OK, it's the 11th November 2011, that is 11/11/11, and as such today has been designated Nigel Tufnel Day. To celebrate this day of Maximum Elevenness, we here at Guitarz - for this day only - will be posting an unprecedented ELEVEN blog posts! So, keep tuned throughout the day for eleven weird and wonderful guitars! Here we have a Vintage-brand Flying V prototype from John Hornby Skewes. The Vintage brand offer some excellent quality guitars at budget guitar prices. Many are based on Gibson and Fender guitars, but with a few design tweaks courtesy of the almost omnipotent Trev Wilkinson (who is also the designer behind various other guitar ranges, including the "professionally-priced" Fret King guitars also distributed by JHS).
This particular V has one of those little design tweaks - note how the body shape includes a "lip" on the treble side so as to keep the damn thing on your knee when playing seated. I'm still trying to make up my mind as to whether I like this or not. True, Vs are not good guitars to play whilst seated, but then on the other hand they really are stage guitars so does that really matter?
Knowing JHS's Vintage brand guitars it'll be a fantastic quality build - certainly better than Epiphone's copies of Gibson designs - and a few would argue that Vintage brand guitars would give Gibson themselves a run for their money. Currently listed on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £200, someone could get themselves a real bargain here and a possible collectors item too.
This Zemaitis GZV 500 MF is a Japanese-made Greco/Zemaitis guitar rather than one built by the late legendary British luthier himself. Nevertheless it is a very elegant piece, one of the most attractive Flying V style guitars that I have laid eyes on. Metallica's James Hetfield is also a fan having played the exact same model guitar on the World Magnetic Tour. The guitar features a two-piece Mahogany body, engraved aluminium top, DiMarzio DP103 PAF pickups, a 25" scale, and Schaller M6 tuners.
This guitar is currently being offered for sale via Vintage & Rare priced at €3709.
For some reason I find myself drawn towards the Flying V shape, especially when its on a guitar as beautifully finished as that pictured above, but despite the fact that the shape is totally impractical. The Flying V is really a stage guitar. It's not really a guitar for playing at home, or for playing when seated.
Strangely, this particular V appears to be anonymous, although it is actually a 1980s Japanese-made Fernandes FV-85MS. Usually Fernandes guitars based on Gibson designs were given the Burny brandname, and this guitar is unusual in having no name (and what are the bets that some owners applied Gibson decals?). The MS in the model designation naturally refers to none other than Michael Schenker - as if you hadn't guessed from the two-tone black and white finish.
Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $899.99.
nameless broken flying v electric guitar inc gigbag . you get whats in the picture garden hose ground etc not included . collection only london nw2 . payment upon collection . thank you
My goodness, take a look at this... Flycaster... Telling V? Call it what you will, just because something is possible, doesn't mean that it should happen. As Guitarz reader Al in Crosby TX USA points out, even the eBay seller describes it as an abomination.
This Telecaster/Flying V hybrid comes from Indy Custom (The Indiana Guitar Company - not to be confused with Indie Guitars) and is one of a limited edition of 100 - even that sounds like pure optimism to me!
Takamine Co., Ltd., the Japanese guitar manufacturer based in Nakatsugawa, Gifu, Japan, were forerunners circa 1978 in the introduction of electro acoustic guitars and were pioneers of the design of the preamp-equalizer in these guitars.
They were known for producing high quality copies of Martin guitars, but in the early 1980s they produced a far less conservative looking instrument, the above-pictured, Takamine EA 360, a.k.a. Flying A. Initially it was marketed as the "acoustic Flying V" but allegedly Gibson took exception to this description and so such references were dropped. Also, a V standing on its end - and with a soundhole - does resemble a big fat capital letter A, so the guitar intead became nicknamed the Flying A.
Construction is solid spruce top with rosewood back and sides. The scale length is 25 3/8" on a mahogany neck with a rosewood fingerboard with 14 frets clear of the body and 20 frets in total. The guitar is equipped with a pre-amp and a 4-band EQ.
