Guitar Info

For a well-respected and much revered guitar manufacturer, C.F. Martin and Company don't half take the mickey sometimes. I mean, just look at this awful hippie-themed guitar.

Simply horrible.

Hey its Ben from All About Guitars again
The Trons is New Zealand's band made of four robots who play guitars, drums and keyboard to convincing effect.
Ham is the frontman (vocals, rhythm guitar), Wiggy is the lead guitarist, Swamp is the drummer & Fifi is the keyboard player.

What was once a budget "copy" guitar has now become a desirable and much sought after instrument. Much like Paul McCartney's Hofner violin bass which was styled after a Gibson instrument, this Hohner "The Prinz" guitar - styled after the Fender Telecaster - has become desirable mainly through celebrity useage, being Prince's guitar of choice alongside several other more flamboyantly-styled instruments.

By all accounts these are excellent guitars, and although based on the Fender Telecaster, many of the accoutrements are Hohner's own: the sandwiched maple body, the binding, the walnut (?) central stripe, the tortoiseshell pickguard and similar plate surrounding the bridge...

The seller tells us that this is an "original issue with Telecaster headstock not to be confused with the later and lesser value TE series", although it can't be one of the very first as the "Prinz" appellation was given to this guitar after Prince had been using one for quite a while. In a way, it was a case of Hohner cashing in. As far as I am aware Prince never officially endorsed any Hohner guitar models.

Here's a Japanese Teisco Del Ray guitar from the 1960s, featuring a 4 + 2 headstock (way before Musicman thought of it) and a handle in the body (way before Ibanez thought of putting the monkey grip in the Jem range of guitars). It just goes to show, there aren't that many original ideas out there. Someone has almost always thought of it first a long time ago.

Actually, looking at the close-up pictures of this one on the eBay listing I'd say that this example is actually a six-string bass that someone who doesn't know any better has strung up with regular guitar strings. Check out the huge machine heads and the size of the slots in the nut. The scale length also looks longer than that of a regular guitar (for instance, look at the huge amount of space between each of the three pickups). I'd wager good money that this is a bass VI.

Additional: A quick check at the ID Parade over on the Teisco Twangers website tells me that this is TB-64 from 1965, and that it is indeed a bass. Pity the trem is missing on this example.

Yes indeedy. It's a bass guitar featuring a body crafted from a log by Ras Allover.

I know a few other blogs have been featuring this bass and whilst I usually strive for original content on this blog, I wanted to feature the log bass simply because it gives me an excuse to show the following clip courtesy of Ren and Stimpy:

Whoah! This might be a rare - even desireable - guitar, but would you be prepared to spend £7000 for it?

It's a Guild X100 Blade Runner and its "Explorer with holes" design puts me in mind of the Schecter Genesis, but I wonder which one came first?

Apparently this Guild, equipped with Kahler trem and single EMG pickup, dates back to 1985 when less than 100 such guitars were produced. Whether that makes it worth £7000 (approx $9,681.25 USD as I type this), I really couldn't say.

And before you say it, I have already seen Gibson's recent limited edition Holy Explorer.

Here's one for all you would-be singing cowboys out there. It's a vintage Gene Autry cowboy guitar, and this particular one is in the rare black finish (complete with Gene Autry cowboy graphic, of course!).

If black isn't to your liking, then the same seller has a bunch of other cowboy guitars for sale at the moment.