack White’s guitar arsenal, but this American classic was White’s main workhorse on his solo album, Blunderbuss. In typical Jack White fashion, the guitar has been outfitted with a Bigsby and painted blue to fit with the project’s color scheme.

Jack White’s Fender Telecaster with Bigsby

Gretsch G6022CWFF Rancher Falcon Cutaway Acoustic
This guitar has been a mainstay throughout White’s career. He has said that this model is favorite acoustic to play live, because of the bass tones. Given his flair for customization, White has three Rancher Falcons, each with a portrait of a different women on the back.

White explains that the women featured on his guitars are Claudette Colbert, Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake, which gives him a brunette, a redhead and a blonde.

Jack White with his Gretsch G6022CWFF Rancher Falcon Cutaway Acoustic Guitar

Posted by: Jason Schellhardt, writer for the cheap ticket search engine, Rukkus.

A Brief History Of Jack White’s Guitar Collection from MyRareGuitars.com

Magnatone Amps

As a person who has worked in the music retail industry for more than 20 years, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard about how a quality manufacture was acquired by a larger corporation and imploded from bad “business” decisions, ruining the brand in the process. While not the rule, it happens more often than not in most every industry.

So imagine you work for a family-owned company that distributes music equipment. One day, you are looking through some of the old family catalogs and discover that a very cool, unique brand, which has been out of production for years, has a trademark that has expired and is just sitting there for the taking. What would you do?

Magnatone Amps

Ted Kornblum’s grandfather founded St. Louis Music Supply Co. in 1922. Among the many brands that SLM has distributed are Ampeg, Crate, Alvarez, and Knilling. Also on the company’s distribution list: Magnatone.

Magnatone was started in 1946 by Art Duhamell, who purchased the Dickerson Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company. Dickerson was a small, Southern California builder who produced lap steels and amplifiers. Duhamell changed the name to Magnatone a division of his Magna Electronics Company in Los Angeles. Magna also produced record players, speakers, radios and organs as well as amplifiers under brands such as ToneMaster, DaVinci, Pac-Amp, and Estey. The Estey organ’s vibrato circuit was integral in the birth of the famous Magnatone pitch shifting vibrato feature,(but more on that later). Though Magnatone had a good run of building some of the first, high fidelity, innovative, “boutique” amps to hit the market, the company was plagued by mergers and buy outs, poor business decisions, and bad investments. In the end, Magnatone was no more by the end of the 1960’s.

Magnatone Amps

Fast forward to the early 2000’s, Ted is sitting at his desk one day and he discovers that the Magnatone trademark was abandoned — there for the taking! So Ted quietly makes some inquiries and soon finds himself the owner of the Magnatone brand. He doesn’t tell anyone. Not even his buddy, the Rev Billy Gibbons. He just… waits.

After some years the tables turned, and SLM was that company that ended up being acquired by a larger corporation. We won’t get into the details, but Ted Kornblum eventually found himself free to do what he pleased. Maybe start his own company… maybe do something with his secret acquisition, Magnatone.

Now you have to understand, back when Magnatone amps were made, Fender was the utility amp of time, and Ampeg appealed to the jazz market. Magnatone, by contrast, was known as a boutique amplifier, decades before the boutique craze began. Magnatone amps were not cheap. They had great fidelity, reverb and that famous, pitch shifting stereo vibrato. Fender’s dedicated vibrato channel was actually tremolo, not vibrato, changing the amplitude or volume of the signal, not the pitch. To further muddy the waters, Fender incorrectly labeled its guitars’ vibrato unit a tremolo.

Magnatone Amps

So Ted had been sitting on this brand a while. He had a long time to think about how to revive the Magnatone line. The first step would be putting together a design team that could make the amps a reality. While Magnatone was ahead of its time as far as amp design is concerned, it did have its flaws. For one, the amps were fragile, not up to par to today’s rigorous standards. They also had limited power output — not conducive to today’s rock ‘n roll needs. So the new Magnatones would have to have a balance of both worlds. That luscious, true pitch shifting vibrato, tremolo (yes that FM-AM switch allows for either effect) and a deep, well-like reverb — but with more under the hood, some rock ‘n roll torque for the heavy hitters!

To put this plan in motion, Ted had an ace in his pocket… a guy right here in St. Louis who was responsible for designing practically all things tube that came out of SLM, including the revered Crate Vintage Club series amps. Obeid Khan is not just an engineer with a soldering gun, he’s a player…a serious player! Ask anyone in town, they’ll tell you, Obeid Khan is a monster when it comes to amps and blistering guitar. Khan, splitting time between his own company, Reason amps, and a position repairing vintage tube amps for local vintage gear gurus, Killer Vintage, decided he was up to the challenge of working on the foundation and design on the new Magnatone amps.

Ted and Obeid enlisted a team of engineers including Ken Matthews, Greg Geerling, Dan Ryterski, Chris Villani, George McKale, and the famous Neil Young tech, Larry Cragg to make the Magnatone line a reality. Another ace in the hole was having local cabinet builder and owner of Vintage-Amp Restoration, Gregg Hopkins, involved in the design of the amps, making sure to pay homage aesthetically to Magnatone’s retro look.

Magnatone Amps

So with an all-star team of engineers and the discriminating ears of players like Billy Gibbons, Khan, and Larry Cragg, the team began to prototype the first models of the new Magnatone amplifier and guitar company. Once the first models began rolling off the bench, the decision was made to bring Dave Hinson, owner of Killer Vintage (June 2012 myrareguitars.com) on as sales manager in order to help with dealer placement.

Next month we’ll take a look at the models and features including the magic of the Magnatone Varistor Vibrato!

Written by: David Anderson

Magnatone Amps – The Evolution of Boutique Tone, Yesterday & Today (Part 1) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage Egmond Thunder Electric Guitar

Uilke Egmond (1878-1959) founded a music school and a music shop in Valkenswaard, that was named Musica. In the shop he sold instruments imported from the Eastern Europe. In 1935 the business moved to Eindhoven. The import of instruments ended and they decided to make the instruments on their own.

In the early 50’s there were 20 employees making 50 guitars a week and by the early 60’s there were 80 employees cranking out 2000 guitars a week.

Egmond was the largest luthier in Europe and they were more known for quantity than quality. Cheap instruments were made in large numbers that everyone could. The cheapest models had a price tag that was one tenth the cost for a comparable model of a Gibson or a Fender.

But Egmond also made high quality instruments, the Egmond 2 and 3, 2V and 3V. They had 2 or 3 pickups, as the number states. 2V and 3V (V=vinyl covered body) had the body shape of a Fender Jaguar or Fender Jazzmaster. Later the Egmond 2 and 3 got the name Egmond Thunder, and the Egmond 2V and 3V got the name Egmond Typhoon. A more advanced and luxury guitar, with the same body shape as the 2V and 3V, was the Egmond Tempest.

Here is a fine example of the Egmond Thunder:

Back Catalog Memories: Egmond Thunder Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1970’s Epiphone ET Series Crestwood Electric Guitar

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

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

Additional Details:

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

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

11. Ampeg VT 22

Song: All Down the Line
Artist: Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones)
Ah, Keith Richards and his Les Paul + Ampeg VT 22 combination. It’s like chicken soup/comfort food for the soul of tone. Holed up on the coast of France during 1969/70 to avoid arrest for tax evasion changes back in the UK, Keith and the boys recorded one of my all time favorite albums. Check out anything off Exile on Main Street for reference. The riff and tone on “All Down the Line” is a standout track to me. PURE KEEF!

Keith Richards with the Ampeg VT 22 Amp

Keith Richards with the Ampeg VT 22 Amp

12. Carvin X100B

Song: Blue Powder
Artist: Steve Vai
I’ll never forget the first time I heard Steve Vai’s “Blue Powder” on his breakout give away flexi-disc record that was included in the October ’85 issue of Guitar Player Magazine. The sheer melodic content vs. guitar prowess was beyond insane for the time. Steve Vai houses genius, melody and lighthearted feeling in a way that no other guitar player can. The tone and technique offered in the thin piece of vinyl was a small viewing glass into what was soon to become a new era in instrumental guitar technique.

