Vintage & Rare Guitar of the Week: Bellwood acrylic-bodied "Super Swinger" Strat circa 1979

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This 1979 acrylic-bodied Bellwood "Super Swinger" Strat-type guitar caught my eye on Vintage & Rare this week. This is a Japanese-made plexiglass bodied guitar from the late 1970s and other than the colour details is identical to my own Sanox Sound Creator-branded guitar. There are a couple of clues that betray the fact that these are the same guitars, most noticeably the rectangular pickup cavities, the plate behind the pickup selector switch (the narrow body of the guitar, necessitated by the desire to keep the weight down meant that the cavity for the 5-way switch goes right through the body - hence the back cover), and also the back of the machine heads which have a star design on them - dead giveaways.

These guitars seem to have been sold under various different brandnames including Bellwood, Sanox Sound Creator, and Coloursound ("guitar guru" Paul Day has one with a blue pickguard in his collection and which is pictured on page 109 of The Ultimate Guitar Book by Tony Bacon).

This Bellwood version appears to be in supreme condition, although I would hazard a guess that the coloured control knobs and selector switch tip are replacements (also, why not go for coloured pickup covers?). It's certainly in better condition than my own Sanox Sound Creator which has a nasty-looking internal crack beneath the bridge.

Currently being sold by Germany's Wutzdog-Guitars (coincidentally, I bought my Sanox from Germany) via Vintage & Rare and priced at €990.

G L Wilson

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