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1970s-era Bunker Bass

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
This Bunker Bass is an interesting one. It has the appearance of a Gibson Grabber/Ripper with some serious body surgery. It's interesting to note that the tuners are on the body beyond the bridge, predating headless designs such as the Steinberger by several years. Unlike the Steinberger, the Bunker Bass does have a headstock, although this would seem to be purely for aesthetical purposes.

Additional (4 Nov 2009): I found some more information in an article in the My Rare Guitars newsletter, as follows:

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

G L Wilson

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Vox V251 Guitar Organ

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guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's a great clip showcasing the now legendary VOX guitar organ on the I've Got A Secret TV show back in 1967. Thanks to Andy Stone for finding this one!

G L Wilson

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Bo Diddley and the Duchess play pre-Gretsch Jupiter Thunderbird

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OK the Dead Weather play some cool instruments, but this is where they come from!
This is Bo Diddley in the mid-60s playing - together with Norma-Jean Wofford aka the Duchess, one of the first female guitarist in a rock band - his famous and beautiful Jupiter Thunderbird. This was not a Gretsch model like most people think, but a custom model recycling Gretsch parts, designed in 1959 by Bo Diddley himself who wanted 1. a smaller body to avoid hitting his groin when dancing, 2. a flashy guitar to shine on stage!
The guitar was named after some American car of the time...

It's only in 2005 that Billy Gibbons - who was given a Jupiter Thunderbird by Bo Diddley - proposed to Gretsch to issue what is known since as the Billybo.


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Alison Mosshart plays white Gretsch Bo Diddley

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I didn't like Gretsch's Bo Diddley rectangular guitar so much, until I saw it in snow white in the hands of graceful Alison Mosshart fronting the Dead Weather. I know that this all white Gretsch's guitars band is some kind of marketing hype, combined with Jack White's well applied obsession with colour, and that Mr White himself is evil since he made some fancy duo for a Hollywoodian movie, but they are still quite beautiful guitars (including of course the white Jupiter Thunderbird that White uses on other songs, and that stands ostentatiously next to the drums), and I do enjoy the music (though I prefer the rawer music of The Kills).

And it's so cool to have such a guitar to play just one note, uh!

There is a nice live video of the Dead Weather to watch on From the Basement.


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Another imcompetent DIY job

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
If you really really really have to cackhandedly carve up a guitar body, then it may as well be a cheap Strat copy. You wouldn't want to ruin anything decent. Guitarz reader Biliby Iwai suggests that perhaps the desired effect was to make something resembling a Fender Musiclander (aka Swinger). Whatever the intention, it looks bloody awful.

How can anyone imagine such incompetent "customisation" can actually be an improvement? How do they have the nerve to use the word "customised"?

Basically for the Buy It Now price of £18.99 you get some cheap Strat pickups and other hardware. You may as well chuck the body.

G L Wilson

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Hoyer Fantastik

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hoyer fantastik


A last stunning German guitar from the Schlaggitarren website - then I let you explore this site by yourself. But you probably never saw such an incredible guitar, one that is not just meant to look bizarre, but obviously an experimentation on sound.

So this is the Hoyer Fantastik, a guitar that really owns its name and appears in Hoyer's early 60s catalogue (picture above) though only six of them were ever built. Its body is made of six wooden tubes with their own sound holes - hence its nickname the 'organ guitar'. Due to its rarity and originality, it's considered the ultimate collector vintage German guitar.

If you click on the link up there you will find also an article in English about the brit guitarist Carl Goldie (right picture) who has been playing a Hoyer Fantastik his whole career (with an anecdote with Goldie refusing to sell the guitar to George Harrison in 1962 when sharing the stage with the Beatles). You will also find something about this guitar on Jazzgitarren (in English).


bertram



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Kirk Hammet plays Teuffel's Birdfish and Tesla

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A few days ago, I mentioned again Teuffel's Birdfish - one of my favorite guitars - in the comments about the Epiphone Triumph II post, and that gave me the idea of having a look at their website. I had then the surprise to see in their artists section these new pictures (I don't know how new, I didn't go there for ages!) of Kirk Hammet playing two models of the small but sharp German company.