Steve Vai & the Carvin X100B Amp (1986)

Steve Vai & the Carvin X100B Amp (1983)

13. Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary

Song: Up in the Sky
Artist: Joe Satriani
I had the opportunity to take my stepfather to see Joe Satriani at the memorial auditorium in Sacramento, CA for his birthday on October 29, 1998 during the Crystal Planet Tour. I’ll admit I had stepped outside my earlier hard rock guitar roots at that time and was listening to more alt country and pop stuff then. Seeing Joe on that tour blew my mind and reminded me of why Joe is the KING of all things instrumental rock guitar. I soon went out and purchased the Crystal Planet cd after the concert and was given a heavy dose of all things that inspire rock guitarists to play – including but not limited to – amazing instrumental guitar songs with pure tone and heartfelt performances. In the strange mystery that is life, Joe would later become a client of mine and a good friend. We have talked about how that album was recorded mostly live at “The Plant” in Sausalito. The majority of the core tones were captured with single channel tube amps, including the Joe Satriani staple: Channel One of the Marshall 6100 Anniversary Edition with a Japanese Boss DS-1 pedal pushing the front for the gain. In the hands of the master, even this simple setup can be considered legendary. Check out “Up in the Sky” as a standout track, but every track on this album is pure gold. One of my top ten instrumental albums of all time.

Joe Satriani’s 1992 Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary Amp

1992 Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary Amp

1992 Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary Amp

14. Hiwatt DR103

Song: Comfortably Numb
Artist: David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)
David Gilmour of Pink Floyd has always conjured up jaw dropping juicy tones of mythical proportion for decades. The Wall album feature many classic songs and some of my favorite recorded solo guitar tones ever. It seems Mr. Gilmour’s go-to amp on stage and in the studio is the Hiwatt DR103 100W head with WEM Super Starfinder 200 cabinets loaded with Fane Crescendo speakers. In this case I would say that David’s core tone is crafted from his hands, guitar and the highly elaborate Pete Cornish pedal board that is fed into the amp. More so than the amps stand-alone sound, his DR103 acts more as a clean full range power amp in this setup but is still noteworthy. Check out the solo in “Comfortably Numb” as my standout track. For more great info on David Gilmour and his gear, check out www.gilmourish.com as well.

David Gilmour’s Custom Hiwatt 100 Amp

David Gilmour’s Custom Hiwatt 100 Amp

David Gilmour’s Custom Hiwatt 100 Amp

David Gilmour’s Custom Hiwatt 100 Amp

15. Fender Eighty-Five (Solid State)

Song: Creep
Artist: Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead)
When the band Radiohead hit the scene in the early 90’s, I was immediately impressed with the songs and the two unique and original guitar parts on every song. Both guitarists (Jonny Greenwood & Ed O’Brien) seemed to cover so much tonal spectrum, yet always giving way to complimenting the song and never walking over the other players parts. I was surprised to find out at a much later date that Johnny Greenwood used a solid state Fender 85 amplifier as his main set up with pedals (including a Marshall Shredmaster pedal) driving the front of the amp to get his signature overdrive sound. Very early in Radiohead’s career, Jonny’s only amp was his Fender Eight-Five, which he used for both his distorted and clean tones. By late 1993, however, Jonny had bought his first tube amp: a Fender “The Twin” – which is the version Twin Reverb produced at the same time as the Eighty-Five. I think Radiohead is one of the most important and truly original groups to come out in the last 20 years.

Jonny Greenwood’s Fender Eighty Five Amp

Jonny Greenwood’s Fender Eighty Five Amp

Jonny Greenwood & his Fender Eighty Five Amp (Radiohead)

Jonny Greenwood & his Fender Eighty Five Amp (Radiohead)

16. Vox AC30

Song: Apache
Artist: Hank Marvin (The Shadows)
Across the pond in the late fifties & early sixties, The Shadows were cranking out pop and instrumental hits left and right. They achieved over 60 UK chart topping singles during there long and successful carrier. As a result of their success at the start of the 60’s, Hank Marvin had an interesting influence on the current VOX amplifier designs of the day as noted in this interview:

Along with the Fender guitar, another cornerstone of the Shadows sound was the Vox amplifier. According to Hank Marvin:

“Vox was one of the first companies to get onto artists and groups so they could promote their amplifiers. In fact, I tried Fender amplifiers first, but preferred the sound of the Vox with the Strat, because I think it was more of a raw sound. The Fender amplifier, to my ear sounded a little too smooth with a Strat, and I seemed to get more guts out of a Vox.”

Reg Clark worked in the Vox store in London’s Charing Cross Road in the early 60’s, and credits Hank with instigating a major Vox development:

“He suggested we made one with two speakers and it was from that comment that the AC30 came.”

The Shadows had tried the more powerful Fender Twin, but the Vox AC15 provided the sound they wanted, albeit with insufficient volume. Using two amplifiers each was rejected, and Vox finally came up with the legendary AC30, with the group taking delivery of four in late 1959. The AC30 was a 30-watt model with 12″ twin speakers and EL84 output valves. Hank’s amp was modified with a treble booster to provide a cleaner sound at high volume levels and this model was later sold commercially as the AC30 Top Boost.

Soon after, Hank changed his echo unit to the Binson Echorec, and a true legendary combination was solidified!

The Shadows & their Vox Amps

Vox AC30 Amp played by The Shadows

17. Gibson EH-150

Song: Stomping at the Savoy
Artist: Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian is the modern godfather of amplified electric jazz guitar. He is credited as a pioneer for taking the humble roll of the rhythm jazz guitar player in non-amplified form and pushing the boundaries to the point where other musicians respected the guitar. He proved the amplified guitar as a viable lead and solo instrument in the context of a large jazz ensemble. The Gibson ES-150 guitar coupled with the very rudimentary Gibson EH-150 tube amplifier paved the way for the future of modern electric guitar. Check out Charlie on the track “Stomping at the Savoy” and think back to how amazing that must have sounded live in the room in 1941 NYC.

Charlie Christian & his 1930’s Gibson EH-150 Guitar Amp

1930’s Gibson EH-150 Guitar Amp

18. Modified Marshall 100W Super Lead Plexi (The “Pete” Amp)

Song: Welcome to Paradise
Artist: Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day)
When Green Day hit the big time on their chart topping Dookie album in 1994, I was immediately intrigued. Dookie was the band’s third studio album and its first collaboration with producer Rob Cavallo – and its major record label debut. Green Day seemed to come out of nowhere with their punk and thrash attitude, yet the songs were tight & concise hit pop/AOR sensations. Not only is Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day a killer songwriter and performer, his guitar tone is super fat and chunky. Wielding his bastard green Fernandez Stratocaster copy and a modified Marshall Plexi Super Lead 100-watt amp head (with the name duct-taped out), Billie Joe has perfected that tight right-hand rhythm and is so locked in with Trey Cool and Mike Dirnt. They create a modern power trio that is highly underrated IMHO. Check out the opening riff to “Welcome to Paradise” and you realize right then and there – this is the fundamental core sound of modern alternative rock as it stands today.

Billie Joe Armstrong on-stage at Woodstock 1994 with his ‘Dookie’ modified Marshall Super Lead

Billie Joe Armstrong on-stage at Woodstock 1994 with his ‘Dookie’ modified Marshall Super Lead

19. Kustom K200A-4 (aka the ‘A4’ or the K200A Model 2-15L-4)

Song: Born on a Bayou
Artist: John Fogerty (CCR)
Another solid state transistor amp to make the list! The Kustom A4 amplifier with 2 x 15″ cab. This was John Fogerty’s main live rig for the classic CCR years, but there is also proof that he did use a a silver face Fender Vibrolux Reverb on many of the CCR studio recordings. The Fender provided more of a natural distortion that the transistor-based Kustom just couldn’t provide. John’s Kustom amps on stage always had the Trem / Vib set at one o’ clock as seen in many photos. Check out this classic performance and tone from Woodstock with the Rik in hand. There’s no doubt in any guitarists mind who the player is when the intro riff of this classic rock song comes through your radio dial.

