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Currently listed on eBay with a realistic Buy It Now price of $349.99.
G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Showing posts with label Kay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kay. Show all posts
1930s Winton Hawaiian Moon parlour guitar made by Kay
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Currently listed on eBay with a realistic Buy It Now price of $349.99.
G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
1930s Kay Wood Amplifying guitar - weird acoustic with wooden resonator
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This Kay Wood Amplifying guitar (that's what it says on the headstock) would appear to be some little known species of resonator guitar. Of course, most resonator guitars use one or more spun metal cones to project the sound forward, but this Kay instead has a wooden resonating chamber with a trough that feeds the sound upwards to the dual grille holes. The chamber is covered by a wooden coverplate which helps give it the appearance of a resonator. How well it actually works in practice, I am afraid I cannot tell you.
Currently listed on eBay with a starting price of $995 and no bids at the time of writing. Bear in mind that similar instruments have been listed for over $3,000.
G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
2010 Kay Thin Twin Reissue and other stuff
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A certain taste for vintage guitars that may transpire in my posts on Guitarz is in no way a nostalgia for a lost golden age, nor a cult of the origins (who could seriously believe that by some miracle the (almost) first three solid body electric guitar models ever conceived and produced in the 1950s by different companies are perfect and unsurpassed since?) It's just that at some point there've been a global explosion of creativity in guitar making following the invention of the instrument and of the music that fit with it, and there is a lot to learn from it.
You had the same happening in the 1910s, within a few years art and history changed radically due to creative emulation of artists all over the world, and one century later people are still trying to digest, explore and expand the potential of the historical avant-gardes: cubism, futurism, constructivism, dada, fauvism, neoplasticism, etc... Same in music with the 1960s British invasion or the late 1980s rise of electronic music.
And something happens in every domain and all the time, you have people who create things, and then you have people who bank on them - these things require different skills and spirits, so it's rarely the same people. You have also times for creativity and then you have times for making money - we're living such times when it comes to guitars... Imagine that in computers: people would buy huge slow square grey IBM PCs because they're so cool, and that's how Don Estridge invented them back in the day!
Anyway, let's go back to vintage guitars: there are roughly four things you can do with vintage guitars: you can preciously collect old instruments, hoping to get one in mint condition but a beaten one is also cool, and worship them while they gain more value year after year and end up keeping them in a safe. You can copy classic models again and again because, you know, that's the way Leo and Les did them and there's nothing more to do - and it sales -, and saturate the market until people cannot even imagine anymore that there are other guitars out there. You can re-issue vintage creative models so you can benefit from the vintage trend while diversifying and rejuvenating the offer, and as wrote 18th century French poet Antoine Houdard de la Motte: "l'ennui naquit un jour de l'uniformité (boredom was born from uniformity)" (now find other guitar blogs quoting 18th century French poets!). Or you can study the great guitars from the past, get inspired by their audacity with the distance given by time, and create the guitars of the 21st century!
You had the same happening in the 1910s, within a few years art and history changed radically due to creative emulation of artists all over the world, and one century later people are still trying to digest, explore and expand the potential of the historical avant-gardes: cubism, futurism, constructivism, dada, fauvism, neoplasticism, etc... Same in music with the 1960s British invasion or the late 1980s rise of electronic music.
And something happens in every domain and all the time, you have people who create things, and then you have people who bank on them - these things require different skills and spirits, so it's rarely the same people. You have also times for creativity and then you have times for making money - we're living such times when it comes to guitars... Imagine that in computers: people would buy huge slow square grey IBM PCs because they're so cool, and that's how Don Estridge invented them back in the day!
Anyway, let's go back to vintage guitars: there are roughly four things you can do with vintage guitars: you can preciously collect old instruments, hoping to get one in mint condition but a beaten one is also cool, and worship them while they gain more value year after year and end up keeping them in a safe. You can copy classic models again and again because, you know, that's the way Leo and Les did them and there's nothing more to do - and it sales -, and saturate the market until people cannot even imagine anymore that there are other guitars out there. You can re-issue vintage creative models so you can benefit from the vintage trend while diversifying and rejuvenating the offer, and as wrote 18th century French poet Antoine Houdard de la Motte: "l'ennui naquit un jour de l'uniformité (boredom was born from uniformity)" (now find other guitar blogs quoting 18th century French poets!). Or you can study the great guitars from the past, get inspired by their audacity with the distance given by time, and create the guitars of the 21st century!
