Adorned with lashings of mother of toiletseat, this DiPinto Belvedere Deluxe guitar is highly reminiscent of the weird and wonderful guitars produced in Europe during the 1960s Beat Boom.
Despite its retro looks, it's a modern guitar with modern appointments and playability. The semi-hollow body - beneath all that bling - is of mahogany, whilst the bolt-on maple neck has an ebony fingerboard with star inlays and white binding.
Pickups are a pair of "vintage twang" mini-humbuckers, while a Tune-o-matic bridge and Bigsby vibrato complete the picture.
This guitar is currently being offered for sale on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £375.
Here's another guitar photo plucked from the comments on this blog. The Yamaha SG-2 and SG-3 guitars from 1966-67 are known to be extremely hard to find - not many having made it outside of Japan in this first place - but they are nothing to this, the virtually unknown Yamaha SG-12, the 12-string version of the SG-3.
This example was owned by Guitarz reader "Peer", who said:
I had a 12 string version of the SG-3 once... waaay ubercool! I miss it... it even made me forget how much I hate 12s.
I've only seen one of these before pictured in the hands of Eduardo "Gato" Alquinta, singer/guitarist of Chilean folk/rock band Los Jaivas, who actually had his strung as a 6-string.
Here's something a little bit different from the usual Strat, Tele and Les Paul derivatives. It's a Kettle Creek guitar by (retired?) luthier Ethan Harris of Kansas. The guitar features some stunning quality timbers without the finish being too OTT, has a bolt-on neck and currently sports a pair of Tom Anderson humbuckers.
Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a But It Now price of $850.
I think I said it all in the title. More or less. I'd give this DIY doubleneck guitar and bass customization top marks for resourcefulness and inventiveness but zero marks for elegance and design. And I can't imagine that bass neck is going to sound too great with an ultra-shortscale length which is less than the Squier Strat neck that its been grafted next to.
Thanks to Greg Cadman for alerting me to this monstrosity via our Facebook page.
Here's a San Dimas-era Charvel Star circa 1982-83, possibly one of only 150 examples made around that time. This guitar beautifully marries together the Gibson-inspired body with the bolt-on Fender-like neck.
Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,625.
Following Bertram's blog post yesterday about the Eko Kadett guitar, there were some great comments that I felt should be given more prominence on the blog. Jozef Porazen tells us that:
I have bass version of Kadett - made in '67. Honestly, as far as bass goes, the body is horrible. Neck dives like mad, body is too small, that body 'horn' goes right under your right hand and it hurts :-P
The neck is pencil-like, strings are floppy, due to short-scale, but overall its nice little funky bass nonetheless :) I did change the bridge, coz original was broken and the tuners (put in some small schaller ones, just like the guitar-ones, but for bass). Here's the pic [see above], bad one, I used phone.
So, it seems that sometimes these vintage quirkily-designed guitars come at a price other than the purely financial; that is to say that if you want to play one you have to compromise and/or upgrade components to make them practical usable instruments.
Ryan Waldron also commented about Eko guitars:
From album covers and pictures, I've noticed that EKO guitars seemed to be omnipresent in West Africa in the late sixities and early seventies - they must have been heavily distributed there. Here's a great clip of an orchestra in Mauritania rocking a three Eko line-up:
I know I've shown an Eko Kadett before, but I can't resist to show again this one, for it is one of my favorite guitars ever. The square horns and pointy top are so strong and sexy, without pointless extravaganza! No wonder that weak souls favored the vapid stratocaster, this is just too much for them, this guitar had to die...
I can find out almost nothing about this 1979 Gretsch Model 7264 solidbody resplendent in transparent red finish. It has a bolt-on neck, and the eBay seller tells us that the build date is Jan 5, 1979.
It does look remarkably similar to the Gretsch TK-300 that we looked at in 2008; in fact from the photos alone I can't detect any differences. I'm wondering perhaps if I'd somehow come up with the wrong designation for that one. Are there any Gretsch enthusiasts out there who can enlighten us further?
Anyway, it's a beautiful guitar, and is currently listed on eBay with a starting price of $999 with no bids as I write this and only a day and a half to go before the auction finishes.
Something I still quite don't get about electric guitars - though I've been interested in the topic for the last three decades - is that their design is supposed to determine the kind of music that should be played on them... The idea that a musical genre depends from the sound of specific gear - pickups, amp, effects - is already bizarre to me, since reproducing a sound and a style that already exist feels of limited interest if you're a spirited musician, but when it comes to looks, we are in the blur domain of utter stupidity...
