Regular readers of Guitarz will know of my enthusiasm for certain early Yamaha solidbody electrics, but being a recent semi-hollowbody convertee I am wishing I had the chance to sample Yamaha's early semis. In May 2011 we looked at this particularly nice example of a Yamaha SA-30 semi and now Derek has sent us photos and a few words about his Yamaha SA-20 which is the 12-string version. I'll let him tell you about it:
Having shown the Yamaha SA-30, I thought you might be interested in this 1968 SA-20; it's the same guitar (minus vibrato) as a twelve string. The price in 1968 was $315 according to a catalog you can view here, making it the most expensive of the SA (semi acoustic) line at the time, about $2000 in today's dollars.
When I first got the guitar, I noticed that there's black plastic inside the F-holes; this, I learned from the catalog, is a baffle intended to suppress feedback (patent pending!). If you've both pickups selected the "mic balancer" lets you blend between the two; the pickups are the size of humbuckers but I think they are single coils. Either way, they're attractively fitted. The neck is very narrow, and the nut (which I don't believe to be original) makes it challenging to play; but overall the workmanship is superb.
In that same catalog is a very interesting amplifier, the TA-60; I'm including a picture of that as well. I'd really like to find one to compliment the guitar.
Best Regards,
Derek
Thank you, Derek, for sharing this with us. Perhaps one day I'll get my mitts on a similar guitar!
Our friend Greg Cadman (who sent us these photos of his Kapa guitar collection a while back) is interested in the Yamaha SG3C guitar as pictured above and asks:
"Does anyone out there have one of these they would be willing to make a full size tracing of the body for me?"
Which seems a fair enough request. Please respond via the comments below and I'll see to it that Greg gets your message.
The Yamaha SG3C is indeed a cool guitar, and was introduced a year after my own beloved Yamaha SG3 (similar model number, very different design), about which I have written plenty already. Both guitars have the same three singlecoil pickups arranged with one coil at the neck and two in the bridge position. However, the SG3C adopts a much simpler switching system than its slightly older sibling's Jazzmaster-like setup and functions only as a two pickup guitar with the two coils at the bridge being wired together in series. For those who are interested this video gives quite a nice little tour around the insides of the guitar.
This guitar is currently listed on eBay Australia, with five days left to run on the auction and bidding currently at just under AU$300 (Australian dollars) at the time of writing.
There was recently another SG-12 on eBay which, alas, was incomplete - there were parts missing such as bridge saddles. That particular guitar sold quite cheaply. It'd be nice to think that whoever bought that one, could buy this example too and assemble a single Yamaha SG-12 as it should be and keep the rest as spares.
Well, imagine my surprise when reading in an email from Chris Fesker that this was indeed what happened and the above pictured Yamaha SG-12 is the resulting restored guitar put together from parts from the two donor instruments. But what happened to the left over parts which obviously included perfectly serviceable body and neck? It'd be a shame to let those lie around unused. I'll let Chris tell you the whole story:
Hi Gavin - my name is Chris Fesker, and I was looking for pictures of Yamaha SG12 guitars, when I ran into your blog...
I am the one that bought that guitar, along with the other incomplete SG12 you mentioned that sold around that same time. I did combine the two, using all the good parts from the 'TRoth' guitar to repair the sunburst. Rather than sell the parted out TRoth guitar, and having noticed that the original red finish was still below the new paint, I stripped the black and gold repaint to the original red, and re-built it to the best of my abilities.
I thought you might get a kick out of seeing them.
Thanks Chris
I did indeed get a kick out of seeing the photos of Chris's restored SG-12s; it's so good to see something like that having seen so many bad bodge jobs, half-arsed relics, and crappy "customisations" carried out on otherwise beautiful vintage instruments.
Whilst the red (formerly "TRoth") SG12 pictured above isn't an accurate restoration, it has been finished with respect and reverence to the original design. I like the use of two Jaguar pickups - surely these are in keeping with this style of guitar, and where would you find the original Yamaha pickups outside of buying a re-issue SGV-300 and cannibalising it (which would be a shame in itself)? It certainly has an authentic vintage vibe and I would like to congratulate Chris on a job well done!
So far I didn't like Yamaha's SCseries that felt no more than a downgrade version of the great SGV, but the glossy transparent lack on a subtly figured mahogany body and maple/manhogany neck-through is sumptuous and makes it a completely different guitar.
Contrarily to many Japanese guitars of the time mostly influenced by Gibson, Yamaha keeps here the 3 single coils strat configuration of its earlier models.