The re-issue is a good starting point, and it's happening more and more since Eastwood started the trend in 2001. Now you can find Eko's lovely guitars new and functional, and reissued 1952 Kay Thin Twins. This is not the original Kay company that provided so many budget guitars to American players between the 1930s and the 1970s (remember that Kay claimed to have produced the first electric guitars, using pickups several years before Gibson - historians must work on that!), but it's not like we're talking about high-end handmade guitars made by master luthiers in an hidden Shaolin temple. The Thin Twin got its name from its thin blade pickups sticking right out of its hollow-body. It's the kind of instrument on which blues became rock'n'roll out of the spot-lights...
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Vintage Kay Waldorf archtop acoustic guitar
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G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Old Kraftsman Music Note acoustic guitar
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Here's an Old Kraftsman Music Note guitar which the seller claims is from sometime between the 1940s and 1950s but can't be more specific. The design does look a little Art Deco which would imply even earlier - you'd certainly think that by the 1950s the visuals would have moved on by then.
Still, it's a charming piece, constructed from birch and with a neck attached by three bolts. Old Kraftsman guitars were manufactured by the Kay Musical Instrument Company based in Chicago for the catalogue retailer Spiegel.
G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
1970s Kay acoustic with built-in amp and FX
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It's so bizarre that it's almost desirable!
G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
A pair of 1950s Kay Jazz Special basses
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Here we have a pair of Kay Jazz Special basses from the 1950s. With their hollowbody design they are a close relation to the Kay Thin Twin Bass we looked at here on Guitarz last month, the main differences being the doublecutaway body shape, pickguard, and the over-sized headstock with Art Deco styled "Kelvinator" badge (so-called because of its similarity to a Kelvinator refrigerator logo).
This pair are currently being offered for sale on eBay with a But It Now price of $12,995.
G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Kay Model K5935 Deluxe Bass
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G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
1950s Kay Thin Twin Bass
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As well as the volume and tone controls that you would expect, there is an additional switch - but of course on a single pickup instrument this can't be a pickup selector. According to the listing on ebay, the switch "flips the tone from the tone setting you have dialed in to the opposite setting". I'm not sure how useful that would be in practice, but it's an interesting feature.
As gorgeous as it is, I do not fancy the $3,495 Buy It Now price on eBay. Sadly, it's one for the collectors.
G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Teisco / Kay upgrade
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At least with this example, currently being offered with a starting price of £150 and a Buy It Now of £250, the guitar has seen some serious upgrades. If I were being uncharitable, I might say something along the lines of "polishing a turd", but the seller claims that this was always a nice player and deserved an upgrade to get the best out of it. Here's what he says about it:
The old, worn pickups have since been replaced with Rickenbacker-style "toaster" pickups, which produce a beautifully warm and unique sound (the scratchplate was carefully re-cut to accommodate them). The old vibrato/tremolo has also been replaced with a Fender Jaguar-style tremolo system, which works perfectly (some of the body was skilfully hollowed-out to accommodate this larger tremolo system).
Furthermore, a tune-o-matic bridge has been added; the tuners/machineheads have been replaced with Wilkinson Deluxe "Kluson-style" tuners; the volume/tone knobs have been replaced with Jaguar-style knobs; and, the input jack has been replaced. [Why do people insist on saying "input jack" when it is an OUTPUT jack? - GLW] The pots, switches and electronics have also been thoroughly cleaned. The cost of parts and labour exceeded £200.No doubt the guitar has been improved - I'd say the pickups, trem system, bridge, etc are worth more than the original instrument itself. Whether it'll appeal to anyone other than the guy that put it together remains to be seen.The overall result is a revitalised, utterly unique and beautiful-sounding guitar. You simply won't find another one like it; the pictures alone demonstrate this. I also believe that the guitar has not so much been modified as improved.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
1970s Kay LP-type guitar with on-board FX
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What nearly everyone seems to forget, however, is that the guitar isn't an Les Paul copy per se, but is modelled after the Roland GS500 controller for Roland's very first guitar synthesizer, the GR500, which was introduced in 1978. This was back in the day when any new and exciting guitar spawned Japanese-made imitations - in this instance the guitar that was being "copied" was also Japanese. Obviously, it would have been prohibitive to make it a guitar synth, hence the on-board effects as a suitably high-tech alternative.