CCR with the Kustom Amp in the background

John Fogerty’s K200A-4 Amp

John Fogerty’s K200A-4 Amp

1968 Kustom Ad for the K200A Amp

20. Standel Amp

Song: Mr. Sandman
Artist: Chet Atkins
In the mid to late 50’s, all the top guitar players and band leaders of the time were custom ordering Standel amps from Bob Crooks in CA. From StandelAmps.com:

Bob Crooks built approximately 75 amps with the first design (knobs on top of the amp), all out of his backyard workshop at 10661 Freer Street in Temple City CA. Chet Atkins couldn’t order one himself because of his endorsement deal with Gretsch, but he bought one from a guitar player friend and used it on thousands of recordings. You can hear the amp during Chet Atkins appearances on “Classic Country” originally from 1957 but rebroadcast in the mid-80’s on TNN, Chet’s White Standel can be seen behind him on a bale of hay on about half of the performances).

Chet Atkins is arguable the most accomplished and amazing guitar player in US history. This performance of “Mr. Sandman” shows his effortless touch and command of the instrument.

Jim Reeves & Chet Atkins with a Standel 25L15 Amp

Chet Atkins with a Standel 25L15 Amp

Standel 25L15 Guitar Amp

10 Classic Guitar Amps & The Songs That Made Them Famous (PART 2!) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

Riverhead Unicorn Series Guitar Ad

1985 Riverhead Unicorn Series Driving Force

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

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

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

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

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

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

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

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

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

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

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

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

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

1977 Guitorgan B35

The Guitorgan has to be one of the front-runners in the race for weirdest guitar concept ever, and there’s a lot of competition! Yeah, it comes dressed up in pretty normal-looking guitar’s clothing, but after that any resemblance melts away.

I was quite surprised to learn that the Guitorgan concept was around before 1962, when inventor Robert Murrell of Waco, Texas, filed for a patent on the instrument. In a nutshell, Murrell’s idea was simple. Take an electronic organ. You press a key and that makes an electrical connection that sends a signal to whatever tone generator circuit you’ve selected using the frequency location of that key. So, why couldn’t you do the same thing with a guitar? Of course, an electric guitar is just an acoustic guitar with an electro-magnetic pickup that translates the interruption of its magnetic field by vibrating steel strings to generate an electronic signal. That’s actually a far more complex connection, and irrelevant. Suppose we wire the frets so that the electronic connection is made there? The problem is that the fret touches all 6 strings, so you can’t distinguish the frequency or pitch. Solution: cut the frets into 6 segments and wire each segment separately. Then at each touchpoint you get a different, distinct pitch. Run this through some real organ circuitry and you have a Guitorgan!

1977 Guitorgan B35

Well, it’s more complicated than that, but that’s the basic idea. In 1966 or so, Bob Murrell began working with engineers at Baldwin in Cincinnati to figure out how to adapt their organ electronics to fit into a guitar. By 1967 he’d developed a prototype with his partner Bill Mostyn and took it to NAMM in Chicago, where the guitar was played by one Bob Wiley. We don’t know what kind of guitar was used, but they obviously favored hollowbodies. There was enough interest that they went home and began making Guitorgans in the garage, forming a company called MusiConics, opening a factory in 1968, and beginning production in 1969.

Over the years Guitorgan used a number of hollowbody guitars to mount its electronics. Most were Japanese, including a Barnie Kessel model and various ES-335 copies. Online sources say that there were some examples using American guitars produced by Kapa in Maryland, but that would be pretty curious. By the time Guitorgans were produced, Kapas were Japanese hollowbodies with U.S.-made necks that were extraordinarily thin. When you have to mount wires in the neck, thin isn’t better. Besides, Kapas barely made it into the 1970s. Who knows?

1977 Guitorgan B35

What’s even more surprising is that online sources suggest that approximately 3,000 Guitorgans were produced from 1969-1984. I find it really hard to buy that quantity, both because I can’t imagine 3,000 guitarists wanting to play one and because you almost never see them.

1977 Guitorgan B35

And, because the control options are almost mind-boggling. You got flute/accordion/vibes voices, with six register controls for flute mode alone. You got an organ/combo switch with tuning wheel to synchronize guitar and organ. You got a button for open E to tune. You got a button to temporarily activate organ when in guitar mode. You got voice controls for percussive, sustain, tremolo and octave lower. You got a button at the nut to activate the open string while fingering (this may be the weirdest feature of all!). Plus stereo output. And a 5-pin jack to connect to an organ. And a transformer/volume pedal. Not to mention on the guitar side you get standard controls PLUS a 6-position varitone. I don’t know about you, but this is way too much information to process in the middle of Apache. Did I mention a $2,500 to $4,000 price tag?

MusiConics did make Guitorgans from 1969-1984, and on a custom-order basis, including with a MIDI option, into the late 1980s. But three thousand musicians bought these? You decide…

This is a well-made guitar, probably built by FujiGen Gakki, the maker of Ibanez guitars. It’s a B-35 model probably from around 1977.

1977 Guitorgan B35

I love the idea of this guitar—er, organ—but it’s over the top. You might be able to find one, but good luck. If you want to hear what a Guitorgan sounds like, look for Dan Forte’s CD The Many Moods of Teisco Del Rey (Upstart Records, 1992), if you can find that, as well. As for playing at the local rink, I think I’d rather be skating, ankles be darned…

A Guitar for Ice Skating (Vintage 1977 Guitorgan B35) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Domino Californian Electric Guitar (Redburst)

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

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

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

Vintage Domino Beatle Bass Guitar

This model was an obvious take on the Hofner Beatle Bass from the same era. The Hofner brand were German made guitars and basses and had been making top quality instruments for many years without much popularity in North America. However, once Paul McCartney surfaced with his lefty Hofner bass, everybody on the planet wanted one. Hence, once again Lipsky was quick to jump on the opportunity with the Domino brand.

The California was available in 2 pickup configuration, 3-way switch, volume and tone. Main color was Sunburst, but I’ve seen them in White, Redburst and Greenburst. They all sported a wooden floating bridge and single f-hole.

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

Vintage 1960’s Espana Violin Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1990 Vester Concert II Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1960’s Espana 335 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Teisco guitars have run a curious course in the opinion of vintage guitar fans. There was a time when any unidentified Japanese guitar from the 1960s—and that was just about all of them, even with brand names—was said to have been “made by Teisco,” and was generally held in disdain. Then, what used to be just cheap old guitars became collectible “vintage” guitars and before you knew it, Teisco and other el-cheapos were all of a sudden desirable and treated more or less seriously.

Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar

Teisco guitars were somewhat unusual back in the 1960s because many—though certainly not all—were imported into the U.S. by Westheimer Sales carrying their own company’s brand name. There actually was a Teisco company! In fact, it was the late Jack Westheimer who appended the “del Rey” suffix to give the brand a little more “Spanish” veneer. By around 1964 or so another company called W.M.I., which stood for Weiss Musical Instruments, started importing Teisco del Reys, as well. Westheimer’s interest was more engaged in other brands he was selling, so he didn’t complain about W.M.I.’s usurping his brand name.

The object of my desire seen here is a c. 1963 Teisco SD-4L, which could have been brought in by Westheimer or someone else. For a guitar that was once regarded as something close to junk, laughed at by Les Paul and Strat aficionados, this is actually a pretty remarkable piece of lutherie for its time, the formica facing notwithstanding. The body is laminated, which the more snobbish call “plywood.” The neck is one-piece maple with a bound rosewood fingerboard. I don’t know if this has a reinforced neck; if it does, it’s certainly not adjustable. It’s pretty straight, however.

Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar

The ultimate inspiration for this guitar was the Fender Jazzmaster, which was, at the time this was introduced, still Fender’s top-of-the-line. However, it’s probably more by way of European translation. Very early in the history of Japanese exports to the U.S. they determined that their chief competition was Italian and, to a lesser extent, German guitars. And they were often loosely based on the Jazzmaster. The presence of four pickups, rocker switches, and thumbwheels clearly takes its inspiration from the Europeans. However, the nifty, top-mounted chrome housings that hold the controls are more of a nod to Supro.

A faux walnut top, the groovy shape, and four pickups are enough to recommend this guitar. But the neatest part is under the hood. The thumbwheels are master volume and tone. I’ve always thought that each pickup having both was overkill and impossible to use outside of a studio. Notice this has six rocker switches. Four of the rockers are simple on-off swtiches for each pickup. The other two, marked “Rhythm/Solo,” are actually phase reversal switches. Using these required that each pair of pickups (front and back) be on. The Solo position gives you both pickups in series or flat out. The Rhythm position reverses the phasing, giving you that funky in-between sound so cherished on Strats. Pretty cool.

Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar

The vibrato is also interesting. It sits on a little elevated platform above the guitar top and operates with three springs, one of the earliest 3-spring vibratos on a Japanese guitar I know of. All in all this is a great little guitar for getting down with “Walk, Don’t Run.” Once you get everything all set up, it plays very nicely indeed.

I’ve called this a 1963. In ’62 when these were introduced, the pickups were large chunky chrome affairs with a black bobbin center. By ’63 they had changed to these quasi-DeArmond gold foil single-coils (which are not bad, by the way). The Teisco SD-4L (and a companion 2-pickup SD-2L) only lasted into 1964. There’s a perception that Japanese guitars such as Teisco were imported by the millions, but, in fact, quantities were not really that large. The biggest year was 1966, when 618,000 guitars were imported, including all electrics and acoustics. It’s probably fair to conclude that this particular model is relatively scarce. In any case, when it was made nobody thought that inexpensive Japanese guitars were worth saving or would become collectibles! I’m sure glad this one made it. I love it! Mother-of-dinette and all.

Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar

Over Easy & Coffee Black, Please (Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L 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 Domino Spartan Electric Guitar

Who actually built these guitars in Japan is unknown, but these pickups appear to be associated with Kawai guitars, and that’s probably a good guess.

Vintage Domino Spartan Electric Guitar (Ad)

Here is an example of a dual pickup Domino Spartan in Sunburst. It was available in 2 or 3 pickup configuration, and in many different colors. Over the years I have seen olympic white, sunburst, seafoam green, orange and red. This 2P model has volume and tone controls, a 3-way selector switch and a rhythm/solo switch. The quality was pretty solid across the entire Domino line, compared to some of the stuff that was coming out of Japan at the time.

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage Domino Spartan Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage EKO 12-String DLX Electric Guitar

Here is an unusual 12 string model, likely dating from the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. Obviously inspired by the Hofner “Beatles” shaped guitars, it is a surprisingly good player. I’ll let the pictures to the talking from here on in…

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage EKO 12-String DLX 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

First come, first served. Order yours today!

Here is the back-story…

Since 1998 myrareguitars.com has been sharing its knowledge  and history of the bizarre guitars from the late 50’s and early 60’s. As we approach our 15th anniversary, we’ve been looking for something unique to mark the “brand” and create some historical goodies for all those passionate about weird guitars. We’ve decided to issue one or two new models each year – focusing on the real “fringe” bizarre – branded with the MyRareGuitars label. These oddball collectables will feature top quality, professional materials and construction, but will keep the prices at a fun and friendly level – a thank you to all who have supported us over the years. We especially look forward to your suggestions for future models! Our initial release – the Solo King.

MRG Solo King

Only $479. FREE Shipping North America ONLY.

Details & Specifications:

• Colours: Black
• Body: Basswood
• Neck: Bolt-on Maple
• Fingerboard: Rosewood, Dot markers
• Scale Length: 24 3/4″
• Width at Nut: 1 5/8″
• Pickups: Dual Mini Humbuckers
• Switching: 3-Way
• Controls: 2 Volume, 2 Tone
• Bridge: Fixed Tun-O-Matic Bridge
• Hardware: Gotoh style Nickel/Chrome
• Strings: #9-#46
• Case: optional hardshell case $99 extra.

Additional photos:

OMG!! It’s Back!! MRG 1960 SOLO KING Replica from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage El Degas Ricky Bass Guitar

This Rickenbacker Bass replica is very good, and likely sold for 1/4 the price of the original at the time. I took this in on trade some time back, and remembered my younger brother in the mid 1970’s playing one of these in his band “Drama”. How dramatic. Good player – at the time he could peel off Chris Squire riffs blindfolded – later Barry Adamson riffs from each Magazine LP, but then switched to guitar to form Surf Cinema. Last year he was up here in Toronto from California for a visit. I showed him this El Degas bass. As you might guess, it went home with him where it belonged.

But as for the history of the brand, who knows? When it comes to El Degas, we’re all pretty much guessing. Would the real original importer please stand up? Or maybe his nephew? Somebody out there must know something about this brand…

Back Catalog Memories – El Degas Ricky Bass from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1968 Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar

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

Vintage 1968 Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1968 Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1968 Roy Smeck Lap Steel Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1983 Hondo H-2 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1983 Hondo H-2 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1983 Hondo H-2 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1960’s Conrad 12-String Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1960’s Domino California Rebel CE82 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1980’s Aria Pro II ZZ Bass Deluxe

Aria Pro II did some copies of famous American guitars like the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul though it also did its own style of guitars. In the 70s and early 80s the company came into its own in the United States with a series of high end professional instruments. The company had professional endorsements from Herb Ellis, Yngwie Malmsteen, Neal Schon, John Taylor, and many more. Cliff Burton of Metallica used an Aria SB Black N Gold I as well as an SB-1000 bass but was never an official endorser.

Here is the Aria Pro II ZZ Deluxe Bass. These were manufactured between 1982-1987.

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage 1980’s Aria Pro II ZZ Bass Deluxe from MyRareGuitars.com

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1960’s Espana Bass Guitar (Sunburst)

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

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

Vintage 1967 Standel Custom Model 202 Electric Guitar (Red)

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

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

Vintage 1967 Standel Custom Model 202 Electric Guitar (Red)

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

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

Vintage 1967 Standel Custom Model 202 Electric Guitar (Red)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1960’s Contessa Guitar (Green)

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

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

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

Vintage 1960’s Coral Hornet Electric Guitar (Red)

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

Pete Townshend with a Coral Hornet guitar

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

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

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

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

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

1970’s UNIVOX Coily Bass Guitar (Sunburst)

UNIVOX guitars were imported to North America from Japan in the late 1960’s to the late 1970’s. They had many different models – most popular of which is the Hi-Flyer – but also included an array of Les Paul copies, Hagstrom, Fender and others. UNIVOX guitars were built by the Matsumoko guitar factory in Japan, who also built guitars for Aria, Westbury, Westone, and several other brands at the time. This model, the Coily Bass is based on the Epiphone Casino. They also made a 5 string version with a Bigsby style tremolo. Here are two samples, sunburst and redburst. These models featured dual pickups with a 3-way switch, two volume and two tone controls. Bolt-on maple neck with hollowbody flamed maple top and a floating bridge and string mute bar. At $125 in the early 1970’s, pretty good value and construction for the money!

Back Catalog Memories: 1970’s UNIVOX Coily Bass Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

• “Good” (Airline)
• “Better” (Supro)
• “Best” (National)

This way they could cover a wider price point by offering different hardware, etc to drive the price up.

Vintage Airline Res-O-Glas Electric Guitar (White)

Today, old Valco guitars are played by a wide array of bands and artists including David Bowie (Supro Dual Tone), The Cure (National MAP), Jack White (Airline 2P), Calexico and P.J. Harvey using this original Airline 3P Res-O-Glas, the top-of-the-line for Airline at the time. The original Res-O-Glas models were made with fiberglass bodies in two pieces, held together with screws and a rubber grommet. Unfortunately, these guitars did not have a truss rod. Instead, they had a wooden block sandwiched in the middle of the body, where the neck would mount. It had two pivot pins to raise or lower the action. The 2P model played by Jack White was known as the “Jetsons” or the JB Hutto” model, as was this beautiful 3P. The “JB Hutto” reference is a tip of the hat to the great bluesman and slide guitarist. Hutto was the first most visible guitarist to regularly use these resoglas guitars in live performances and recordings.

Here is a fine example of the original with three pickups – they were actually single coil although they look like humbuckers – a master volume and individual volume and tone for each pickup. These guitars are getting VERY hard to find and the vintage market now prices them well over $3,000. Unfortunately with the lack of a truss rod, most of the original res-o-glas guitars do not stand the test of time and typically have humped necks, poor binding and bad fretwork. That is why people like Hutto relegated them to slide use. Eastwood Guitars currently makes an excellent mahogany tone-chambered version for closer to $1,000 with modern, professional playability. Here is a link.

Back Catalog Memories: Airline 3P Res-O-Glas Guitar (White Finish) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Apollo Deluxe Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1967 Apollo Deluxe Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1967 Apollo Deluxe Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1960’s Bartolini Avanti Electric Guitar – white

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by: Andrew Marr, Coldstream B.C.