For some bizarre reasons, this guitar was short lived and produced only in 1981-1982.
Zaniboni is a French singer. I love her guitar - so small and well-designed. A cute little acoustic. Plus she's a great singer and guitarist. I have no idea what she's singing! Thanks for the help!
Tone Deaf Radio!
Hey Tone! I reckon that's a Yamaha APX-T1, the travel-friendly model in Yamaha's acclaimed APX electro-acoustic series. Thanks for recommending the video; I enjoyed that! Maybe Bertram will be able to enlighten us as to what she's singing about.
Here's a Yamaha SG-40, another of their earlier solidbody guitars, this one dating from 1972. It's a relation of the Les Paul-like Yamaha SG-45 that we already looked at back in March of this year, but is has a bolt-on neck rather than a set neck, and a generous and attractive German carve to the top, with body and headstock face finished in a vibrant solid red. Together with the angled neck pickup, this guitar has something of a Mosrite vibe.
Specs include: bolt-on mahogany neck with bound rosewood fretboard, pearloid dot inlays, 22 frets, 2 humbucking pickups, adjustable terminator type hard-tail bridge, original Yamaha tear-drop tuners, 24 3/4" scale length with a nut width of 1-3/4"
Currently listd on eBay with a Buy It now price of $795.
I've written a guest blog article for our friends at Vintage & Rare. It's all about what regular readers will recognize as a favourite hobby horse of mine, the Yamaha SG-3 guitar.
You can read all about it (plus siblings, the SG-2, SG-12 and SB-2) here.
As a particular fan of these early Yamaha solidbody guitars, I do find the "customisation" carried out on this particular Yamaha SG-12 rather distressing. Not only has it been inexpertly painted gold (and with some meaningless name applied to the headstock for who knows what reason), but it is missing the original pickguard, pickups and electrics. The current pickguard is an ugly handcut affair, not helped in being a hefty quarter of an inch thick.
I only hope that whoever did this to such a fantastic old guitar, perhaps didn't have the guitar in a state of completeness to begin with (in whcih case, someone before must have messed it up).
This guitar is currently listed on eBay, and with one day left to go before the auction finishes the bidding is currently at £399. If this guitar was in original condition, I'd expect it to sell for at least $1000. There was recently another SG-12 on eBay which, alas, was incomplete - there were parts missing such as bridge saddles. That particular guitar sold quite cheaply. It'd be nice to think that whoever bought that one, could buy this example too and assemble a single Yamaha SG-12 as it should be and keep the rest as spares.
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.
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.
Regular readers of Guitarz will know that I am an avid fan of Yamaha's early solidbody guitars. Looking at this 1969 Yamaha SA-30 complete with vibrato, I'm thinking that I could well develop a taste for their hollowbody and semi electrics too!
Having recently come into possession of an Aria TA-40 - quite a modest semi-hollowbody - I had to wonder why it's taken me so many years to even try one out, and that's speaking as someone who has owned 50+ guitars over the years.
This Yamaha SA-30 is quite glorious, and is finished in a deep emerald green. It looks to be all original, apart perhaps from the bridge, the colour of the wooden base of which doesn't quite ring true to an instrument of this vintage. This guitar is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,295 which is approximately what I paid for my Yamaha SG-3 last year and seems quite reasonable for a vintage Yamaha electric so long as it's all in tip top condition.
Yesterday here on Guitarz we took a second look at David's idea of the "Coolest Guitar Ever Built", and today we're taking another look at my own choice of guitar for that title. Dating from 1966-67, this is an original Japanese-built Yamaha SG-3, one of that company's very first solidbody electrics. It's obviously Yamaha's answer to the Fender Jazzmaster, but is not a straight copy and is all the more desirable for being different.
One interesting feature about this guitar that you may not know is that the truss rod is accessed from the back of the body with an access hole beneath what appears to be the neck plate but is actually a cover.
I've spoken about these guitars before - as regular readers will know, I am lucky enough to own a sunburst SG-3 - but they rarely become available for sale and seeing that this beautiful red example is being offered for sale on eBay Australia with a Buy It Now price of AU $2,200 (Australian dollars), I felt I just had to tell you. Believe me, if I had the money, I'd hit that Buy It Now myself and tell you all about it afterwards. And I already own one! I really think these guitars are that good. If you can find one.
Check out also this post on the OffsetGuitars.com forum which details a replica SG-3 project build and demonstrates nicely the extraordinairy lengths some people will go to get one of these guitars.