Take for example this Dean ML with its Rising Sun finish: all the reviews I read about it say that its clean sound is quite good, that its neck is extremely playable and its special design makes it both well balanced and good-sounding, making it a perfect guitar for blues. Well, it's no surprise, since it's more or less a combination of Gibson's classic models, the Flying V and the Explorer, both designed in the 1950s and meant for bluesmen. And those humbucker pickups have been on jazz guitars for over half a century, so it's for sure a perfect instrument to play Hoochie Coochie Man - or Boys Don't Cry if you feel like it.
The fact that this ML is the (short lived) signature model of the guitarist of some metal band called Trivium that I never heard about due to my general indifference to metal music (but a few bands like Suicidal Tendancies, Napalm Death, Burzum, Meshuggah or Sunn o))), but I'm not so sure of what should be called metal or not, and should Motörhead be included?) is of little importance, but this guy being half-Japanese kind of justifies the cool Rising Sun finish.
Yeah, I say again that the Rising Sun looks cool on a guitar, even if last time I said this there's been a slight controversy about it. For me, it's a beautiful design, very Japanese, sober, eloquent, and it's really part of European punk culture - I guess I love it since I saw it on a Clash cover in the late 70s, don't remember which one, not even sure BTW. I personally find it less disputable than the Confederate Battle Flag that ornates other signature models of the ML, and it is still in use in Japan for example for the fishermen union, and on the front page of some newspaper - nothing like the Svastika that is drastically forbidden in Germany (I'd probably think different if I was Chinese or Korean of course).
Here's another Czechoslovakian-made Jolana, the Jolana Iris bass, a short-scale bass styled roughly after the Fender Telecaster Thinline (of which there never was a bass version). However, this is not a true thinline as the photos reveal; at the angles shown you can see that the "chamber" beneath the f-hole is barely larger than the shape of the hole itself. It's all about aesthetics and the hole gives a good place to locate the Jolana logo.
This example looks to have been well used and isn't in as good condition as the Jolana Iris guitar we looked at before. Still, it'll appeal to those who like "relics".
Today we'll offer you not one but two vintage German guitars, two versions of the same model: the Höfner 173. On top is the Höfner 173 II - released in 1964, on bottom is the Höfner 173, one year younger. They are very similar - you'll notice the famous leatherette cream finish - and differ mostly by the bridges and tremtails, both very lovable (you remember my soft spot for these good old German trems!)
Whoah! Do you think the guy cutting out the body shape had shaky hands when he did this one?
Joking aside, it's a Halo Reaper guitar with solid mahogany body, flamed maple veneer, transparent green finish, Halo humbuckers, and Floyd Rose Special trem, and it's currently listed on eBay with a very reasonable Buy It Now price of $299.
I've had Halo Guitars as a friend on my MySpace page for years now (not that I use MySpace any more... Why did they have to spoil it by trying to imitate Facebook?) and whilst they produce a number of exciting designs suited to the metal player, they also turn out the occasional beauty that others of us can appreciate too. Long-term Guitarz readers may recall that I blogged about the Halo Violon back in 2007.
This one is especially for Guitarz reader Matt-D6. The Floyd Rose Speedloader is a Strat-type guitar and would seem pretty unremarkable if you didn't notice the headstock. This isn't a headless guitar as such, but the headstock is present purely for balance and aesthetical reasons. So, the $64,000 question is, how do you tune it? Well, you need special Speedloader strings to start with. These are made to the correct gauge and length for this guitar, so you just drop them in to the retaining slots, tighten and they are more or less in tune rightaway, save for a little fine tuning which can be achieved down at the bridge as is normal for a Floyd Rose trem. At least, that's my understanding of how the system works. It makes a lot of sense, but the idea never really caught on.
I'm not sure how easy the Speedloader strings are to come by, but this seller on eBay is including five sets along with the guitar which could last you a while, depending of course on how long a set of strings lasts you! This guitar is currently available on eBay for the Buy It Now price of $1,000.
We've looked at the Galveston brand on this blog before, but alas have never really found out very much about it.
This "square guitar", almost like a Bo Diddley rectangular guitar with cutaways, is called the Galveston B.B. Stone and is owned and played by Guitarz reader Eric.
He tells us that:
B.B. Stone is apparently a Korean blues artist and guitar-builder, and he designed the guitar with Jerker Antoni of Sweden’s Eagle Instruments. There are 24 pieces worldwide, the ones around the world are branded with the groovy Eagle headstock.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Hag fans, but from what I can work out on the net, the above-pictured guitar is a Hagström Futurama Coronado Automatic from 1963. Apparently only 200 of this model were built for Ben Davis, owner of the Selmer company in London, and would have originally retailed (with case) at 77 guineas.
As you can see it takes its shape from the Fender Jazzmaster/Jaguar but the controls are very "European". The head too is very Fender-esque, but unlike any Fenders of the period the guitar is of through-neck construction.
This example is currently listed on eBay with a starting price of £600 and just over a day to go before the auction ends (as I type this).
