Guitar Info

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Here's another left-handed Fender in Antigua finish, this one being their almost forgotten first attempt at a semi-hollowbody guitar, the Fender Coronado II. The Coronado series was designed by Roger Rossmeisl, who had previously designed guitars for Rickenbacker, and were produced between 1966 and 1972. The Coronado models I and II differed in number of pickups (which, incidentally, were made by DeArmond), the Coronado I having a single neck pickup and the Coronado II having an additional pickup in the bridge position. There was also a 12-string model, the Coronado XII, plus a bass model. Antigua was not the only rare finish, as a number of Coronado II and XIIs were made in Wildwood editions with bodies constructed of highly grained beech wood from trees which had been injected with colourful chemical dyes before being harvested.

But back to the Antigua finish. Note how the 1960s Antigua differs from that produced in the late 1970s. The 60s version is almost a cream to black burst, whereas in the 1970s the whole burst effect is more "mushroom"-like. A few years ago I had one of the Crafted In Japan Fender Strat reissues in Antigua, and the colour was different yet again having more of a green tinge to it.

What's more, the eBay listing tells us that the above-pictured Fender Coronado II originally had a cherry finish before being refinished in the factory in Antigua. I had heard the the Antigua finish was originally developed to hide a mistake and wonder if this might be the reason for this guitar being refinished. (Anyone know the full story?)

Anyway, this guitar is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $2,590.

G L Wilson

Additional: Via the comments Sam writes:

I have a book on Fender called The Fender Electric Guitar Book: A Complete History Of Fender Instruments.

Here's what it says: "Virgilio 'Babe' Simoni remembered a particular problem with the Coronados... 'We couldn't get the binding material to stick to the Coronados,' he said later. 'We'd bind them at night and come back in the morning and the thing would be popped loose. [So we had to] re-bind them several times, and the veneer is very thin on them.' In order to cover up the burn marks caused by this re-binding, the team had no choice but to devise a special white-to-brown shaded finish, which they called Antigua, to salvage the scorched Coronados."

So yeah, perfectly conceivable - and very likely - that this was one such Coronado originally finished in cherry and then refinshed in Antigua by Fender after the binding failure damaged the previous finish. - GLW

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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What's rarer than a late 1970s Fender Precision Bass in Antigua finish? Well, how about a left-handed late 1970s Fender Precision Bass in Antigua finish? The seller actually claims that this example is from 1980 despite the headstock displaying a 1970s serial number (S followed by 6 digits), but it is perfectly possible that this was assembled in 1980 by Fender from parts already in stock from a year or two previously.

This bass is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $2,790.

If any of our regular readers are indeed southpaws and would like to join the Guitarz team with a view to writing pieces on the most interesting lefty guitars and basses on eBay and elsewhere, then please do get in touch!

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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's one for our left-handed friends, a vintage Baldwin semi-hollowbody bass, although I'm not sure of the exact model number or name (it gets tricky with all the various Burns-related companies!) so if some reader could enlighten me, I would be very grateful.

The Baldwin Piano and Organ Company of Cincinnati bought out Burns London Ltd in 1965 and guitars and basses that had previously been badged "Burns" were re-branded "Baldwin". Most Burns aficionados agree that this was where the rot set in, with standards beginning to slip in quality of construction. The carved scroll headstock on this bass would indicate that it was one of the later Baldwin guitars, this type of neck being adopted across the range in the last few years of production, circa 1967-1969. Baldwin finally gave up on the Burns guitar line in 1970.

Currently listed on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £1,399.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Hello,

My name is Daevid, I live in France and I really like your guitar blog. I have pictures of a friend's baritone left-handed guitar from Budapest that you will be insterested in, I think. It's a small guitar with a strange XLR output.

Daevid

Hi Daevid, thanks for sending those pictures. It's certainly an oddity. I wonder if any of our readers might recognize this guitar and perhaps be able to tell us some more about it.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Today is the 41st Anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix (18 September 1970). He was known to be quite self-effacing, so what he would have made of this Fender Hendrix Tribute Stratocaster from 1997, I don't know, but I suspect he may have been amused by it.

It's a left-handed Strat that is intended for right-handed players with an additional strap button on what would have been on the lower horn (from a leftie's perspective), and side dots on the right-handed player's side of the neck. The irony is that were a left-handed player to buy one, they'd need to invest a little time into setting it up for a left-handed player, and the lack of side dots where they'd expect them would be irritating.

Of course, it was created so that you can look a little like Hendrix in the mirror. It even has a reverse Fender Stratocaster logo on the headstock to complete the image. This must surely be the ultimate bedroom guitar.

The fact that it is a Hendrix tribute guitar is evidenced by the neck plate which bears Hendrix's image.

Of course, if you wanted a true "reverse" Strat you'd need left-handed control knobs that operate in the other direction, complete with reversed numbers and "volume" and "tone" text. You'd also need to go further and have left-handed threaded screws, and maybe even reverse wound strings... It all could get very silly.