I don't have much information about this Yamaha SX 900 B - but that it's the 3 single coils version of the SX series and that its shape is brilliant (and there was an Ibanez copy of this model)... Again one of these great Japanese guitars from the early 70s - pre law-suit era - before they started to clone American guitars better than the originals...
Here's another relatively early Yamaha solidbody, the Yamaha SG45, made in Japan in 1973. This particular "natural relic" is currently being auctioned on eBay in the UK with a low starting price. It'll be interesting to see what it fetches.
The body is solid mahogany and it has a set neck with rosewood fingerboard. It's quite obviously a Les Paul inspired design, but the body shape has been softened with a much smoother lower cutaway. Note also the bizarre back cover plate stretching all the way from the volume and tone controls on the lower bout to the pickup selector on the bass side of the neck. It makes you wonder why they didn't use separate covers for each area, but thinking about it, I'd wager that the routing for the wiring between these areas is directly beneath the plate rather than inside the body. After all, on most Les Pauls the wiring channel would be beneath the maple top of the guitar, but the Yamaha doesn't have a separate top, just a mahogany slab body. This would be a cheaper, more efficient construction method, even if it does lack elegance.
One other minor detail, I notice that the pickup selector moves from side to side rather than up and down as on a Les Paul. This is much more logical. I play a LP style guitar (actually a cheapy Vintage brand V100) and I'm always accidentally knocking the selector switch and changing pickups when I don't want to. I don't really like selector switches in this position, I'd rather they were well out of the way, but if you've got to have one here then side to side operation makes perfect sense. I had been considering turning the selector in my LP-alike through 90 degrees to get the same effect.
Anyway... I'm so glad to have found out what this guitar was. Back in the tail-end of the 1970s I saw a punk band called Case whose guitarist had one of these and I have often wondered what it was.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
This is an orginal Yamaha SBV bass from the late 1960s, although I'm not entirely sure of the exact model designation of this single-pickup version. (Edit: Big Red X tells me that it's an SB2A). Back in May of last year we looked at Kevin's pair of Yamaha SBV basses, which were re-issues from circa 2000. Other than pickup layout, the main difference between these and the 1960s example pictured above is scale length - this is apparent from the position of the bridge. Speaking of the bridge, there is no way that Precision-style unit is original to the 1960s SBV (and a quick Google image search will confirm this). The string spacing is a fraction too wide: look at how close the G and E strings come to the edge of the fingerboard up at the top end of the neck as it gets closer to the body.
Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a starting price of £449.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Regular readers will know already that I am a big fan of early Yamaha electric guitars. I think they are absolutely fantastic and some models were way ahead of their time in terms of design and ergonomics. This almost luminescent orange Yamaha SGC2 is from 1968 and has a body shape that complements its sibling guitars in the SGV series, although I doubt it is quite so ergonomic. The tremolo looks to be a cruder affair than the Jazzmaster-type found on other early Yamahas; it looks as if it might be styled after the now legendary Bigsby vibrato.
As I type this, the guitar is on eBay with about 45 minutes left to go and has been attracting a fair number of bids. I so wish that I could bid, but that might not be such a good idea right about now. The price is currently at $570. Let's see what it fetches (and I spent a LOT more than that for my SG-2).
Oh, and it's my birthday tomorrow if anyone is feeling particularly generous!
Thanks to Shubert, who brought this guitar to my attention.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
This video is specially for Mister GL Wilson, for I know (and share) his taste for old school electronic music, Yamaha guitars and Devo!
The spirit of Devo is truly alive in their Japanese heirs POLYSICS. I know them for a few hours and I'm already a fan - but I had no chance, I have a soft spot for Japanese female bass players playing a seafoam green Yamaha SBV in Guantanamo orange jumpsuit!
Warning: If you start to watch on YouTube all the videos they have of this 2006 concert, you're stuck for the coming hour!
This mirror fingerboard guitar is intriguing - at least for me who know very little about fretless guitars. I crossed just a few on my way (but never played one) and they used either hardwood or metal...
Mirror feels a little fragile to me but I can credit the maker of this customization for being innovative - though I wonder why he would do that on a low-end Yamaha Pacifica (unless it's just a prototype)...
Regular readers will know that I have a bit of a thing for vintage Yamahas. I also have a soft spot for short-scale basses and think that semi-basses look really cool, so you can imagine that something like this Yamaha SA-17 bass would cause much salivation even if it did not automatically make me reach for my wallet.
This is, of course, the bass sibling to the Yamaha SA-15 guitar. Both guitar and bass, made between 1968-1972, look as if the Japanese have borrowed heavily from the designs of Rickenbacker and given them a twist. They even have the checkered binding.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!
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