There were 800 of these guitars built in the erly 1980s. The example pictured is from 1983. They were available in natural, metallic red and metallic blue finishes. Early examples had a Dean-like V-shaped headstock. My guess is that this was changed because of Gibson's objections to the V terminology.
Other makers have produced acoustic Flying Vs, most notably Germany's Dommenget guitars and more recently Dean; whilst their guitars are closer in shape to the Gibson Flying V template, it's my understanding that Takamine were the first to take this classic electric guitar design and apply it to an acoustic model.
This Jackson USA Custom Shop King V doubleneck is an exercise in excess with its over-sized quilted maple topped body, dual through-necks, reverse pointy headstocks, gold hardware, mother of pearl sharkfin inlays, etc. I have to confess that I'm not a fan. I never did like the Jackson pointy headstock design - it just looks totally incongruous on just about any body design, and quilted maple I'm sure is supposed to imply opulence but to me it just seems like an unimaginative short-cut to tarting up a guitar's appearance. Many would be impressed, but I have to stifle a yawn.
Flying V? Flying W more like!
Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $9,999.99.
Following on from our piece about the Fernandes "Love Driver" Strat, I would like to thank Ralf Mutz from bringing this Burny Flying V LV-115KK Ken model to my attention. Like the Fernandes Love Driver it has an ultra-sparkly finish, and there at the 12-fret is the very same black cat inlay. The Burny brand was produced by Fernandes, but the Fernandes name was initially reserved for Fender replicas with the Burny brand being applied to Gibson replicas.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!
guitarz.blogspot.com: Here's a Flying V-styled guitar with a difference - it's an archtop! This guitar was handcrafted by Personal Guitars of Washington, USA, and was recenrly offered for sale on eBay Australia. Thanks to Liam, who spotted this one.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!
We've looked at a Greco Tusk with an Explorer/Star-shaped body before, and here's another from the Tusk series with Randy Rhodes-esque V-style body.
Ken Shima, who found this guitar on the Yahoo Japan auction site, comments "totally awesome tuners, how do they work?"
Well, I think it's effectively a headless system with the tuners on the bridge, while the three "tuners" on the headstock are actually just string clamps.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!
Here is a limited edition by Gibson of Rudolf Schenker's trademarck black and white Flying V dedicated by the members of Scorpions, on an east-german flag background, it's unique and it's on the Guitarz blog!
Lately I started to work on a project that would likely require a Flying V style guitar (I do music-based performances for which the visual aspect is very important), and I was wondering what brand I should get since I can't afford an original Gibson model, and I wouldn't be happy with a mere copy - and it has to be a good player enough.
Also I've always felt that the Flying V has kind of perfect proportions: you can do variations on a strat or a Les Paul but any change on a Flying V would spoil it - that's the price of minimalism, the slightest detail matters...
So I've been looking around and scratching my head for a while, and I reached the conclusion that the Dean V is the only one that respects the Flying V while being very specific with its characteristic headstock that mirrors the body.
Then I found this pic (here) of a retrofitted Dean V with the coolest natural finish and I knew I was right, stripped down to the simplest, this guitar is at its best (I wish I could have found a photo of the guitar only, but it came with the lady, whose face I pixelated).
NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!
The SG zoot suit that you can see a little lower on this blog was not the first laminated wood solid body produced by Gibson. Here is an early 80s Flying V II, made of 5 layers of maple and walnut (you had 2 versions - maple top and walnut top).
This is not the only characteristic of this guitar made between 1979 and 1981, look at its contoured body - 30 years before the current trend - and the remarkable boomerang pickups - I couldn't figure out if this shape brings anything to the sound, but I heard that they made the Flying V II one of Gibson's most expensive guitar since they were produced exclusively for this model.
NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!
This Flying V bass is an oddity. The headstock bears the Gibson name but it has a bolt-on neck. You'd suspect that someone had applied a Gibson decal to a bass made by another manufacturer, but actually the logo tells no lies. It IS a Gibson. Sort of. But it wasn't always a Flying V.
The bass started life as a Gibson Grabber and was customised by KGB Musical Instruments for Noz Easterbrook of 60s psychedelic band The Klubs, using as many of the original Grabber parts as possible.