Having said all that, and despite the fact that we at Guitarz are keen to promote guitars other than the same old usual suspects made by the biggest companies, this is a guitar that I secretly (not so secretly now, I guess) would love to own - as if I need another Strat!

This guitar is currently being offered for sale on ebay with a Buy It Now price of $2,495. It may be in excellent condition, but I feel that price is way too high. I've seen these for sale before for about a quarter of that.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Ever vigilant on the lookout for interesting guitars for our left-handed friends, I spied this left-handed 1998 Rickenbacker 340 Rose Morris model in Fireglo finish on eBay. Alas, it does have a rather hefty Buy It Now price tag of $4,100, which is way over what a brand new Rickenbacker 330 (i.e. right-handed and non-Rose Morris) would cost.

So, what makes this example so special? Rarity-value, I guess. It is left-handed, for starters, and being a Rose Morris model it sports an f-hole as opposed to Rickenbacker's more usual "cat's eye" soundhole. These guitars were originally created by Rickenbacker for import into the UK by Rose Morris Co, Ltd, of London, back in the 1960s. For a while Rose Morris Rickenbackers were the guitar of choice for Pete Townshend of The Who, before he figured out that if he used and abused Fender guitars with bolt on necks, for every four guitars smashed he could mix and match parts and build another three. Which was more economical than smashing a hollow-bodied set-neck Rickenbacker and being left with firewood.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Here's a very specific instrument for a player with a very specific list of requirements. It's a Soares'y left-handed acoustic/electric piccolo bass, one of a number of unusual instruments, primarily tenor guitars, built for American company Soares'y (with that annoying out of place apostrophe) by a small shop in Portugal.

The oxymoronic "piccolo bass" as a concept is an oddity in itself. Originally created by Stanley Clarke, it is essentially a bass guitar tuned an octave higher allowing a bassist to play up in the guitarist's range. So, technically it's not a "bass" at all. It's a long(er) scale 4-string guitar. In the case of Clarke's instruments he has bass scale-length, bass string spacing, they are played with a bass player's technique, and apparently as far as he's concerned anything with 4 strings is bass.

Still, with a change of strings and a set-up, this short-scale piccolo bass could easily be strung as a proper bass. Currently being auctioned on eBay with a starting price of $200 some lucky southpaw bassist could get themselves an individual instrument at a bargain price.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Our left-handed friends all too often get the short-straw when it comes to choice guitar-wise, so I'm always keen to show lefty guitars that might appeal. The above-pictured left-handed mandolin-shaped guitar is a one-off built by its eBay seller, Jez Walker, who tells describes the guitar as follows:

A one off mandolin shape lefty guitar in antique sunburst. Proper left handed CTS volume and tone controls with sprague orange drop capacitor. Bubinga fingerboard, Ash neck with adjustable trussrod. Two-piece Pine body. Lovely tortoise pickguard, high power Entwistle humbuckers. Grover machine heads, Marvel straplocks. Lovely sound/playability.

Currently being auctioned on eBay UK with a starting price of £500.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Music Man, Leo Fender's first post-Fender guitar company, are known for their guitar and basses (some would say especially the basses) which are usually quite conservative in styling. But here we see that with the Music Man Bongo Bass they decided to break the mold and go for quite an almost space-age design.

It was the result of a partnership with DesignworksUSA, a design consultancy known for its work with BMW, and features a 24-fret rosewood fingerboard and 4-band active EQ powered by an 18V supply. This lefthanded model, currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of £1,200, features a pair of Music Man humbuckers, although other pickup combinations were also available. It is also custom fitted with Orange front-face magnifying Sims LEDs whereas stock models would have had moon-shaped inlays.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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I'm always on the lookout for eBay deals for our left-handed friends, and reckon that this DiPinto Galaxie 4 is the best of the bunch currently on offer. With a silver sparkle finish, four pickups and pushbutton pickup selectors, this could so easily be a quirky instrument out of 1960s Italy, but the Galaxie 4 is actually a contemporary instrument, obviously with a surf flavour - witness the Jazzmaster-style vibrato.

As played by surf rock act Los Straitjackets.

See also DiPinto Guitars.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Steve Klein's guitar creations are almost legendary. He set the benchmark for those wishing to create the perfect ergonomic guitar. The original Klein guitar, as pictured here, has been out of production for a number of years now, and is quite a sought-after instrument. Existing examples can exchange hands for thousands of dollars. For example, this rare left-handed Klein BF-96 is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $8000. Meanwhile, other luthiers interested in ergonomics - both amateur hobbyist and professional - have taken the Klein design as a starting point for their own guitars.

Of course, the Klein isn't completely innovative. It has been pointed out that the design owes more than just a little to the Ovation Breadwinner. The other inspiration was, obviously, the headless Steinberger. Early Kleins used Steinberger necks, and all use the bridge/tuners.