These people at Teuffel made an obviously good communication move, though I doubt that the average metalhead will appreciate the avant-gardist technology and look of these brilliant guitars (no offense to metalheads, they are just as conservative as other rock musicians, even if their shredding god is able to acknowledge the genius behind Teuffel's products).

I do love the Birdfish (left picture), with the undeniably revolutionary concept that led to its birth, but I love even better the Tesla (right picture) that looks less precious, and particularly the 8-string / 29-fret 'super-size' model that I think is a one-off, but has better proportions (well, since I'm a big guy, big guitars suit me better).


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One-off thinline guitar

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Can't tell much about this brandless one-off guitar on sale on eBay but that it has an interesting design, sober and original, and this peculiar big sound holes that you won't see so often on thinline guitars. I could tell you that is has Schaller tuners, Gretsch pickups and a pear tree + maple glued neck but I'm not selling it so who cares!

I can just tell that it looks like someone put some work and love in this guitar, to have it made so special technically and aesthetically (look also at these fretboard inlays!) and must not have been happy to sell it (it seems that it is a second-hand selling).
I wonder how it sounds though, anybody knows a similar guitar?




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Steve Albini's 16-string guitar

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guitarz.blogspot.com:

I'd like to thank Howard who forwarded this image of a 16-string guitar from Steve Albini's recording studio. It appears to be a "Frankenstein" creation with a hardtail Strat-like body (probably not a Fender) with a doctored Epiphone acoustic 12-string neck grafted onto it.

Note the four tuners in the center of the headstock (which must be bango style tuners with the buttons on the reverse) and also the simple bridge which has been moved further back than it would be on a Strat, a dictate of the neck used to allow for the correct scale and compensation.

It doesn't look like a very friendly-to-play instrument. I'm assuming that the strings are arranged in six courses as on a 12-string, but that the top four courses each have three strings. This means that the strings are all so close together that it is hard to tell where one course ends and the next begins. I'm guessing that the "Guitar from Hell" sticker near the bridge is appropriate!

G L Wilson

Additional (6 December 2009): Here's what Steve Albini himself says of the instrument:

It's a drone instrument. I saw a 12-string made like this (Epiphone neck on strat copy body) and asked the guy who made it how many strings he could fit on one guitar. His answer was 16, so I asked him to make one. The first one was a thank-you gift for Sonic Youth, who had invited Rapeman to play some shows with them in the UK. It turned out to be real fun to play, so I had another one made and that's the one we have here. It's used on a lot of records as a novelty, and on the Shellac song "Pull the Cup" in earnest.

The demo version of "Pull the Cup" is called "XVI," which is a hint.

Bob got to play one of Tom Petersson's 12-string basses at a Cheap Trick sound check, and I think he's going to see about getting one eventually. Expect everything to change once that happens.


http://www.electrical.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=46349&p=1007753

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1960s Greco Surf Guitar

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
This 1960s Greco is in immaculate condition. It looks as if it could be new. I just love the probably impractical headstock design.

If asked I would have guessed that this was a European, possibly Italian guitar, but of course - being a Greco - it's Japanese.

Greco were better known for their later Fender and Gibson copies in the 1970s and which seriously worried those giants of guitar production.

The Greco brand were produced by Kanda Shokai and were of such high quality that Fender legitimised the production of Japanese replicas of Strats and Teles with the launch of Fender Japan and the Squier brand which were also produced by Kanda Shokai and Yamano Gakki and built in the FujiGen Gakki, Tōkai and Dyna Gakki factories.