My First Fender from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional 5002 Electric Guitar – Black

[See image gallery at www.myrareguitars.com]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Poorboys ’65 (Vintage Silvertone 4 pickup electric guitar)

Approximately 4 yrs ago I had a brainstorm. I thought I would try to find a guitar that was similar to the one I had in Junior High (1963). That would be a four pickup Silvertone solid body guitar. When I was 12 and the Beatles came out, I had decided that I wanted to play guitar. My sister bought me a Stella to learn on, and I saved up enough to buy my own Silvertone guitar and the Twin 12 amp.

Shortly after I bought the guitar I was approached by some guys in my class, and they asked me if I would lead sing for them. Of course I jumped at it. When they heard I played guitar that was a plus.

Our band, the Poorboys, stayed together for about 4 yrs. We then split up. I lost interest in the guitar and sold it to my cousin in 1969. From this point on I never heard anything about the guitar.

Fast forward to 2009. I decided to try to find a guitar that matched to one I had. If the paint didn’t match, that would be okay, as I would refinish it to hang on the wall. I went on eBay and searched for a Silvertone 4 pickup solid body guitar. That particular day there was only one. It was a sunburst paint job. Everything worked. I contacted the guy and asked him about the guitar. He was being quite the butthead, as he acted like I was putting him out. Anyway, he had a ‘Buy It Now’ price of $550. I asked him if he was high or something, as I thought his price was totally out of place . He hung up on me.

Well I bidded on the guitar and won it for $325.00.

Shortly after I bought it, I checked it out and everything worked. It was just ugly with the sunburst paint. I stripped it down and tried to make the paint work but was struggling. I put it up on the shelf.

In September of 2012 I decided to just paint it and hang it up as it was just a memory and that’s it. As I was putting it together I noticed the chrome was perfect on the whammy bar cover. When I looked underneath I found the initials (gB) The day after i bought the guitar in 1963 I took the cover off and scratched my initials on it. When I saw this I just about died. I started thinking about the rest of the guitar. I remember putting a small chip in the volume control knob when I was taking it off. I also remember that one screw that held the tuning knobs on was different as one was stripped. I checked and both were there.

This guitar is the one that I bought in 1963 and played for several years and was a very important part of my rock and roll life. This guitar is home to stay.

Written by: Gary Berdinski

This Silvertone is Home to Stay from MyRareGuitars.com

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

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

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage Kawai Aquarius 12-String Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1986 Epiphone Firebird 500 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

RELATED: George Harrison’s Guitars in the Beatles

Basses

1964 Rickenbacker 4001S-LH

Paul McCartney with his 1964 Rickenbacker 4001S-LH Bass

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

1966 Fender Jazz Bass

Paul McCartney with his 1966 Fender Jazz Bass

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

Guitars

Epiphone Texan FT-79 Acoustic

Paul McCartney with his Epiphone Texan FT-79 Acoustic Guitar

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

1962 Epiphone Casino ES-230TD

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

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

1964 Fender Esquire

Paul McCartney with his 1964 Fender Esquire Guitar

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

1967 C.F. Martin D-28 Acoustic

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

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

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

Posted by Raj from Guitar Tone

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

Galanti Panther Guitar (3 pickups)

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

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

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

Back Catalog Memories: Galanti Panther Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

1960’s Ampeg AUB Bass Guitar

Although better known for their monster SVT amps from the late 1960’s, Ampeg made a family of electric basses that were quite unusual and advanced for the time from 1966 through 1969. There were four basic models, each of which was available in fretted and fretless versions.

The model designations are:

• AEB-1
• AUB-1
• ASB-1
• AUSB-1
• AMB-1
• AMUB-1
• SSB
• SSUB

The letters seem to follow the following pattern – “AEB” means Ampeg Electric Bass. The “U” means Unfretted, the “M” probably means Magnetic pickup, and the SSB is the Short Scale Bass. In the late 2000’s, Canada’s Eastwood Guitars began to reissue two of these models, naming them EEB-1 (Eastwood Electric Bass) and EUB-1 (Eastwood Unfretted Bass). However, the re-issue simplified the headstock somewhat.

Here is a nice example of the original AUB-1. This one has had been modified with a modern bridge.

Back Catalog Memories: Ampeg AUB Bass 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

Mosrite Electric Guitar, The Ventures Model (Blueburst Finish)

It wasn’t long after we moved back to Toronto from California that I acquired this guitar. You have to understand – I’ve bought and sold more guitars in the past 20 years than there are Beatles fans in Liverpool. When you are in the business of buying/selling guitars, you simply cannot afford to get attached to them. Yes, it is hard some times, but in the end this is what pays the bills, so you have to let them go.

That is why this one is so incredibly special. I knew when I first saw her, it might not leave. In fact, in the early years of myrareguitars.com, I used to have a BUY NOW button and a price, just to test my resolve. Every couple of months I would get an offer near my asking price – that would scare the hell out of me – so I would jack the price higher to ward off temptation. But a few years ago I simply surrendered to the fact that I could never part with it at any price. Funny, because I hear stories from guitars players all the time about the guitars they covet and can never let go and I never really had that feeling. But now I did and I completely understand.

It’s not “vintage”, but it is “rare”. In the late 90’s and early 00’s, a Japanese factory was making these incredible Mosrite replica’s. Some had the tailpiece stamped with “excellent” instead of “Moseley” or “Vibramute”. The lower cost ones were selling in the $1,000 range (Excellent) and the “Vibramute” ones were the top end selling for 2-3 times as much. An enterprising young fellow in USA was importing them in low quantities (probably 50 or 60 at a time) and selling them in the early EBAY days. That is how I found this one.

It has a serial number of “0000”, which is cooler than the other side of the pillow. To this day I am still unsure of the factory that made them, but I can tell you this – the quality and craftsmanship is over the top.

There are very few guitars that I keep in my “collection”, this is one of them.
Check out these photos:

Back Catalog Memories: Blueburst Mosrite, Ventures Model from MyRareGuitars.com

EKO Guitars

EKO Guitars started in Italy in 1959 by Oliviero Pigini. It soon became the largest guitar manufacturer in Europe producing a half million guitars a year. Although primarily distributed throughout Europe, some models found their way to North America in the 1960’s via Milwaukee’s LoDuca brothers. Many of these “budget” guitars were purchased by our parents as student guitars and found their way into the back of a closet. Over the years, with the help of EBAY, many have surfaced and found their way into my collection. Here are some highlights to share. Enjoy!

Vintage EKO Condor Electric Guitar

Vintage EKO Condor Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage EKO 12-String Electric Guitar (Violin)

EKO 500 4V Woodgrain
The early 60’s were the best years for EKO Guitars after evolving from an accordion factory and bringing with it the unusual switches and finishes. This is a vinyl woodgrain. The 4V meant 4 pickups, 3V as 3, etc.+

Vintage EKO 500 4V Electric Guitar (Woodgrain)

EKO 700 4V
More from the early 60’s was this silver sparkle 700 4V. The 700 series was a very distinct design, odd cutaways. The switches were 1+2, 1+3, 2+3, 3+4, 1+4, etc. trying to give the player every possible combination.

Vintage EKO 700 4V Electric Guitar (White)

EKO 500 1V
Here is a nice elegant design for a single pickup EKO Guitar. I really loved EKO use of vinyl coverings for the bodies (like the accordion days) and the interesting materials for pickguard.

EKO Club
Here is a rare EKO Guitars 6 string that seems to be modeled after the Hofner Club Series. It appears to be early/mid 1960’s based on the parts, but I’ve never seen another.

Vintage EKO Club Electric Guitar

EKOMASTER Blue
Here is the Cadillac of the EKO sparkle days. Elaborate push button switches, rotary volume and tone controls. Set necks. Striped see through pickguard.

Vintage EKO Ekomaster Electric Guitar (Blue)

EKOMASTER GOLD
Here is the Cadillac of EKO Guitars sparkle days. Elaborate push button switches, rotary volume and tone controls. Set necks. Striped see through pickguard.

Vintage EKO Ekomaster Electric Guitar (Gold)

EKO Guitars Barracuba Bass and 6 string
Here is a pair of EKO Florentine (aka. barracuda) guitars. beautifully detailed pickguard match the redburst finish.