In more recent years Steve Klein has turned his attentions to producing boutique acoustic guitars.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Here's another treat for our left-handed friends: what appears to be a 1960s Vox Teardrop bass. However, it is a bit of an oddity. It's not a true vintage instrument, as it has been assembled from New Old Stock (NOS) Vox and Eko-made parts.

It certainly looks the business but - I'm trying to think - was there ever a solidbody teardrop-shaped bass issued by Vox back in the day? I'm aware of the Bill Wyman model but that was a semi-hollowbody. Given that this looks to be a short-scale bass, maybe the lefty body used was originally intended for the Vox Mark VI 6-string guitar.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

This one is a lefty, and we never show enough!

Bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

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I can't help it. I just find myself becoming a tad snobbish when it comes to Epiphone guitars. Well, that is to say, modern Epiphone guitars. I think I resent that they've become to Gibson what Squier is to Fender. They used to have plenty of their own classic designs but now they are playing second fiddle to Gibson. Somehow that irritates me.

But I do love some of Epiphone's older designs from the days when they didn't slavishly copy Gibson. I've aleady mentioned the Scroll guitar and Double Scroll bass. Epiphone Newport basses have been around since 1961 with a few cosmetic changes over the years and here we see a Japanese-made left-handed Epiphone Newport bass from the late 1970s/early 1980s in superb condition. The finish shows off what looks to be a mahogany body perfectly - but apparently it's maple. And if you look at the back you'll see that it's of through-neck construction (maple and rosewood), but is nicely understated unlike all those 1980s basses with contrasting timbers.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I'd say this was a medium-scale length bass. It doesn't look to be a full long-scale and the bridge is set at the very end of the body unlike on most short-scales. If anyone can confirm this, please leave us a comment.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

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Here's one of Sweden's finest from the mid-1960s. It's a Hagstrom III in hard-to-find left-handed edition, and it looks to be complete with all parts present and correct. It's currently being offered for sale on eBay - the auction ends in a day and a half as I type this and has already been attracting a number of bids. It's nice to see that not all buyers on eBay wait until the closing seconds of an auction to put in a bid these days. (Speaking from personal experience, some don't bother to bid at all, they just wait for the auction to finish and then send the seller an email with an offer to "take it off your hands" for an insultingly low price.)

But I digress... It's a nice rare vintage piece, and as regular readers will know I'm always keen to find interesting guitars for our southpaw friends!

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

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I like to post blog entries about interesting left-handed guitars - as and when I find them. After all, left-handed people deserve to have a better choice of interesting guitars. The off-the-shelf choices are so limited that some southpaws end up seeking out custom instruments.

This oil-finished left-handed Telemaster looks to be one such instrument, a self-build perhaps. The Telemaster - as its name suggests - is a hybrid of a Telecaster and a Jazzmaster. That is, a Telecaster with a Jazzmaster body. Or is that a Jazzmaster with Telecaster routing and hardware? It's actually a guitar with a bit of a cult following amongst self-builders, guitar projecteers and custom builders. A quick Google search will turn up loads of them!

This auction finishes in just a couple of hours, so if any interested lefties are reading, you might want to snap it up quickly.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

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Of the weird and wonderful guitars we showcase here on Guitarz, some which I enjoy the most are the often surreal (to us Westerners anyway) instruments associated with Japanese bands. This left-handed Tele-style guitar from Fernandes is adorned with photos of Rieko Miura and Maki Miyamae from J-Pop group Coco, who were active from 1989-1994.

I'm guessing this guitar was a souvenir item for sale to fans. I can't imagine it being used by the group in a live situation. I mean, who'd play a guitar with a picture of themself on it? It does beg the question, why are only two of the group featured on the guitar and were the other members represented on a different guitar? Also, as it is left-handed, was there also a right-handed guitar (surely?) and if so, how did the artwork differ or was it merely a mirror image?

Granted, this is an extremely cheesy guitar but one that I find fascinating.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Bertram

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Here's another one for the lefties. It's a Hayman 4040 bass, built in London by Jack Golder and Norman Houlder of Shergold Woodcrafts Limited (established 1967). The Hayman brand name was applied to instruments distributed by Dallas Arbiter until termination of the contract in 1975. From 1975 to 1982 their guitars and basses appeared under their own Shergold brand.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

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This 1970s-era Harmony Meteor archtop fits the bill quite nicely, and I'm always happy to find something interesting for my Southpaw friends who all too often have the fuzzy end of the lollipop when it comes to guitar choice.

Its inspirations are all too obvious, but it has a number of features of its own that characterize it as something more individual, such as that big ol' Harmony headstock, the stencil-like f-holes, the bolt-on neck, and those DeArmond Gold Tone pickups.

Strangely, there's a strap button mounted on the lower horn, so I guess some right-handed person (a Northpaw?) has previously been playing this. Somehow there seems something wrong about that; lefties don't get enough choice of guitars as it is, without the righties taking their instruments.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!