G L Wilson

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Epiphone Triumph II and more

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epiphone triumph II

Let's make another exception to the implicit moral obligation we have here to not promote new models from big companies (what most so-called guitar blogs make a living from) - unless, like it is the case here, it's a real soft spot for a really cool one.
I don't know if I'm getting old but since I feel less and less receptive to pure excitement and macho display of musical skills, I enjoy playing bass more and more, so I'm looking at bass guitars more accurately. For the first time I have a real coup de coeur for one, the newly released Epiphone Triumph II. With its hollow body, F-holes and hidden pickups, it might seem devoid of any rock potential, but that's maybe what is so cool in it, its way to be one of its own, open to any music style for any musician, without forcing into anything.

Again a very good example of how you can upgrade a classical design with a little distortion - here the wide 'gipsy style' cutaway and the wooden bridge -, and keep a pure line. Then you can remember that Epiphone is not only providing democratic Gibson guitars to non-billionaire musicians (I imagine that most Gibsons are bought by fetishist old timers too old to play in a rock band ever again) but sometimes manages to keep to their glorious past by proposing nice and original hollow-bodies.
Ah, and this bass is said to be powered by 'revolutionary NanoFleax™ and NanoMag™ pickups' but I don't have the slightest idea of what this means!



Gibson Triumph

OK, I made my little Gibson bashing but they make of course the best guitars and Epiphone is part of it. There was another bass called Triumph made by Gibson in the 70s that is also quite amazing. A few weeks ago GL wisely pointed how the Jolana Diamond bass was a much better Les Paul bass that Gibson ever released, but the Triumph is a brilliant LP style bass, even though it doesn't bare the name. It looks almost too good to play on it, doesn't it?


Epiphone Triumph Regent 1951


And finally this is the ultra-classic Epiphone Triumph archtop acoustic guitar designed in the 30s, when Epiphone was the direct concurrent of Gibson - who solved the issue by buying Epiphone. So I don't know if the II in Triumph II makes it a inheritor of the Epiphone Triumph guitar or the Gibson Triumph bass but it both case that is quite a legacy!


Additional: The bass has been renamed the Epiphone Zenith so as a avoid a potential trademark conflict. G L Wilson

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Wolfgang Hüttl Beat 67

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Wolfgang Hüttl Beat 67
I spent some more time on Schlaggitarren.de, the site that I mentioned on the Shadow violin guitar post, and like Jazzgitarren it's opening a unexplored dimension of electric guitars history. Even though it is unfortunately exclusively in German, you can learn so much there, and see incredible guitars such as this Wolfgang Hüttl Beat 67.

I thought so far that the creative pick of German guitar making was in the 50s (I mean West-Germany, you know that I'm a fan of later East-German guitars), but the late 60s Beat 67 is a very flower power anti-glam semi-hollow body guitar, and its sound hole matches its floral pattern in a quite elegant and original way! To accessorize with a long white cotton dress, a wooden pearls necklace and a straw hat, bare feet recommended (German were the best hippies).



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Wishnevsky Parlour Guitar

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guitarz.blogspot.com:

Known primarily for his highly-individual one-off "rustic" basses, Steve Wishnevsky also builds the occasional guitar including this parlour-sized acoustic, the eBay auction for which is finishing later today.

I really like the way the guitar looks slightly unsymmetrical and "wonky". It looks handmade, but not in a bad way, but in more of an organic, back to basics, no-nonsense approach.

Despite its slight off-centre look, it is still a recognisable guitar design. It's not as wacky as his Banana Bass that we have previously seen on this blog.

G L Wilson

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Harmony Caribbean

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
This distinctive and colourful-looking acoustic is a Harmony Caribbean dating from the 1950s.

I can't imagine it would be the best sounding acoustic guitar in the world. The rather bizarre Art Deco-esque metal strips screwed to the top would surely make it a rattley sounding instrument.

The seller freely admits that these guitars are often "softer on the eyes than the ears".

It's probably one for the collectors rather than players.