This bass is so very 1980s, but with its minimalist design and lack of headstocks (meaning this will never be neck-heavy) the Washburn Bantam doubleneck bass must surely be one of the better designs of doublenecks, a species of guitar and/or bass frequently known to be cumbersome and unwieldy. Note also that the player gets a good choice of strap buttons to use!
If my memory serves me correctly this model was played back in the day by German session bassist Frank Itt.
The pictured example (thought to be one of only six imported into the UK) is currently being offered for sale on BassGear.co.uk priced at £750.
Thanks to Marky for bringing this instrument to my attention.
This 1930s Regal Domino tenor guitar is beautifully proportioned having a parlour-sized body, unlike many other tenor guitars where a skinny 4-string neck is attached to an body designed for six strings. Notice the domino inlays for fingerboard position markers, which sadly are all but worn away in places.
The Regal Musical Instrument Company, established in 1908 in Chicago, are perhaps best known today for their production of resonator guitars from their first development up until 1941. They produced components and bodies for both National and Dobro guitars and by the 1930s were one of the largest manufacturers of musical instruments in the world.
The Kala U-Bass is a diminutive bass with polyurethane strings and the most incredible sound somewhere between a double bass and an electric. It's quite amazing that you can get such bass from an instrument with a scale length of just 20". The first acoustic-electric U-Basses were essentially bass ukuleles using a baritone ukulele body with a wider neck. These new solidbody versions (with an increased 21" scale!) are available in fretted or fretless and four or five string versions. I think the main thing that might put off bass players is the size of it - or should I say, "lack of size". Some might think they'd look a little silly playing one of these, as if they were playing a toy, but I'd say approach the instrument with an open mind.
This asymmetrically-shaped through-neck guitar is currently being auctioned on eBay with a starting price of £289. It features a DiMarzio humbucker and a Schaller bridge, with a possible non-original single-coil pickup in the neck position. The seller does not know much about it, only that it was made in the UK (which we can't take as 100% truth without any evidence to support it).
Does anyone have any clue as to the guitar's identity? The shape reminds me slightly of that of Scotland's own Egypt Guitars, but the bat logo on the headstock would suggest otherwise. Any ideas?
Here's a rarity from Guild from back in their pre-Fender ownership days. Designed by George Gruhn, it's a Guild Studio 24 circa 1986 and is a full size acoustic guitar with double cutaways and a 24-fret neck. According to the seller on eBay less than 150 of this particular model were produced. Unlike most other cutaway acoustics, full support under the fingerboard is given right up to the 23rd fret providing "clean, ringing notes that sustain in the upper register". The Studio 24 is built with top grade spruce, highly flamed maple backs and sides, inlaid headstock, inlaid ebony fingerboard and complete grained pearloid binding.
This guitar is currently being auctioned on eBay UK with a starting price of £2,750.
Guitarz reader Adam Kralic sent me these photos of a guitar he has recently finished building. For some reason Adam thought I might hate the guitar. Now let me say this, even if a guitar isn't to my particular tastes, I will always applaud good luthiery. Hey, it's not as if I've ever created anything as skilled as this. I've put together a few guitars from parts, Frankenstein-style, but that's about my limit.
The shape is a litte PRS-ish - well at least around the double cutaway end of the body, especially with that little scoop on the lower horn to aid access to the top frets, and I freely admit that I am no PRS fan. I think also that the headstock looks a little over-large for the body shape... but these are minor quibbles and my own opinion to boot. I'm not trying to knock the guitar at all. As I was saying, I wish I had it in me to be able to create a guitar from scratch. This looks to be a beautifully constructed and finished instrument, with top notch attention to detail.
Anyway, the specs:
25" scale neck with jumbo frets.
12" radius fretboard.
Gotoh vintage/modern tuners (vintage style, modern 18:1 gear ratio)
Black TUSQ nut (self lubricating and sounds great)
Neck thru design.
Figured Bubinga fretboard with offset abalone dot inlays. (side dots are abalone too)
AAAA Flamed maple neck with thick mahogany laminates. (adds strength...and looks cool)
Semi-gloss finish on neck; satin finish on body.
(Paper thin finish! Resonates better by far than those 1/8" thick factory finishes on the import guitars.)
KING Grade cocobolo tops and bottoms. 1/4" thick for both sets. Museum grade wood. (cocobolo is most closely related tonally to Brazilian Rosewood with many claiming Cocobolo is superior tonally)
Seymour Duncan JB humbucker. (most versatile humbucker around...everyone from jazz cats to metal heads love the JB)
Cocobolo control plate and truss rod cover.
500k volume and tone pots.
Schaller Roller bridge. (hands down the most adjustable hardtail bridge on the market. Heavy too. GREAT sustain!)
