Thursday, 10 May 2012

Vintage & Rare Guitar Of The Week: Girl Brand Opium Girl poppy festooned T-type guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
This Girl Brand "Opium Girl" guitar is quite appropriate for this time of the year when the poppies have started blooming. (Incidentally, our poppies here in Pembrokeshire in South West Wales are yellow rather than the more usual red).

Girl Brand guitars are one-off works of art by luthier Chris Larsen of Arizona, and as such do not come up for sale very often in the usual guitar marketplaces, however this example from 2002 is being offered for sale by Jay Rosen Music in the USA via Vintage & Rare.

Although the Telecaster influence is obvious, the body is actually of a hollow construction, formed from an aluminium rim supporting top and back plates. These vary from one individual Girl Brand guitar to the next and can be made from materials as diverse as formica, rusted steel, plastic laminates, street signs. Some examples even feature windows in the top of the guitar allowing you to see objects placed inside the guitar body (depending on the "theme" of the particular guitar).

This particular example is priced at €2854 / $3695.

G L Wilson

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7 comments:

  1. cool arrow8:47 pm

    Intriguing, but the neck joint looks a bit suspect to me.

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  2. Big Red X10:42 pm

    Girlbrand make the only T-shaped guitars I like.

    cool arrow - what don't you like about the neck joint? it looks perfectly fine to me and a lot better for upper neck access that a typical Fender one.

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    Replies
    1. Gavin Lloyd Wilson10:35 am

      The only thing I don't like about them is the position of the pickup selector switch. I absolutely LOATHE having the switch on the upper bout (as on a Les Paul).

      Possibly Cool Arrow is referring to what looks like a 3-bolt neck plate - it does look a bit uneven, it has to be said, but I'm sure Mr Larsen knows what he is doing.

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  3. Antony11:50 pm

    Nice.

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  4. Marshall_Will5:03 am

    Given it's anchored in aluminum, 'should' be ample. We have all aluminum maker Normandy Guitars right here in Salem, Oregon and they hold up well. Especially with our damp climate. What concerns me is the angle of the pickups. The yellow poppies would have been more eye pleasing!

    Special note to Greg Cadman: We all sincerely hope you are on a path to recovery. If there's anything we can do as fellow guitar buffs, please don't hesitate to let us know. There's a brotherhood amongst us, whether we realize it perhaps or not.

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  5. Unknown1:46 pm

    That's so crazy, I love it!

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  6. JD5:38 pm

    Pretty nice, for the price I would like to get a whammy bar though.

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