Guitar Info

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Steve writes:

Hi, I enjoy your Guitarz Blog and recently found this strange item advertised in a local Buy/Sell. I was tempted to buy it, but the $200 asking price and impracticality of such a guitar made me pass. There are probably more than $200 worth of vintage parts on it, though.

Impractical it may be, but it would be a real shame to break up a one-off instrument like this for parts. It looks to be hand-made, possibly by a luthier although no-one of great distinction. Note how the short-scale 5-string neck's fretboard position markers echo those on the 6-string neck from the 6th fret upwards. I briefly wondered if the necks may have come from donor instruments with the 5-string neck being shortened and with a headstock grafted on, but of course these are through-necks so that wouldn't really be possible. Perhaps the fingerboards themselves came off other guitars?

Also looking at the shape of the 5-string neck's headstock and comparing it to that of the 6-string, I wondered if it had also been a 6-string but part of the head had broken off and thus it was converted. However, the positioning of the rather cheap Japanese Teisco-like pickups on the 5-string side of the guitar so that the 5-strings align to 5-pole pieces with the one on the bass side left unused would imply otherwise - unless it was a later mod.

All in all, it's a very curious guitar and worthy of our attention here on Guitarz.

G L Wilson

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