Whether the body was re-styled and re-used, I do not know, but I'd like to think so, otherwise it's just a Gibson neck and hardware on a new body.
The other thing that strikes me is that it's not as HUGE as genuine Gibson Flying V basses. Apparently it was styled on a Flying V guitar body which is, I believe, smaller than that of its bass counterpart.
Isn't it very arrogant to post for a guitar blog and offer to the world some information that mostly I got myself a few hours before? Now I will humbly ask our readers to help me solve some guitars mysteries (mysteries only for myself of course)...
On the cover of some French guitar magazine, there is a picture of James Hetfield (yes, the guy who said that he's proud that Metallica's music has been used to torture people in Guantanamo) holding a Gibson SG with this strange vibrato, could anybody tell me more about it?
Question 2: in the same magazine there is a picture of Robb Flynn (Machine Head) with a Gibson Flying V and it's said somewhere that it's a baritone. Does such a thing exist or is it a mistake (never heard of a baritone Gibson Flying V, but it would be so cool)?
Guitarz reader Paul Alvarez has contacted me with a mystery, and it's one dilly of a pickle. It concerns a mystery guitar that he'd like identified. The photo to the left shows an exhibit at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Please note, that the mystery guitar is NOT Kurt Cobain's Fender Mustang in the centre of the picture. That one we can identify.
No, the guitar we are interested in is the one on the right-hand side of the picture. It appears to be a Gibson SG equipped with a Bigsby and a Flying V neck - check that pointed headstock. Does anyone know the identity of this guitar and the story behind it? Is it a one-off, or was it part of a limited edition? Also, who played this guitar? Anyone we should know of? The fact that it's on display in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame would imply that it's a famous guitar or was at least owned by someone famous.
If anyone could tell us what the plaque beneath the guitar in the display cabinet actually says, we'd love to know! There must be a story about the guitar - look - it's got much more info on the plaque than Kurt's guitar has.
Is there anyone in Cleveland who can help, or perhaps someone who's recently visited the exhibit?
As many of you will know, this year Gibson has been unleashing Guitar of the Week limited edition guitars upon the world, as the title suggests, one week at a time. The most far out example so far, is the above pictured Reverse Flying V. It's an idea that's so simple that I'm amazed that no-one has thought of it before, and it does make me wonder what some other guitar designs might look like in reverse formation. Yes, there's the Gibson Firebird and Reverse-bodied Firebird, although the reversal here is more-or-less a mirror image, as opposed to flipping the body over front-to-back and putting the neck at the opposite end! Similarly, some Mosrite models were based on a flipped-over Strat body shape.
Of course, also from the "putting the neck at the other end" school of design, there is Dewey Decibel's Flip Out guitar, which takes a Strat body and puts the neck at the wrong end, and which I find quite disturbing. There's an empty neck pocket in the place you'd normally expect to find it, so it's a bit of a joke guitar and doesn't work anywhere as nicely from an aesthetic point of view as Gibson's Reverse Flying V.
Meanwhile, here's some more Flying V madness... make of this what you will!
Marc Bolan's Flying V is a 21st Century Buy: Kerry Morgan forks out £37,000 at auction for Bolan's guitar, which he's going to display in Wales' only private club for smokers. I hope he's going to put it in a glass display cabinet - imagine the discolouration it'd get from all that nicotine.
Please be on the lookout for some stolen Flying V guitars, ripped off from a guy called Roger Bleck. Here are the details in his own words:
Due to a theft that happened last week, it doesn't look like I'll be recording for a while.... My recorder & 6 of my guitars were stolen.... People get what they deserve, I'm counting on that.... I try to be a good person, so I believe that in the long run, good things will happen to me.... People thet set out to do evil, well, I hope they get what's coming to them.... I know it's a long shot, but if anyone hears of the following items out there, let me know, they're mine...
If you do see some suspect guitars for sale and want to compare them, check out the pics on Roger's MySpace page. Please feel free to copy this post. Thanks, and keep 'em peeled!
RSS
