I own this guitar from the mid 80s, probably Matsumoku. But I cannot find more on the brand Wotan on the net, has anyone heard about them?Other than to say than the design here looks like it owes a little to the more sobre efforts of B.C. Rich, I have to confess that I know nothing of the guitar brand Wotan. Ask me about Wotan and I'd tell you that it was the name of a Supercomputer based in London's Telegraph Tower hell bent upon taking over the world in a 1966 serial of Doctor Who (The War Machines). Sorry, I'm not being much help, am I?
If anyone has any better information, then please share it with us via the comments below. Thank you!
G L Wilson
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Hello
ReplyDeleteI'm KAMEL CHENAOUY french luthier. I designed this guitar in 1978 (the guitar shown on the blog is a copy. It's true, it is an inspiration between BC-Rich (who was a very close friend) and Alembic. I was the french importer of these 2 brands, and it was the trend of the thruneck at that time. The original ones (mine) including bass model were made in Japan. I have put on the french market this design during less than 2 years under may brand : APEX GUITARS, and anyway before begining of the 80's. It was just a transition guitar because it was not really corresponding to my way of design. In fact, I had already my own original models, and because the demand was very high, I could not follow it. So, I stopped everything, put on the market this design just to keep my brand in the people mind and during that time, I re-designed my original models and increased the line by new models, then I made the protos and gave to Kasuga (Fernandes)which had the production capacity. few months after, I started the distribution of my new line and stopped the model you sshow here. With Kasuga production capacity, I was able to sell about 200 units per month. Life duration on the market was about 12 years and more than 8000 pcs were sold. My guitars were famous and today may collectors are addicts of them. The most successful model was the PROGRAM 2000 a futuristics design including a memory, a personal invention which I started the study in 1978 and patented after, and then exibited on the market in 1980. I'm still designing guitars and still building orginal guitars. Hope this info is useful for the blog.
Hello, Kamel! Would you like to answer another question about Wotan brand, regarding a bass for this time? I've sent a message with a pic of it enclosed by Google+, please give a feedback! Regards, Alex
ReplyDeletehi ! Aria produced a similar kind of guitars ; also Vantage... :)
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