Founded in 1899, Stella was part of the Oscar Schmidt Company based in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was the brandname applied to low to mid level stringed instruments which as well as guitars included mandolins, banjos and autoharps. Partly because Stella guitars cost a mere fraction of a Gibson or Martin, they ended up being played by blues musicians such as Leadbelly and Charlie Patton.
The Stella brand, as well as other Oscar Schmidt brands Sovereign and La Scala, was acquired by the Harmony Company of Chicago, Illinois in 1939.
Pictured above we see a 1930s Stella parlour guitar in a rare crytalline blue finish, created using "a technique that has been lost with time". Finishes were more commonly black, natural or sunburst. This is one of the later Oscar Schmidt Stellas and pre-dates the Harmony takeover.
Unfortunately, this particular example is not in very good condition and would require the attention of a luthier to make it playable.
OK, this is slightly off-topic because, of course, the double bass is NOT a guitar but rather a member of the viol family; however most would agree it IS a parent of the modern bass guitar and so is worthy of including here on Guitarz. Anyway, this isn't any old double bass. It's the creation of sound designer and composer Diego Stocco. As he explains:
I had an idea in mind for an instrument I wanted to build. My curiosity was to hear the sound of violin, viola and cello strings amplified through the body of a double bass. I came up with a quadruple-neck experimental "something" that I thought to call Experibass.
To play it I used cello and double bass bows, a little device I built with fishing line and hose clamps, a paintbrush, a fork, spoons, a kick drum pedal and a drum stick. I hope you'll like it!
While the music produced is mostly percussive, there's no denying the drama within it.
High quality guitar, check out Harmony Central for the user reviews.
Guitar looks great with just a small chip on the bottom, see pic.
Plays well and electronics work, sounds great, could probably use some contact cleaner,
Output jack may need to be tightened or cleaned or looked at as it crackles if you move the cord.
Comes with the whammy bar.
Comes with a guitar case that is not the greatest but works well.
(sic throughout)
It sure is a nice one. Don't you think it'd be a good companion for my SG-3? Anyway, Guitarz has linked through to hundreds - possibly thousands - of eBay auctions over the years. It's nice to see an eBay auction linking to us for a change!
This guitar was listed with a starting bid of $25.01 and bidding has already been enthusiastic with over 5 days left to go on this auction. I'd love to bid myself, but it would be incredibly hard to justify buying another guitar right now especially one so similar to a guitar I already own.
The previous blog post reminded me of this - another Gibson guitar with a part of the body sliced off and reversed. The photo shows Bob Mothersbaugh in the video for Devo's "Whip It" with a very peculiar-looking Les Paul.
With all the technology being dangled in your face when you hit it big, did you ever use a guitar synthesizer?
Back in 1979, I used a device made by 360 Systems. It was a big box that sat next to your amp and required a special pickup. The 360 Systems people recommended I use a Les Paul, and at the time I was horrified—I thought Les Pauls represented arena rock, long hair, and Puka shells. But I got a Les Paul and took a jigsaw to it with the intention of making it look like a skull. I cut the little horn off at the cutaway and flipped it over backwards and thought it looked a lot better. The 360 was a horrible synth and really didn’t sound good. I only used it for one tour.
Here's a Gibson "The SG" from 1979 which at some point suffered some body damage so that the bass side of the body split away. The owner has stuck it back together again but reversed the top section for a certainly quite distinctly different look. You almost wonder why Gibson didn't think of it themselves, considering some of their recent design tweaks.
Gibson's "The SG" was a partner to "The Paul"; both were walnut-bodied budget-conscious versions of Gibson's two best-loved solidbody designs and were produced between 1978-1982.
Thanks to Colin Brown who suggested we look at this guitar via our Facebook page.
Several years following the CBS buy-out of Fender, ex-Fender employees Forrest White and Tom Walker founded Music Man in 1971. Initially they were concerned with the production of hybrid tube/solid state amps, but in 1976 with Leo Fender installed as president they started producing guitars. One of the earliest designs was the Stingray. The MusicMan Stingray II guitar pictured here is from 1977 and the design heritage is obvious. It shows a natural evolution of Fender's designs and gives a hint of how Fender might have progressed in a parallel universe where the company wasn't sold to CBS. The controls on the chromed plate are 4-way switch to select the three pickup positions plus a setting to split the bridge pickup into a single coil, treble boost switch, volume, treble, and bass contols.
I am also reminded of the more basic G&L SC-2, another of Leo Fender's post-Fender designs, Leo's own G&L company being founded in 1979 with old friends and ex-Fender colleagues George Fullerton and Dale Hyatt.
It's a Gretsch but it's not a large-sized hollowbody, not is it equipped with a Bigsby vibrato*. In fact on first sight this Gretsch Committee 7628 looks distinctly un-Gretsch-like other than the giveaway headstock and logo. It has a slab-body with a German carve around the top, and is of throughneck multi-laminate construction as was so popular in the 1980s (those stripey throughnecks!), but this is from the latter 1970s.
Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,119.99, this is actually priced much more cheaply than some other examples I have seen.
[* OK, so before anyone comments, I know that many Gretsches are Bigsby-less and there are all the "Jet" series of solidbodies, but the hollowbody Bigsby-equipped Gretsch beloved of rockabilly and rock'n'roll artists is probably the popular image that most people conjure up when they hear the name Gretsch.]
A few days ago here on Guitarz we looked at a Kay acoustic guitar with built-in amp, speaker and effects. Well, here's something similar submitted by Jonny M. Garcia via our Facebook page but this time it's not a factory-fitted speaker, it's a Do It Yourself conversion by the owner who is now selling the guitar on Craig's List. This is what he says about it:
I modified an almost new AmericanLegacy acoustic guitar by mounting a speaker and amp (with overdrive) directly into the guitar! I quickened the action and now this bad ass mother sounds, plays and feels like a strat! A guitar body is really a speaker box and the speaker here picks up on resonant frequencies that feeds back on itself like Eddie Van Halen! It is truly a live wire! It uses 2- 9 volt batteries, and has a 3 band EQ onboard as well. The pickup is a transducer. The frets are in perfect shape. It comes with a hard case. Look closely at the pic to see the red "on" light next to the volume and overdrive controls. Take it to an acoustic jam anywhere and you can play rock leads on an acoustic that really sound like rock leads! I made one for myself nearly 30 years ago and it has been awesome and reliable, and people are amazed! I am a furniture artisan so my workmanship is good. Believe it or not, this is the second one I've made in all that time- this one's for sale!
I don't know where to start! "Plays and feels like a Strat"? "Eddie Van Halen"? "Overdrive control"? I do have to ask, WHY? If you want something that plays and feels like a Strat, why not use a Strat? As for using an acoustic to play rock leads, again I do not see the point. Just because something is possible, it doesn't necessarily follow that it should be done.
Also, I can't help thinking that cutting a hole in an acoutic's top and inserting a speaker is not going to do the natural acoustic sound of the guitar any favours at all. And what about the internal bracing? I can't believe he cut a hole without cutting through some of that.
Multi-necked instruments were nothing ususual in the world of steel guitars - and later - pedal-steel guitars. They allowed the player to have each neck set up with a different open-tuning, and unlike our more usual perception of double- (triple-, etc) necked guitars, they are not cumbersome instruments that you wear on a strap and which end up giving you serious backache. These babies have legs of their own!
With 4 necks, 32 strings and 8 pickups, here we have a Fender Stringmaster also know as the Quad or Q-8. The eBay seller claims it is from the 1940s or 1950s, but a little basic research would have revealed that the Stringmaster was first introduced in 1953, so all this talk of "1940s" is lazy unsubstantiated guesswork.
This particular example has 22.5" scale necks. Stringmasters were also available with 24.5" scale necks, although in their first year of production a long 26" scale was used.
The Stringmaster was available in two, three and four-neck versions. The single-neck equiavalent was known as the Fender Deluxe and was available in 6 and 8-string variants.
Currently being auctioned on eBay with a starting price of $1,999.99.
Here's a vintage May Bell acoustic guitar from 1935 pretending to be something it isn't. Given the twin mesh-covered soundholes and the large circular steel plate covering most of the top of the guitar, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a resonator guitar. However, take a closer look and you'll see that the bridge is not mounted in the middle of a cone - in fact you can see that it's a wooden bridge mounted straight onto the wood of the top which simply would not be present underneath the plate on a true resonator guitar. So, it's a guitar in disguise. In a way, it's the 1930s equivalent of a solidbody electric acoustic with faux soundhole.
One of the guitars on my own fantasy "wants" list is a vintage Hagström Viking with Strat-style headstock and preferably finished in red just like the one that Elvis used in his '68 Comeback Special.
Although finished in black, this Hagström Concord DeLuxe bass would make an ideal partner for such a guitar. This model bass was orignally named the Viking, just like its guitar sibling, but for some reason best known to Hagström it was renamed the Concord. There were two models: the C-1 with two single coil pickups, bound (front and back) hollowbody, dot inlays on the neck, and chrome-plated hardware; and the C-2 or DeLuxe - as we see pictured here - with similar attributes as the C-1 but with bound f-holes, bound neck with block inlays on the fingerboard, and gold-plated hardware. The C-1 was in production from 1965-1971 with 2749 examples being built, whereas the DeLuxe version is much rarer having been produced between 1967-1968 with only 150 examples being built.
Interestingly, Hagström listed both models as being available with Mahogany sunburst, Golden mahogany sunburst, and cherry red finishes. No mention is made of black, so possibly the example we see here has been re-finished, or else - as the seller suggests - this is a very rare custom finish making this bass even more unusual.
