This Prestige has everything of the 1970s plywood Japanese cheapos you still find everywhere for a few euros (or pounds, or dollars) under various brands (and often assumed to be Teiscos): plywood body in redburst finish, mahogany neck (I sanded off one one day, it really feels like mahogany), faux-tortoise pickguard with too many cheap switches, rudimentary bridge and trem, standard single-coil pickups (the very same Robert Smith put on his Fender Jazzmaster to keep the Top 20 sound he used on The Cure's first album, you remember that story?)
These guitars usually copy classic designs - mostly stratocasters, but also Mosrites -, but this one I've never seen before, and it's surprisingly announcing the pointy superstrats of the following decade - doesn't it have something of a classic 1980s Ibanez? The back part even has this strange twist reserved for eccentric models... And the metal control plate is cool too!
Bertram D
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"faux-tortoise pickguard with too many cheap switches, rudimentary bridge and trem, standard single-coil pickups..."
ReplyDeleteEw... ow... OUCH! Had a few of these in my day and while I LOVE switches, shouldn't they at least DO 'something'? I will say in fairness, plywood didn't quite 'mean' the same thing in the 70's as it does today. It pre-dated "farmable" stands of timber, bred for fast growth and, well someone in the timber ind. could explain it better but suffice to say the new stuff flat s*cks.
These had glossy finishes and when you're 14 ( that's good enough! )
removing this glossy finish from one of these guitars was the most difficult manual task I've ever done!
DeleteQuality aside, I've always loved the faux-tortoise pickguards on these cheap 70s guitars. The one in this post is particularly nice. If it had the toaster pickups it would be perfect. It's also funny how eBay sellers always claim they were made by Teisco. A lot of them were made in Eastern Europe and I doubt if all of the Far-Eastern ones were made by Teisco.
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