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

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 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 1970’s Epiphone ET Series Crestwood Electric Guitar

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

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

Additional Details:

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

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

Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar

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

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

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

Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar

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

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

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

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

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

Riverhead Unicorn Series Guitar Ad

1985 Riverhead Unicorn Series Driving Force

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

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 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 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

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

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

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

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

1968 St. Moritz Stereo Guitar

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

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

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

1968 St. Moritz Stereo Guitar

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

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

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

1968 St. Moritz Stereo Guitar

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

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

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

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

Kawai was founded in 1927 by Koichi Kawai in Hamamatsu, Japan. Mr. Kawai’s vision was to create top-quality pianos, a quest in which he certainly succeeded! Kawai added guitars to its repertoire in around 1954 and eventually became a player in the ’60s Guitar Boom. Like many Japanese electric guitars, most early Kawai guitars were slightly frumpy, although my impression is that their electronics were a little better than some contemporaries. Probably the most prominent brand names in the U.S. manufactured by Kawai were TeleStar, whose sparkle models have a small but devoted following, and Domino.

1967 Kawai Concert Electric Guitar

In January of 1967 Kawai purchased the Teisco guitar company, but they appear to have operated the two companies pretty much separately. Both lines featured exclusive designs and different pickups. Teisco continued the vector of evolution it had taken, ending up with the Spectrums and finally the mini-Strats, before becoming the Kay brand in the U.S.

1967 Kawai Concert Electric Guitar

But in 1968, both Kawai and Teisco freaked out. Kawai produced models such as the axe-shaped Concert, plus a variety of unusual VS violin-bodied guitars (including one with 16 strings and its own pickup mounted parallel to the strings, whether sympathetic or strummed, who knows?), the Splender, shaped like a banjo, and another model shaped like a sitar. For Teisco, ’68 was the year that gave us the famous artist-palette-shaped May Queen, wildly flared, asymmetrical Fire Bird, and long-horn Phantom. One other company, Firstman (unrelated to Kawai), produced a model similar to the Concert called the Liverpool.

1967 Kawai Concert Electric Guitar

Like the Concert shown here, all of these oddballs were hollow, some like the Fire Bird in a traditional sense, others like the Concert consisting of two hollow halves glued together. The result is a cool, easy-to-carry guitar. The scrolled neck on this model was made of many multiple thin maple laminations, similar to the trademark designs of Framus. The big chunky pickups can have a pretty decent output, though it’s somewhat mitigated by the lightweight body. In addition to this black finish, there was also a sunburst, at least.

Look, these are really, really cool guitars. It’s not known whether these are particularly rare or not, but they were only made in 1968. Neither is it known if they were ever exported out of Japan. You sure don’t see many of them. Which is funny, because, let’s be honest, guitars like this are more about being seen than being played! Though the axe effect could come in handy if your fans decided to attack!…

Motorcycle Mama (The Story of Kawai Guitars) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 Kent Model 742 Electric Guitar

I met my Waterloo at a place called The Trading Post at the Pennsauken Mart, one of those East Coast predecessors to the modern mall, made of cinderblock and full of exotic stalls. But instead of Penney’s and Victoria’s Secret, you would find a butcher, gun shop, Polish imports, dollar stores, short-order counters, and the Trading Post, a kind of quasi pawn shop where you sold stuff, but couldn’t retrieve it unless you bought it back. Almost by instinct I threaded my way past the Fender Strats to the back where I saw this Kent guitar. It had a gorgeous burled maple front and back and really cool black and white celluloid on the sides, giving it the cachet of an ancient Baroque guitar. It even had a real Bigsby. But best of all, it had 4 – count ’em, four – pickups! It had to be better than one with just three! And, at $89, it was priced right.

Vintage 1967 Kent Model 742 Electric Guitar

But where the heck did this guitar come from? I learned later it was a Kent Model 742, made in Japan in 1967. Kent was the brand name used by Buegeleisen & Jacobson (B&J), once a major music distributor in New York City. B&J was one of the early companies to begin importing musical goods from Japan in 1960, starting with microphones and aftermarket pickups, and adding guitars in 1962. By the time this Model 742 was built the guitars had graduated from relatively primitive mahogany planks to sophisticated laminates and trim. Earlier Kents were made by Guyatone, but it’s unknown who created this glam job.

Vintage 1967 Kent Model 742 Electric Guitar

The Model 742 is a beaut. But do the four pickups make it better? Well, alas, poor Nigel, more is not necessarily better, except maybe in the looks department. Indeed, these admittedly handsome pickup units just may have been the worst ever produced! Plus the guitar is wired so that playing all of them decreases further the already crappy output, making the onboard mute switch kind of superfluous! And, maybe they could have used some help on the truss rod design. Ok, so the Kent won’t power my Ventures tribute band. But if its fancy burl, Baroque rally stripes, and especially four pickups hadn’t grabbed me from the back of the rack that day in Pennsauken, New Jersey, I’d never have discovered my love for bizarre guitars and begun my long journey into the dark recesses of guitar history. That makes this Kent an 11 on my list!

Is more better? (1967 Kent Model 742 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com