G L Wilson





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Final Edition BabyBlues 1x10 Unique Plexiglass Cabinet

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guitarz.blogspot.com:

I rarely post about amps on this blog (visually they are much less appealing than guitars), but I had to share this particular eBay listing for this Final Edition BabyBlues 1x10 Unique Plexiglass Cabinet with you.

It looks like it would be the perfect companion for my Sanox Sound Creator plexiglass "Strat" (scroll down to the 5th guitar pictured). Apparently, "it is loaded with a rare early 60's British Elac alnico 10 inch speaker and for tubes has one of each of these tubes, a 6L6, a12ax7 and a 5u4." (Sorry, I don't really understand this tube talk, as much as I love the sound of valve amps).

I am also reminded of this photo of 2-string bassist Stig Pedersen from D.A.D. with a bank of plexiglass speaker cabs behind him. Very cool!

G L Wilson

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Shadow violin guitar

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shadow guitar

You remember the German jazz guitars website? Well now you have the opportunity - if you have a few grands to spare - to buy one of the coolest guitar ever, that is extensively described on this site: the Shadow violin guitar is on sale on eBay!

I take the opportunity to give two links that are in the comments of the Jazzgitarren post, for those interested in continental European guitars: schlaggitarren.de & euroguitars.co.uk




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Celtic Frost plays Ibanez Iceman

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Another following to my Ibanez Iceman post. A while ago I found this enjoyable video of former death metal pioneer band Celtic Frost, surprisingly not ridiculous like most metal productions, musically simple, sharp and honest, carrying genuine emotions and expressing real issues - not just busy trying to scare parents to sell to teenagers.

In this video, you can see two Iceman guitars (Icemen?), a white one and a Giger custom, fitting perfectly with the right amount of theatricality, on the right side of the edge. About the sound, I couldn't tell since what you can listen to on computer speakers - and even worse playing a Youtube video -, is anyway so blur that it could be a 100 € made in Indonesia beginner guitar set and sound the same.



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Unknown bass - any ideas?

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
This bass is one that I assembled from parts in 1990 (if I remember correctly). Most of the parts were bought from Brandoni guitars who bought up a lot of old Eko and Vox stock from Italy.

It's a through neck body with multi-laminates as was popular in the 1980s. When I bought the body/neck it was very roughly finished, and hadn't even been routed for the electrics. I sanded it until it was nice and smooth and oil finished it using Ronseal's All In One.

The P and J pickups were selected via a push/pull function on the single volume knob. Unfortunately, this set up didn't let me have the option of both pickups at once. There was no tone control because I don't like them.

I don't recall what the tuners where, but they were good quality and only cost me 50p each because I knew the guy who served me in the music shop!

Anyway, does anyone know what this bass is? I have seen other examples on occasion, but these have looked to have been custom finished instruments too (also bought from Brandoni, perhaps?).

I think it is most likely that it is an Eko, but does anyone know for sure? I'd like to see what the proper finished version of the bass looked like.

By the way, I no longer have this bass. I sold it a few years ago on eBay because I wanted to switch back to playing fretless again.

G L Wilson

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Gretsch Astro Jet

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gretsch astro jet
OK, this is not a new topic here, but what if Gibson never reissued the Explorer or the Flying V after their selling failures in the late 50s? The universe would be bleaker, and cosmic entropy would win sooner, since human creativity is the only anti-entropic force (as far as we know)...

So why did Gretsch gave up the Astro-Jet so quickly when it didn't become an instant hit in 1965? The guitar was anyway supposed to be controversial, since it was a clear effort to take distance with the old-school rock'n'roll hollow-bodies that made Gretsch famous - distance at least with the design, since the sound was to keep Gretsch standards! So why not assuming the slow start and give it time?

Simple like a classic, though twisted according to American aesthetics of the time (in Italy this guitar would have been just another one), it could have been one of the few designs that defines this part of modernity embodied by rock music and electric guitars.