G L Wilson
Kay semi-hollow
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I'm afraid that there's nothing I can tell about this Kay semi-hollow guitar (Kay is a complicated topic), but that I love semi-hollow body guitars with double florentine cutaway, the sliding pots are really cool, the F-hole is quite special, and the pickguard looks like the batwing ones you find on some vintage Höfners.
Bertram
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
The Serenader from B&J New York
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Serenader was a brandname of B&J New York distributors, B&J standing for Buegeleisen and Jacobson who started business around 1897 in New York city. Their guitars came from a variety of sources, which included the manufacturers Harmony, Kay and Hagström. I'm pretty certain that the guitar we are looking at is a Kay.
The auction listing doesn't tell us much about this particular model other than to describe its physical condition:
Six stringed guitar, gold glittered pick guard.That "steel bar at the side" would appear to be a Teisco (or similar) gold foil pickup. Yep, someone has had a go at electrifying this old (not quite antique) guitar. Witness also two pots - without knobs - and an output jack behind the guitar's bridge. But... What's the deal with the weird location of the pickup? Shouldn't it be under the strings? My guess is that the pickup is so microphonic that it works just about anywhere.
The finish is worn at the base of the guitar.
Visible markings to this area as well.
The wood is a very nice rich brown in color.
Uncertain of the wood used. There are two areas
where the edges are chipped, black and white pos. celluloid edging.
There is a neck pull to the guitar, no visible splits in the body.
There are nineteen frets in total, I see a few deep scratches in the wood.
The steel bar at the side has one missing screw.
This guitar was likely made sometime in the 1930s though sort of hard to pinpoint.
The guitar measures approx. 36.5" L X 13.5" W.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Teisco / Kay semi-hollowbody
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I've been enjoying the blog for a while, and I've finally found something to contribute! My girlfriend picked this up from a local store that deals with goofy vintage guitars a while ago, and we've been unable to find any information out about it. It's obviously a Kay-badged Teisco, and while I've seen similar hollowbodies with sliders instead of pots (you featured a Harmony a while back, ferinstance), I haven't been able to find another guitar exactly like it. At this point it doesn't really matter what it is, I just figured I'd share (and if anyone asks, it isn't for sale)!Thanks for that! I hadn't actually realised that Teisco built guitars for Kay, but it doesn't surprise me at all.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!
TrueTone vintage guitar ... any more info?
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We've been getting a lot of cool old cheesy guitars lately; this one's a bit harder to find info on. TrueTones are Kay and Harmony guitars with different headstocks, and were sold at Western Auto in the 60s. This one's got two pickups, two volumes and two tones, 3 way toggle. Still has the original cheesy wooden bridge on it. 3-bolt neck. This sucker's got killer vintage tone. Not sure of the model on this one, if anybody knows drop us a line.If anyone knows anything more about this guitar, please share with us the comments below and we'll pass any on info onto James. Thanks!
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!
1965 Kay Vanguard
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guitarz.blogspot.com:
It's a 1965 Kay Vanguard. The body is made of some sort of MDF (you can see it where the paint is chipped off on the headstock). The pickguard is very cool! The single coil pickup is glued to the bottom of the pickguard, and the pickguard has a raised section with the design of the underneath pickup. Nothing of the pickup is exposed thru the top (the pole pieces and shape are etched into the pick guard). We've been jokingly calling it the "soap dish" pickup. Single volume, single tone. Strangely enough, the tone is the first knob, which is counterintuitive. Three bolt neck. The headstock still has the sticker of the store it was originally bought at, Mary L. Spence Music in Plainview, TX. The tuners have been replaced over the years, the original screw holes are still evident under the new tuners.Thanks for that, James! We always enjoy seeing unusual - and even downright cheesy - vintage guitars. Thanks for sharing.
Something else strange too: when I removed the pickguard to check it out, I noticed that the electronics weren't grounded to anything. The pickguard was completely independent from the rest of the guitar.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!
Vintage instruments used by Irish showbands and beat groups in the 1960s
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guitarz.blogspot.com:
Hello there,
It's worth having a look through the pictures here; it's quite interesting to see the instruments used by working musicians back in the 1960s. Not everyone could afford the likes of Gibson and Fender guitars, you had to make music on what was available. I'm not saying that all these instruments were bad, but Egmond guitars - for example - do not have a reputation for being the most playable instruments ever made.