Vintage EKO Barracuda Electric Guitar & Bass (Set)

Back Catalog Memories: EKO Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

Mystery Ephiphone Guitar: Prototype or Custom Build?

Mystery Ephiphone Guitar: Prototype or Custom Build?

The guitar was delivered a few days later, and I ripped the box open like a kid on Christmas morning. With packing peanuts flying, I pulled out a hard shell case that could have housed a 335. Inside the case was a label-less, serial number-less semi-hollow electric guitar with Epiphone on the headstock, just like my friend had described. The guitar looked and felt like it was USA-made, but I needed to examine it more closely.

I noted the guitar’s Grover tuners, and the nut looked original and to Gibson spec. The brand was inlayed like a Gibson, with the finial in the center, which is typical of a standard 335. I also noticed what I call “ears” on the headstock, which occur when Gibson cuts the neck blanks for their guitars and then reuses scrap pieces by gluing them to the headstock portion of the blank, creating laminate lines that can be seen on the back of the headstock. The neck and heal were made of mahogany, with no laminate joints, and the fret board was rosewood with dot inlays. However, the headstock had no serial number, no volute, and no stamp to indicate that it was USA-made.

Mystery Ephiphone Guitar: Prototype or Custom Build?

Mystery Ephiphone Guitar: Prototype or Custom Build?

Mystery Ephiphone Guitar: Prototype or Custom Build?

The body of the guitar appeared to be a laminate mahogany top, back, and sides-not maple, like a typical 335- with a subtle, tobacco-burst, nitro lacquer finish. The bridge was a Gibson-stamped ABR Tune-o-matic, and the wiring was braided like a Gibson as well, but I could find no label or markings inside the f-hole.

Since I was having a hard time dating the guitar without a serial number, I decided to remove the electronics to get a look at the pots, switch, and pickups. Tone and volume potentiometers typically have a series of numbers on them that identify the manufacturer and the production date. Unfortunately, these pots were liberally covered in solder, which made the numbers completely indiscernible. The pickups, however, did offer me a clue.

Mystery Ephiphone Guitar: Prototype or Custom Build?

In 1980, the Norlin Corporation began to take the first steps toward production of a reissue Les Paul guitar, and they assigned engineer Tim Shaw the task of reproducing a PAF-style humbucker for the project. Due to financial constraints set by Norlin, Shaw could only approximate certain aspects of the original pickups, but the final product was a PAF-style pickup that was superior to the pickups that Gibson was producing at the time. Tim Shaw pickups are easily identifiable because they have a separate, ink-stamped series of numbers on the bottom that indicates the type of pickup (bridge or neck), as well as the date of production. The pickups in question were stamped 329 682, which revealed that the production year was 1982.

I was looking at an Epiphone-branded, Gibson-made, USA-manufactured 335 with no serial number and no label, but with pickups that gave me the guitar’s production year. My conclusion was that the guitar must have been either a prototype, or maybe a personal build for someone who worked for Gibson at the time. Either way, my friend had himself a great playing and sounding instrument, and I’d had fun doing the detective work.

Mystery Ephiphone Guitar: Prototype or Custom Build?

Written by: Dave Anderson

Checking Out a Mystery Epiphone Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop AE650TRW Electric Guitar (White)

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

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

Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop AE650TRW Electric Guitar (White)

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

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

Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop AE650TRW Electric Guitar (White)

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

Vintage 1994 Alvarez Dana Scoop AE650TRW Electric Guitar (White)

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1983 Kramer Focus K4000 Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1983 Kramer Focus K4000 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1983 Kramer Focus K4000 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional Sparkle 5002 Electric Guitar

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

Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional Sparkle 5002 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1967 TeleStar Professional Sparkle 5002 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1967 Gretsch Corvette 6135 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1967 Gretsch Corvette 6135 Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1967 Gretsch Corvette 6135 Electric Guitar

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

These guitars were imported into the United States during the 1960’s by Milwaukee import company, Deluca Brothers Music. This particular model – The Cobra Series – was a “student” entry level guitar. They were available in single and double pickup 6 string version, mainly in Black, Sunburst or Red. Also in a 12 string version in Sunburst or Red and a 30″ scale Bass in Sunburst. Surprisingly nice necks on these guitars even 50 years later, the body material is extremely lightweight and the guitars are fun to play.

EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s EKO Cobra Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

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

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

Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1964 Alamo Titan Mark II Electric Guitar

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

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

Vintage 1974 Carvin CM95 Electric Guitar

Bob’s House of Music was the creation of Bob Goodman, a former music teacher from New Jersey, who’d made his way out to the Denver area. He did, indeed, own a little strip mall in Wheat Ridge, a single-story L-shaped cinderblock affair with four or five storefronts facing the main street and another three or four along the left side. The space in back made by the two legs of the L constituted a large service and storage area. Parked in the spaces in front were various “vintage” cars and trucks that Bob had taken in on trade, none of which ran, and all of which got him periodic citations from the city. Along the front row was Bob’s House of Music, very crowded with guitars, basses, amps, and accessories, close quarters but for all intents and purposes a normal music store. However, all was far from normal!

That’s because there were no other tenants. Every—and I mean EVERY—square inch of the rest of the building—from the former beauty shop to the service area—was crammed floor to ceiling with vintage instruments. Hanging on racks, stacked in piles, lying in cases. Thousands of guitars everywhere and barely enough room to walk!

Vintage 1974 Carvin CM95 Electric Guitar

Mainly this was the case because Bob followed a unique business model. You’d walk in and see, say, a Rickenbacker on the wall marked $600. You’d say, “You take $500 for that?” Bob would scowl, draw himself up straight, square his shoulders, glare at you and spit out, “$700.” The Guitar Nazi. Bob didn’t sell a lot of guitars. Indeed, Bob lived on thrift shop clothes and expired canned food. For himself and the feral cats. Did I mention the cats? Hundreds had the run of the place. Use your imagination…

Vintage 1974 Carvin CM95 Electric Guitar

Bob and I got along fine. I was a “celebrity” and he let me photograph hundreds of prime guitars. Plus the chaos around us. I even bought quite a few guitars. As long as none were obviously valuable and I priced things fairly, he didn’t jack up the price. I even checked them into baggage for the flight home; this was way before you got a per-bag charge! They all arrived safely, with no “United Breaks Guitars!”

This 1974 Carvin CM95 was one of my prizes from Bob’s. Carvin was begun in Lowell Kiesel’s kitchen back in 1946. Kiesel, from Kansas via Los Angeles, began producing Bakelite lap steels carrying the Kiesel brand. After some early distribution through Continental, Carvin became one of the earliest direct-to-consumer mailorder guitar companies, a model it follows to this day. In around 1949 Kiesel’s brand name changed to a contraction of his two sons’ names: Carson and Gavin. Carvin.

Carvin began making solidbody electric guitars in 1955, the first a kind of cross between a Tele and a Les Paul. This was supplanted by more Fender-inspired solids in the early 1960s. In around 1965 Carvin began importing necks from Höfner in Germany. Carvin guitars sported imported necks until 1978 when it returned to making its own handles again.

The Carvin CM95 seen here was a short-lived model made in 1973-74. Carvin made the Eastern hard rock maple single-cut body, the APH-6 humbuckers, and the hardware; Höfner made the neck (it’s signed by the German makers on the back of the heel). The serial number is 1745, putting this at around 1974. This was at the height of the so-called “copy era,” and would have provided guitarslingers with an American-made (well almost) alternative to an Ibanez or Electra or Bradley from Japan.

I think there’s something in our DNA that looks down on a bolt-neck Les Paul-style guitar, but, honestly, there’s really nothing not to like about this CM95. I’ve always felt that Carvin’s pickups from this period lacked personality, but since all of us color our sound even if we just use an amp, nevermind effects, about all you really need is pickups that work and a guitar that plays well and this fits the bill!

In around 1979 Carvin’s brief fling with Gibson-style solidbodies began shifting toward pointy Strat-style guitars that would subsequently characterize the brand, several years before that style became popular, it should be pointed out.