In 1968 the DeLuxe would have cost $435 (against the C-1's $285). Now in 2011, the above-pictured example is currently being auctioned on eBay and the bidding is currently (as I type this) at the 1968 price for the C-1 model, although there is a a reserve that hasn't yet been met. It'll be interesting to see what this sells for.
I don't have any info on Weltron guitars, other than what this eBay seller has to say about this Weltron bass:
Very rare 1960s Weltron bass made in Japan. No images on the net; very little info or references to Weltron guitars, period. No references I've found to Weltron basses. What little info there is available states "Weltron" branded guitars were imported by either the Weltron Co. of Danville, VA, or Womack Electronics of Goldsboro, NC, so these are privately branded Japanese imports - probably made by Matsumoku and definitely a cut above many imports from the same time period. (Note: I did hear from another eBayer who has an identical bass branded "Vargas").
There's no evidence for the Matsumoku connection. It's possible but I wouldn't say probable. This, I fear, is a case of an eBay seller's "spin" and shouldn't be taken as 100% accurate fact. You really do need to be able to read between the lines when checking out items for sale on eBay, as there is so much BS written by sellers.
Anyway, the bass itself is interesting. It would appear from the photos to be ultra-short scale, i.e. similar to a guitar's scale length, and design-wise owes a thing or two to Burns. It appears to be in very good condition, but the Buy It Now price of $289 is right at the top end of what I personally would be prepared to pay were I in the market for such an instrument.
Just when you thought you'd seen it all, guitar-wise, along comes something like this long lost innovation from the 1960s! I guess it never caught on, because I've never seen or even heard of such an instrument before.
I'll let the text from the original instruction booklet (seen in the photo) tell you all about it:
BE YOUR OWN BASS MAN With the all new "Mike Miller Foot Bass"
Totally new concept in playing.
Amaze friends and audiences.
Make extra MONEY.
Makes singles sound like duos and duos like trios.
Be more valuable as a sideman.
Anyone who chords Guitar can play the FOOT BASS.
Two string, two level foot bass.
Practically maintenance free.
One year guarantee.
Complete with playing and tuning instructions.
Requires no extra or special amplifier.
14 Notes on fretted footboard.
Solid body with beautiful Red Walnut Woodgrain finish.
Well marked notes to assist beginners.
Case optional.
Overall dimensions: 31" x 7" x 2 5/8"
BE YOUR OWN BASS MAN!... You can do this very simply WITH YOUR FOOT! The all new Mike Miller Foot bass was developed with the stringed instrument player in mind. It has fourteen fretted notes, and the noting scale is in relationship to the Guitar. It is designed to lay on the floor on its back (non-skid rubber feet). It is played by resting the heel on the floor and striking the shoe sole against the strings, when the string is held against the fret this sustains the strings vibration until released. When relesed the string strikes a muffling device which kills the overtone. Easy to learn to play and inexpensive to own.
I've not seen one of these guitars before. How cheesy did 70s (maybe 80s?) cheap catalogue guitars get? It's a Kay-branded dreadnaught-style acoustic very bizarrely fitted with a built-in amp and with a cheap speaker in the guitar's top. I can't imagine that doing much for its acoustic properties. The built-in amp section also features a tremolo effect.
Micro-Frets Inc was founded in the 1960s by Ralph Jones, a man of a keen engineering persuasion given to innovation and invention. One such Micro-Frets' innovation was the Micro-Nut, as seen clearly in the photo above, which was essentially a fully adjustable compensating nut allowing for perfect intonation and the ability to have the guitar play in tune all the way up the neck. Remember, this was decades before Earvana or Buzz Feiten.
The above-pictured guitar is a Micro-Frets Golden Comet (Micro-Frets often had space-age names). This is quite a basic model without the Micro-Frets Calibrato (a vibrato which allowed the strings to stay in tune relatively while the pitch was being altered) but nevertheless is still a much desirable model. It is of semi-hollow body construction with distinctively shaped f-hole and features pickups desgined by Bill Lawrence and which look decidedly P90-like.
This Golden Comet is currently being auctioned on eBay with the starting price set at a quite reasonable $500.
For more about Micro-Frets guitars see their official website at: www.microfrets.com
Based in Melbourne, the Maton Musical Instrument Company was founded in 1946 by Bill May and is Australia's longest running and most successful guitar manufacturer. They pioneered the use of many Australian wood species in guitar construction.
The guitar we see pictured above is a Maton Gold Line 750. It is of set-neck construction with a slab body featuring a German carve appropriately - given the model name - picked out in gold. Apparently only 210 examples of this model were built between 1962-1963, before the design evolved into the better-known Maton Fyrbyrd.
This guitar is in superb condition and is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $5000 (US Dollars).