I just came across your blog and thought that you might like to see my site with photos of guitars and basses played by Irish bands in the '60s.
http://irishshowbands.net/instruments.htm
Francis Kaye
I was intrigued to see a picture of one guitarist playing a Wandre Krundaal Bikini guitar with the amp and speaker pod attached. I suppose someone had to play them, I've never seen any photographic evidence before!
If you want to search the archives further, there's a lot more on this website than just the guitars: irishshowbands.net
G L Wilson
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!
Silvertone Blue Kentucky
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Fancy paint on guitars is no news, this Silvertone Blue Kentucky model was issued in 1955, you can imagine it in the hands of some operette cowboy all dressed in white and blue to fit together with the guitar (it was before Village People definitely twisted American macho self-consciousness). Anyway, acoustic archtops are way cool, it's a pity that they almost completely disappeared, vintage cultists should do something about this!Silvertone's budget but appreciated guitars have been produced by several companies in the 60s, this one is a Kay product, so I take the opportunity to mention the King of Kays website, that is not only about Kay - though there is an important information there, that is that Kay claims to be the actual inventors of the electric guitar (to be added to the list) -, but also presents a nice collection of Japanese and European vintage guitars.
And even better, you'll find there a series of videos of some of these old ladys being played - that is not so often that they can be more than mere images. The demonstrator is not Steve Vai but he has heart - and guts!
Bertram
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!
Old Kraftsman square acoustic guitar
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Anyway, you know the kind of book it is. Lots of pictures and descriptions of guitars and basses, old and new, classics and modern innovative designs, the weird and wacky, etc. In fact, it's a lot like a book version of this blog.
The first job I had to do was to come up with a list of 500 different guitars. I needed a fair representation of everything. As well as the guitars everyone expects to see, I wanted to include a fair selection of oddities, and hopefully some that aren't in all the other guitar books. I think I suceeded fairly well, but you'll have to decide for yourselves in December when the book is released.
The reason I mention this all now, is that occasionally - as happened last night - I'm trawling eBay looking for an interesting guitar to feature on this blog, and I see something like this Old Kraftsman square acoustic guitar which makes me want to kick myself that I hadn's seen it earlier and included it in the book.
I have to confess, though, that I know nearly nothing about this guitar and had I needed to write about it I would have been scratching my head for a fair while trying to think of something to say, which isn't good when you're on a tight deadline.
What I do know is that Old Kraftsman is a brand name for the Spiegal department store and that the guitars were built by the Kay guitar company.
The design of this square guitar is quite unusual. It has a art deco feel to it, especially with the radiogram-styled soundholes, and the smooth contoured edges give it the appearance of having been built from bakelite. However, the close-up photos on the eBay listing show cracking in what must be a wooden body.
I have no idea what it would sound like, and confess that I can't get the idea out of my head that it must sound "boxy", however corny that comment might sound.
Note also that the body is not a geometrically precise rectangle and that it is tapered. The body shape is reminiscent of, although it pre-dates, the classic Steinberger bass and guitar from the early 80s.
My guitars...
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The collection has changed a lot since I last featured an item on my own guitars on this blog. Here is the collection as it currently stands after having sold a few guitars recently (warning BIG pictures):
Other guitars that I have owned and sold on include:
Vox Standard 25
Vox Clubman II guitar (later converted to fretless)
Westone Thunder I-A fretless bass
Eko Ranger XII 12-string acoustic
Eko mando-guitar
Aria Elecord FET-DLX electro-acoustic
Aria Legend Plexiglass Jazzmaster
Fender Japan Stratocaster pink paisley (circa 1988)
Fender Japan Telecaster pink paisley (early 1980s)
Fender Japan Stratocaster Antigua re-issue
Squier Stagemaster 7-string
Fernandes Revolver Pro with Sustainer
Fernandes Native Pro with Sustainer
Bass built with parts from Brandoni guitars
Sakai EB0-style shortscale bass
Avon EB0-style shortscale bass
Fender Jazz Bass Fretless (Made in Mexico)
Two or three Strat-a-likes self-built from spare parts
Top 20 (Woolworths) guitar complete with vibrato arm
Cheap but nice Telecaster copy
Tele-style guitar self-built from spare parts
Silvertone (Harmony?) Archtop acoustic
Unidentifiable Archtop acoustic
Washburn Idol WI64
Epiphone Les Paul Junior
Teisco MJ2
Danelectro Convertible
Danelectro 56'U2
Danelectro 12+6 doubleneck
...plus a couple of other cheapies that I didn't keep for very long.
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