Curiously enough, Bob’s father also had a music store in Wilmington, DE, and when I returned to Philly I drove down to see it. In stark contrast to Bob’s overflowing Temple of Doom, his father’s shop was a temple of gloom. It had an ancient pump organ in one corner and a couple new Johnson guitars on the otherwise totally bare walls. A few months later the story I wrote on the whole adventure ran in Vintage Guitar Magazine, and several weeks later Bob suddenly died. The next day—that’s the NEXT DAY—Bob’s father passed away. My friend Tom, who’d initiated the whole tale ended up buying Bob’s stash, liquidating it on eBay. I’d think I dreamed the whole story if I didn’t have this Carvin and a few other tokens to remind me of that fateful email once upon a time!

Bob's House of Music (Wheat Ridge, Colorado)

Bob's House of Music (Wheat Ridge, Colorado)

From the Temple of Doom (II): Carson & Gavin [Vintage 1974 Carvin CM95 Electric Guitar] from MyRareGuitars.com

Charvel Surfcaster Guitar & Bass Ad (1991)

The Charvel Surfcaster surfaced in the early 1990s, and it was manufactured from 1991 to 2005 by the Charvel/Jackson guitar company. It was never very popular in terms of sales, but was considered a boutique style guitar and those who like them, like them a lot, like me! It is reminiscent of the Fender Jazzmaster but with a Rickenbacker style f-hole. These design aspects make it significantly different than other models from Charvel/Jackson that focused mainly on the hard rock guitarist. The Surfcaster was picked as a “Pawn Shop Prize” by Guitar Player magazine in July 2003.

Originally available only in the two lipstick pickup configuration, later models would include a humbucking pickup in the bridge position. Later solid body 3 lipstick pickup variations were also produced. A twelve string and four string bass version were also created and are highly collectible. Quality & cosmetics suffered. When Charvel/Jackson was purchased by Fender in 2002 they dropped the Surfcaster because of its similarity to guitars sold under the Fender brand.

Here are a some detailed photos of a beautiful matching pair. Enjoy!

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Back Catalog Memories: 1991 Charvel Surfcaster Guitar & Bass from MyRareGuitars.com

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

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

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

Vintage 1967 Goya Rangemaster 109R Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Baxendale Guitar

Harmony Conversions

Scott Baxendale’s legacy of building custom instruments began in 1974, when he arrived in Winfield, Kansas to work for Stuart Mossman, owner and founder of Mossman Guitars. Scott joined Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Tennessee, In l978, where he specialized in the restoration of classic vintage instruments. During this time he repaired or restored guitars for such professionals as Billy Gibbons, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Jr., Steve Howe, Elvis Costello, John Hartford, Marty Stuart, Norman Blake, Roy Acuff and many others. Here is the Mick Jones Custom.

Scott Baxendale Acoustic Guitar

Scott Baxendale Acoustic Guitar

Scott purchased Mossman Guitars, in l985, moving the company to Garland, Texas. He manufactured over 250 acoustic guitars, averaging five instruments per month, some of which are owned and played by Carl Perkins, Joe Walsh, Willie Nelson, Donovan, Greg Lake, Jorma Kaukonen, John Mellencamp, Chris Hillman, James Burton, Travis Tritt, Dave Alvin, B.J. Thomas and Ray Wylie Hubbard.

Scott’s work on Harmony conversions was brought to my attention by long time friend and customer of Eastwood, Dewitt Burton, guitar tech for R.E.M. If you have ever owned an old Harmony guitar, you’ll know how cool they are, but Scott can take a mediocre instrument and turn it into a world class guitar.

Vintage Harmony Guitars Catalog

The Harmony conversion is a process by which they take old USA-made Harmony and Kay guitars and remanufacture them using our proprietary bracing and internal design, giving the guitars a new life and a world class tone that compares to vintage guitars of the highest order. This re-manufacturing process allows them to create a guitar that is also green, recycling and repurposing by starting with an existing guitar that was originally made with quality woods, and requiring no finish work. These are great guitars that retain their vintage patina and mojo at a price that the average musician can afford.

Vintage Harmony Guitars Catalog

Many musicians have an old Harmony or Kay laying around that was their first instrument. Some have sent them to Scott to be rebuilt, and these guitars subsequently became their favorite instrument! Many of his customers are professional recording artists and musicians. If you would like to purchase a remade Harmony or Kay, have one rebuilt, or have one to sell, contact Scott baxendaleguitar@att.net

Mick Jones - The Clash

Scott Baxendale Guitar & Harmony Conversions from MyRareGuitars.com

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

By Michael Wright
The Different Strummer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1966 Kapa Continental 12-String HS

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

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

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

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

TEISCO guitars sold in the United States were badged “Teisco Del Rey” beginning in 1964. Teisco guitars were also imported in the U.S. under several brand names including Silvertone, Kent, Beltone, Duke, Heit Deluxe, Jedson, Kimberly, Kingston, Lyle, Norma, Tulio and World Teisco. Likewise, they were imported in the UK under such labels as Arbiter, Audition, Kay and Top Twenty. While guitars manufactured by Teisco were ubiquitous in their day, they are now very collectable. In fact, highly sought after models are now being reproduced.

Vintage 1960's Teisco Spectrum 5 Guitar

The cream of the crop was certainly the Spectrum 5:

This model was a massive achievement on many levels: deep german carved body, stereo pickups and switching, wild colored switches and a crazy body contour. So no wonder forty years later that it is the serious collector’s version of a TEISCO, at least three times more valuable than any other model. “So how do you make the rare, rarer??” I asked. Make a Plexiglas version of it, that’s how. Here is where the story gets interesting…

I’ve said it before: one of the cool things about being in this business is the people you meet. I’ve recently come to the following conclusion – If you are really into weird guitars, and you live long enough, you’ll eventually meet every other person on the planet that is into weird guitars.

Vintage 1960's Teisco Plexi Spectrum 5 Guitar

A while back I got an email from one of the worlds best “out there” guitar players – Henry Kaiser. He saw an older article from the My Rare Guitars website that circled around a particularly wierd guitar and was interested in trading something for it. What did Henry have to trade? A Teisco Spectrum. Yes, a Teisco Spectrum is always in the top ten in my “trade-for” list. But wait… this one was a plexi Spectrum!! What the hell??? Apparently they made 100 or so in Japan (where Henry got it earlier in the decade) so I’m guessing not many – if any other than this one – ever made it across the pond.

So goes the lifetime obsession of guitar collecting. Cool things come and go every month, but this one was worth a mention for sure. For the most part, I enjoy the pursuit. Once I get them, I start looking for the next and the initial romantic attraction wanes. As a customer once stated, it is like fishing, catch and release. But sometimes you catch a really big one, and relling it in is so much fun!

Oh, by the way, do yourself a favour and catch up with Henry Kaiser.

Back Catalog Memories: TEISCO Spectrum 5 Plexi Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

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

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

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

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

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

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

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

Vintage 1960’s Wandre Doris Electric Guitar (Green)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIEW EASTWOOD WANDRE DORIS TRIBUTE FOR SALE

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

Story #1- 1959 Fender Musicmaster

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

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

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

The Guitarron

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

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

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

Back Catalog Memories: 1959 Fender Musicmaster from MyRareGuitars.com

Guitar Rescue: 1940’s Harmony Archtop 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

1968 Guyatone LG-350T Sharp 5 Vintage Electric Guitar

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

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

1968 Guyatone LG-350T Sharp 5 Vintage Electric Guitar

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

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

1968 Guyatone LG-350T Sharp 5 Vintage Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Don’t get me wrong. The Deluxe Reverb is a great amp. But the Fenders I love pretty much all fall in the tweed era, where there wasn’t a ton of great headroom and you got into a nice snarl pretty early in the sweep of the volume knob.

1960's Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp

You don’t see a bunch of the dual 6V6 single 12” Kays. The models you tend to see the most are the little (and somewhat anemic) single-ended practice amp, the 703. And the Kay tube amp you tend to see the least is the VERY cool duel 6L6 (sometimes) Kay 507 Twin Ten.

1960's Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp

As the name suggests, the amp pushes two (ALNICO) 10” speakers powered by a pair of 6L6’s. What’s weird is that a LOT have 7868’s as output tubes and use a 7199 in the circuit. 7868’s have a great tone, in general. They are, from what I’ve read, essentially the same tube as a 7591, but with nine pins instead of eight. 7199’s got used a lot in Ampegs and Sanos and they are very rare and they aren’t made anymore, so they tend to cost a lot of dough. So, buyer beware (especially about the 7199) on this amp. BUT, the model I have has what are obviously original 6L6’s and no rare or obscure preamp tubes (five 12AX7’s do the preamp and phase inverter jobs) and the old stand-by 5U4 for rectification. Mine is all original—as the schematic inside matches what’s in the amp. But there seem to have been some variations on the construction of the 507—so, ask the seller about/check the tubes when buying so you know what your 507 has in it.