You can find a nice review about the Astro Jet on VintageGuitar.com.

Bertram


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Yamaha's coolest guitar designs : SGV & SG-2C

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yamaha sgv300 | sg3a

Another extremely lovable Japanese guitar is the Yamaha SGV-300 (the blue one). It's usually credited as a surf guitar, but if I'd play one (when I play one, soon enough I hope), my music would have nothing to do with surf music - I hardly know what surf music is, and the little I know comes from Tarentino's soundtracks - and again I don't understand why a specific guitar design should influence the style of music one would play on it! Anyway, when plugged in a couple of fuzzboxes and a Metal Zone, any guitar is suitable for extreme noise.

Couldn't resist to show its bizarre cousin the Yamaha SG-2C, also from the late 60s, not so sexy and sharp, but still an interesting design - that actually works better on the bass model (SB-2C). The SGV and the SG-2C share this great headstock, both elegant and ergonomic - I'm always surprised that it didn't have a bigger legacy...

Contrarily to the SGV, this guitar was never reissued and is not so easily found, I was happy to find this great Japanese webpage that show an incredible collection of vintage guitars, a. o. several models of Tokai Hummingbirds (that answers my interrogation about the upside-down Hummingbird, actually a regular model).

And since I talk about websites, I advise you to have a look at the Guitar Garage, a blog about guitar repair and refinish, with not only nice pictures of vintage models but their whole rejuvenating process extensively documented, very interesting indeed, it's worth taking the time to explore it all.



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Ibanez Iceman in natural finish

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Ibanez Iceman

A couple of months ago I stated in a post about I don't remember what guitar, that any guitar with an eccentric design should be given the opportunity to exist in natural finish to be appreciated for its line only and not some fancy finish what would much likely spoil it.

Well have a look at that beautiful 2003 Ibanez Iceman IC200, one of the best design of Japanese guitars, on the top on my GAS list of dream guitars... It's mostly known in tasteful black or white (and also, contrarily to what I just said before, with a very cool H.R. Giger biomechanical custom paint) and it's the first time I see it in natural brown finish, and it really works!

Just for this guitar (and a couple of semi-hollows), Ibanez stays a great brand, even after two decades of JEMs.



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Kramer Triax

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
Someone just shelled out $3,500 for this Kramer Triax on eBay. I never really got Kramers and could never see what all the fuss was about, but I know that there are some pretty rabid Kramer fans out there with huge collections. Yeah yeah, I know Eddie Van Halen used to use them in the 1980s, but so what? They just never appealed to me. I thought the original aluminium-necked guitars and basses were interesting but after that I kind of lost interest. (Kramer fans, you are welcome to respond and tell us why you love them. I'm open to hearing your side of the story.)

Anyway, this Triax... What's the deal with the shape? It looks like a Klingon spaceship from out of Star Trek. Or something. I can't imagine it fares very well in the ergonomics department, and that headstock design is just silly. Isn't it?

I guess it's just the designer having some fun. And why not? We like wacky guitars here on this blog!

Anyway, for those who want to know about the guitar, it's from 1986, is Floyd Rose equipped as was de rigueur in those days, and apparently only about 10 of these exist. This particular example is in pristine condition. I can imagine that if used for heavy gigging those outer-body pointy bits would be subject to damage.

G L Wilson

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John Backlund Design

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guitarz.blogspot.com



I've noticed John Backlund Design's guitars a while ago, but I discovered only recently that the very few guitars that were actually buit - such as the JBD100 down there - are just the visible part of an iceberg of design research. Have a look at J. Backlund online portfolio and enjoy his refreshing 'retro-futurist' aesthetic - of which you can see a few samples on the left.

It doesn't seem that these guitars are a big success - such sophisticated American hand-built guitars are not affordable for the average player -, and it's a pity since I think that, if widely spread, these guitars could change the curse of guitar design and take it of its current track if dullness and easiness.