For more on Maton and other guitars from down under, see Australia's own always excellent guitarnerd blog.
Recently here on Guitarz we've been discussing and looking at Gibson guitars with Fender influences (see here and here).
Pictured here we see a Gibson WRC, and there's absolutely no denying its Strattiness. Despite carrying the Gibson name, these were actually built by Wayne Charvel (his initials are W.R.C.) in 1987-1988. It's ironic in a way when you consider that Charvel is now part of the Fender empire. It's like some things come full circle.
In tried and tested Superstrat tradtion, the WRC is equipped with a Floyd Rose double locking trem. It has three pickups in SSH formation with a coil tap for the humbucker and individual toggles for each pickup allowing for a wider range of pickup combinations than the usual 5-position switch. In keeping with Fender-derived guitars it has a bolt-on neck, which is of the pointy headed variety as was the fashion when this guitar was made.
This guitar is currently being auctioned on eBay UK with a starting price of £795.
Here we have a vintage Japanese Givtone "baritone" guitar with three of the now legendary gold foil pickups beloved of the likes of Ry Cooder.
The Givtone name is almost certainly a department store/catalogue brandname. The seller rather lazily refers to this guitar as probably being a Teisco as if they were the only producers of Japanese electric guitars in that period. I'd say it looks more like a Zen-on/Zenon or Morales, maybe even Kawai or Guyatone, although I concede that the neck does look Teisco-like with its very narrow fretwire (maybe just a fashion of the era), but other Teisco trademarks such as offset block fingerboard inlays and striped metal pickguard are absent.
As, to it being a baritone, I feel this is unlikely. The seller states that:
Guitars like this, with a 26.5" scale, are usually tuned to Low "B" in between a guitar and bass but it'll hold up if you want to go lower or even higher.
Well, as I've said before, my understanding is that "baritone" tunings somewhere between a guitar and bass are a relatively modern concept. On a vintage guitar such as this, they'd more likely be tuned down a whole octave a la Bass VI. However, for a Bass VI, I would have expected a slightly longer scale length, maybe 28" or preferably 30". I have to wonder if this was simply a long scale guitar intended for regular tuning?
In the late 1960s some artists used heavy guitar strings with resp. length and tuned the Bass VI to a baritone guitar from 'B to b' or 'A to a'. With this 'down and dirty' sound the Fender VI enriched 'Indo-Rock' bands with their unique Rock & Roll sound. One of those players was Reggy Tielman from the 'Tielman Brothers'.
Note that whilst these guys were using baritone tunings, the instrument they were using was built as a Bass VI.
The Danelectro Company was the first to introduce the electric baritone guitar in the late 1950s, and the instrument began to appear in surf music, as well as background music for many movie soundtracks, especially spaghetti westerns.
The confusion comes in here because the modern name "baritone guitar" is being applied retrospectively to the Bass VI, the term being incorrectly used here so as to distinguish the original six-string bass from the modern variant typically with a low B string and high C string, 34" scale and proper bass string spacing.
But maybe you know different and there was an earlier precedent for dedicated baritone guitars being made in the 1960s. Because of the mixed terminology being used it is very difficult to find out the absolute truth of the matter.
Just take one look at this B&G Formanta fuzz guitar and you know it's from Soviet-era Russia. Those switches and knobs all look as if they belong on some military hardware. However, the shape reminds me of the Vox Marauder.
This guitar is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $400. The seller tells us that it was made in the 1980s in the USSR by Belarusian Musical Instruments Factory at Borisov city, and that it has a built-in fuzz effect powered by a 9 volt battery. Apparently the headstock shape is rare for this model and has a reversed signature.
According to the seller of this guitar, it is known as the Screwdriver because of its shape. Made in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, this Jolana Star IX with its "screwdriver" shape doesn't very much resemble the Jolana Star X that we looked at here on Guitarz back in August 2009. The Jolana Basso IX that we looked at in December 2009, however, does share the same shape. It's nice to see what the control plate on this design should look like (the Basso IX we featured had a home-made replacement), but I doubt the knobs are original. Alas, the original pickups are missing their covers, and the trem arm would appear to be similarly absent.
This guitar is currently being auctioned on eBay with a starting price of $200.
Guitarz reader Colin Brown brought this guitar to my attention via our Facebook page, commenting:
I thought this was kind of neat, with a maple fingerboard, wraparound bridge, and humbuckers... I've only seen the ones with the jazzy trem, rosewood fingerboard, and single coils.
The guitar in question is a Univox Hi-Flier, which is essentially a 1970s Japanese-made copy of the Mosrite Ventures model. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain helped popularise these old Univox Mosrite copies, injecting them with the cool factor.
This example is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a starting bid of $300.