1960's Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp

Also, it’s one of the coolest looking amps you’ll see. It has two channels (two inputs per channel), a VERY snazzy chrome rear control panel with six knobs (tone and volume for each channel and speed and intensity for the tremolo). And it has a very 50’s-looking two tone appearance (even though it lists that they were made 1960-1963), brown rear and light brown front with a white swirl on brown cloth grill. It’s a great size—not too heavy and 24” wide by 20” tall.

1960's Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp

OK, it looks cool, but how does it sound? Pretty freaking cool. It sounds a lot like the other great Chicago amps of the same period. And this is where things get kind of interesting—who made these Kay amps? It has a tone very much like the great Valcos (which ended up branded, at various times, Supro, Airline and, in the 400 series, Harmony). And, like a Valco, it has a tone a bit like some of the great Lectrolabs, too (I’ve seen Lectrolabs branded under their own name and also with Philharmonic and the 300 series of Harmony amps). But, it’s not made by either Valco or Lectrolab (I get this info from a friend of mine who knows more about off-brand amps than anyone I know and has a collection to prove it). It also doesn’t look like a Valco or Lectrolab under the hood. It’s simply made differently (though it is point-to-point like both of those brand—no hand stuffed circuit board like on a Tweed Fender). According to my friend, it was Kay who actually made these Kay amps over these years (go figure). As I say, this friend knows a lot more than me and has written several books on the Chicago giants. Plus, it’s easy to tell from looking that it wasn’t made by Valco or Lectrolab. So, if it isn’t easy to tell who DID make it, at least we know who DIDN’T.

1960's Kay Dual 6V6 Vintage Guitar Amp

Whoever made it, though, it’s a wonderful amp. At low volume, you get a VERY rich and textured clean sound. The two ten inch speakers sound great and the cleans are very complex, much like a Tweed Fender Super from the early 50’s. This is one of the richest, thickest (without being overly dark) cleans I have ever heard in a vintage amp. And when you add the tremolo, wow! It moves from a VERY slow, pulsing tremolo, to a pretty fast one—but it never gets totally choppy and helicopter-sounding like a lot of the late 60’s tremolos. Throughout the range of the “strength” control, the tremolo stays watery and smooth. Just a killer sound.

1960's Kay Dual 6V6 Vintage Guitar Amp

Turned up, it sounds more like a 6V6 amp than most 6L6 amps I’ve ever heard. Very Neil Young and Crazy Horse. If you push the volume on the channel you’re using to 6 or higher, it starts to really snarl and have a complex great sounding distortion. The volume and tone controls are interactive, too, so you can get some very nice textures of distortion by either coupling the channels with a short cord, or just playing with the volume of the channel you’re not using. Open it up full and put the other channel around 5 or 6 and it sounds VERY much like Neil Young’s tone on RAGGED GLORY—that opening of “Country Home” sounds spot on when this amp is cranked.

1960's Kay Dual 6V6 Vintage Guitar Amp

It’s a sleeper. And there don’t seem to be too many of them out there. I haven’t heard the 7868 output tube version of this amp, but I’d sure like to. In any case, if you see one of the 507 Twin Tens with 6L6 output tubes, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. I’m doing a MAJOR purge around here—selling at least five guitars and five amps. And I kept going back and forth on the Kay 507. Then I plugged it in to write this and I decided I’d be nuts to get rid of it. There simply aren’t that many of them. And I don’t want to feel like I felt about letting go of my 4X6V6 Danelectro Challenger with a 15 inch speaker. That was another super rare amp I let go of, and I still get angry at myself. From now on, I’ve vowed to only get rid of stuff I could easily replace if I truly regretted the sale. So this one stays.

1960’s Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp from MyRareGuitars.com

1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Vintage Electric Guitar

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

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

1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Vintage Electric Guitar

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

1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Vintage Electric Guitar

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

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

1967 Heit Deluxe V-2 Vintage Electric Guitar

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

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

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

1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar

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

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

1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar

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

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

1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar

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

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

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

1990 PBC GTS 200S Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

What makes these guitars special? The necks, mostly. If you like think, very fast-playing necks, vintage Italian guitars may be your thing. This “Jetstar” model has the normal zippy neck, plus some other very cool feature—not the least of which are the (typical to Italian guitars made by factories more accustomed to cranking out accordions) push buttons for the pickup selectors.

1960’s Galanti Jetstar Electric Guitar

This model has a rather strange tone set-up. The buttons are labeled 0/1/2/M. You can either have the bridge pickup selected (setting 2), or the neck pickup (setting 1), or some cross between them that’s choked with a treble-cutting resistor (setting M). Or, you can hit the button closest to the strap on the treble horn (setting 0), which cuts the guitar off entirely (?!). Why anyone would need a kill switch on a guitar is beyond me. Unless you wanted to do that cool Morse-code sound at the end of “London Calling” (I may have answered my own question). But that Morse-code on/off only works with a toggle switch, not so well with a slower-to-operate button. But several 60’s Japanese and Italian models seem to have a button that turns everything off. Odd.

But the guitar plays like butter. Fast and slick—and the intonation is easy to set correctly. The bridge is pretty high-end, made very solidly with smooth slots and a center-loaded whammy bar with the feel and sweep of a Jazzmaster or Jaguar. And that’s who this guitar would probably appeal to the most—people who dig Jags and Jazzmasters, with a slightly more lo-fi, garage vibe to the tone. The tuners are high-end, as well—teardrop shaped with slightly pearloid plastic. Pretty.

And how is the tone? Like I say, very garage, very 60’s. Raw enough to play overdriven punk and grungy blues. The pickups sound a bit like a combination of a P-90 and a Teisco gold foil. Fair amount of snarl if you want it, but also full of some pretty cool surf tones if you want. For a single-coil guitar, there’s a good amount of sustain, too—plenty more than the Fenders mentioned here. The down-angle of the strings at the bridge eliminates the plinky lack of sustain that can plague a Jazzmaster (much as I love them). The tone is very balanced—overall, the guitar sits dead center in a midrange between the brightness of a Strat and the rich darkness of a Les Paul or 335.

1960’s Galanti Jetstar Electric Guitar

Put it together with the Magnatone 431(the one sitting behind the Danelectro in the pictures), and you have a great surf machine with some reverb and that wonderful Magnatone vibrato (OR tremolo, as this model Maggie has both choices—too cool). Plus it into the other amp pictured, the Lectrolab R600 (a truly amazing dual 6V6 amp that I’ll cover in a review soon), and it’s straight out 1950’s Chicago blues. Crank it up and you’re in Neil Young and Crazy Horse RAGGED GLORY territory. Really—play this through a fully-open overdriven amp and the tone is incredible.

The neck pickup is fat and rich, while the bridge has a fair amount of bite (less than a Jaguar or Strat—closer to the bridge PU of a Jazzmaster). The only thing that can be an issue (or it can be sonic joy, depending on who’s playing) is the pickups are very microphonic and the guitar can squeal feedback a little quicker than most solidbodies tend to do.

For anyone who’d be interested in buying a Jazzmaster, Jaguar or Mustang, you could do well (and save a few bucks in the process) grabbing one of these Galantis. They aren’t that easy to come by, but they aren’t super rare, either. Mine was beaten up and needed a neck repair, so I got a great deal on it (along with the original, form-fit case). But, if you’re looking to find a mint one, they seem to be out there in the $400-600 range as of this writing (Oct, 2010).

It’s not the MOST versatile machine you’ll add to your collection. But it sounds and plays great, and looks pretty fabulous, too. It’s become my number one guitar in my main garage/roots band. Really—plug it straight into a good amp and it sounds like you’re in a nice two-car garage in 1968, with mom and dad’s Falcon and Mustang (my family had cool cars) pulled out in the driveway. It’s not just a guitar—it’s a time machine!

1960’s Galanti Jetstar Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

1969 Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro Electric Guitar

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

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

1969 Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

1969 Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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