Backlund 1

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Hohner EGS "Blackhawk"

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
This is Hohner's take on the ergonomic guitar, the Hohner EGS "Blackhawk". Personally I would have described it as minimalist rather than ergonomic. Where is the right forearm support, a la Ovation Breadwinner or Klein guitar?

The treble-side horn is actually an "Ergo-Wing" made from anodized high-grade aluminium. The Ergo-Wing is "adjustable, and can be rotated into two different wing radius positions that comfortably fit on the guitarist's legs for different playing positions".

The guitar features Schaller M6 locking tuning machine heads and security locking pins, a trio of EMG pickups (two S-1 singlecoils and an EMG-85 humbucker) and also has a piezo pickup built-in to the Shadow tremolo system.

I think if I was buying a guitar that retailed in the USA for $3,659.99, I'd want much more tasteful pickups than EMGs. In fact, their very presence makes me wonder what's wrong with the body. Does it not have any resonance, tone or vibe of its own that a decent set of pickups would enhance?

Finally, the seller claims that this is the ONLY Hohner EGS to have been brought into the UK. That's a bold claim. How does he know?

G L Wilson

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Soviet guitar with secret compartments

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
Just by looking at it you can tell that this SOLO-2 is a Soviet-era Russian-made guitar.

I'm posting this picture really because I've not seen switches quite like these on a guitar before.

The pickups look very similar to those found on the "Flight Of The Conchords" Kavkaz bass.

Apparently it was made in the mid 80s by Belarusian Musical Instruments Factory in Borisov city and has fuzz and phaser built-in effects (currently not working on this example).
The battery for the built-in effects is located beneath the neck plate.

Additionally there is an integral screwdriver beneath the rear strap button which screws out.

I'm remimnded of one of Fender's Strat models (the Strat Plus? or was it the Elite?) which had a hex key on the end of its tremolo arm.

G L Wilson

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Vintage Italian folk guitars - E-ROS Dakota vs Eko Ranger VI

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
E-ROS guitars. That's a name I haven't heard in many years. They seemed to be quite omnipresent in the late 70s and early 80s, as I recall.

This particular example is an E-ROS Model 606 Dakota which according to the seller dates to the 1970s. They were in fact made from 1966 to 1970 by an Italian company called Fratelli Fuselli (Fuselli Brothers) headquartered in Recanati.

You might notice that, unusually for an acoustic guitar, this E-ROS has a bolt-on neck. Which seems strangely familiar.

Actually the design of the instrument all seems very familiar. If I didn't know better, I'd say that this was a copy of the Eko Ranger guitar from the same period. So, you've got Italians copying Italians. Or perhaps it wasn't quite like that. Perhaps the two companies were related in someway, or both ranges were designed by the same person. I don't know the story, but would like to find out if anyone out there could fill in the blanks.

Here, to illustrate my point, is an Eko Ranger VI guitar from the same era. You have to admit that the two guitars are very similar, right down to the shape of the pickguard.

I myself used to have an Eko Ranger XII 12-string, and that was an excellent guitar. Before that I had also played a friend's E-ROS 12-string, and although I wasn't aware of the similarities at the time, it was that guitar that made me want to go out and buy a 12-string acoustic in the first place.

G L Wilson
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Vox Distortion pedal from the 1980s

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guitarz.blogspot.com:
Blimey! I had one of these way back - it was my first ever FX pedal. Actually, I ought to still have it as I never remember getting rid of it. I think I'll raid my box of bits and pieces later and see if I can find it. I'm going to watch this auction. If it's really worth 99 quid, then mine will be going on eBay too.

I seem to remember it was a rather nasty distortion effect. Later on I used to use it in conjunction with a Boss Distortion/Feedbacker pedal to create my own hyper-distortion sound through a Vox AC30. That was a brutal sound!

G L Wilson

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