Here we have a pair of Kay Jazz Special basses from the 1950s. With their hollowbody design they are a close relation to the Kay Thin Twin Bass we looked at here on Guitarz last month, the main differences being the doublecutaway body shape, pickguard, and the over-sized headstock with Art Deco styled "Kelvinator" badge (so-called because of its similarity to a Kelvinator refrigerator logo).
This pair are currently being offered for sale on eBay with a But It Now price of $12,995.
This is a Burns Magpie guitar from 1980. Apparently this is quite a rare model, and this one seems to be even rarer with its 6-on-one-side "Magpie" headstock; others I've seen pictured have the same 3+3 headstock design as the Burns Steer.
The seller tells us that:
The guitar sounds amazing. [The pickups] completely scream. So much attack, yet very full sounding. Great clarity and power.
Unfortunately I can't find out much else about this guitar. If anyone reading this has more info, please don't be shy in letting us know!
This guitar is currently up for auction on eBay. It had a starting price of £0.99 and the bidding has already begun. It'll be interesting to see what it sells for (so long as the reserve price is met).
Here's an oddity that I've not seen before. It's a Gibson HG-20 from 1929, a 3/4 scale acoustic guitar with five soundholes. Apparently each of the four f-holes has its own chamber constructed within the guitar's body, giving the guitar its own unique voice. This guitar is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,900.
Guitarz reader Patrick Foss sent me these pictures of what looks like a Telecaster that has been assimilated and upgraded by the Borg from Star Trek. It's an Axxx Hotrod complete with both a B-Bender and a G-Bender, so should be able to manage comfortably with some decidedly non-futuristic country music, and is the product of veteran motorcycle builder Donnie Tate and infamous guitar guru Tim Wallis of Timara String Benders.
Here's a National Bel Aire from 1959 which may look strangely familiar to Gibson enthusiasts. Never mind the smokescreen provided by the triple pickups and myriad of controls, the body itself is identical to that of the Gibson ES-175 of the same era and indeed was made by Gibson for National.
This guitar is indeed a beauty, and is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $2,995.95. The seller has provided some very nice photos on the auction page, but I only wish there was one of the whole length of the instrument in one shot.
Ahhhh... now this one brings back some memories. It's a shortscale Shaftesbury bass, roughly modelled on the original slab-bodied Fender Precision/Fender Telecaster bass, and I guess it's from the mid 1970s.
I remember back in the early 1980s when I was first getting into starting bands with my mates and doing a spot of home recording on the then-new Fostex X15 multitrack cassette recorder; one day a couple of my friends came round wanting to record a demo. They brought a couple of cheap guitars with them. I don't remember what the six string was, but the bass was one of these. It was bad. I remember thinking it how dreadful it was. It was boomy, as you'd expect from a short-scale bass but I've played many that were streets ahead of this. I don't think the flat wound strings helped (I've never liked them and never will). I can't explain exactly what was wrong with it, just that it felt bad and it played bad. It was a cheap and nasty bass and performed accordingly.
This one on eBay UK has a starting price of £199. That is what I'd call seriously optimistic. Don't be fooled by the fact that this was "Made in Italy". It's not one of their finer moments.
I love your blog. Here are some pictures of my Gibson Victory MVX guitar. It is from 1980. It weighs a ton but has a beautiful resonance to it. I think the shape is amazing and these could be reissued (probably in mahogany rather than solid hard rock maple (every part of it).
I changed the knobs to chicken-heads because I like those best—but it came with the usual Gibson speed knobs.
Thanks Erik. We were recently discussing the Fender-esque designs of Gibson and its offshoot companies and I guess that the Victory series could be said to fall into this category, the doublecut body with offset horns being reminiscent of the Stratocaster. Also the pickguard shape, pickguard-mounted pickups and controls, triple pickups (even if the outer two are humbuckers allowing for more tonal options), headstock layout, etc. Of course the guitar has Gibson attributes too, most notably the 24 3/4" scale and the set neck. (Interestingly, the Victory basses were more Fender-like with bolt-on necks).
You only have to take one look at this guitar and you know straightaway that it's 1960s Japanese. It's a Kingston Swinger from 1967, and is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $499.95. I personally feel that's a tad optimistic for an old Teisco. Kingston was a brandname often applied to Teisco guitars, and the striped metal pickguard seen here is a dead giveaway as to the guitar's Teisco origins.
The seller comments that it "Has an unusual whammy/vibrato bar." Now, I'm not too well up on my old-fangled guitar hardware, so am not quite sure what the deal is here. To my eyes it looks as if there's something missing and perhaps there ought to be an arm and a spring maybe beneath that furled knob sticking out of the tailplate. Does anyone out there know what it should look like? I'd be surprised if that knob itself was the tremolo as the seller seems to be suggesting. Please forgive the gaping holes in my guitar knowledge here; as I've said before, I do not claim to be an expert and am learning all the time.
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