Bert Kwakkel luthier-built 12+12 string acoustic (with sympathetic strings)

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This highly unusual one-off luthier-built guitar by Bert Kwakkel is currently being listed for sale on Marktplaats.nl, a trading site based in The Netherlands, and is priced at € 2.250,00.

It is essentially a 12-string acoustic guitar (even though the main part of the guitar has only been strung with six strings in these photos) with 12 sympathetic strings situated inside the guitar's body. It's certainly a weird-looking instrument with that secondary headstock emerging from the shoulder of the guitar. I can only try to imagine what it might sound like; it's not going to be quite a sitar sound seeing as don't have any buzz bridges. Nevertheless, tune it in DADGAD or similar, and I can imagine the guitar could produce a fair imitation of a sitar.

Bert Kwakkel is a name unknown to me. Apparently this guitar dates back to the 1980s, and it has suffered a few cracks, which we are told have been expertly repaired.

Thanks to JAldo who brought this guitar to my attention via the Guitarz Facebook page.

G L Wilson

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Trussart SteelTop Antique Silver Dragon Engraved, rare southpaw version

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Here's another one for the lefties... Or maybe I should say the loaded lefties. It's a left-handed 2008 James Trussart SteelTop Antique Silver Dragon Engraved model originally made as a one-off for a Nashville-based artist, and now being made available for sale on eBay. To borrow from the eBay listing (which in turn borrowed from the Trussart website):

The SteelTop has the look and feel of a vintage instrument while also featuring another James Trussart original invention: the recessed steel top plate. The metal plate sits in a recessed area on the face of the instrument, which keeps the edge of the metal plate covered, adding comfort as well as styling.

In addition to the recessed steel top plate, our exclusive chambered wood body and custom metal appointments are beautiful to look at as well as being functional. For instance, the recessed steel head cap adds mass to the headstock and increases sustain. The steel, while also being the perfect medium to display the beautiful Trussart custom finishes and engraving, also has tonal advantages. The SteelTop tone is a uniquely classic sound that, combined with the resonant qualities of the chambered body and steel top, can range from sweet thick classic tones to the heaviest lead tones.

Equally at home being played on stage or on display as a piece of art, you will know you have something special the moment you lay your hands on this instrument, as every Trussart is loaded with unique custom details. The construction of these instruments is only half of the story; the other half is the finish. SteelTops are available with distressed finishes that come with a history and a slight element of neglect-of decay-so it has a personality all its own.

This Trussart has found its way into the hands of many guitarists including Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes, Pete Stroud of the Sheryl Crow Band, Kirk Douglas of The Roots, and Brian Ray of the Paul McCartney Band, to name just a few.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $4,299.99.

G L Wilson

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1999 Gibsonesque Fender Toronado

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I find it strange that the Fender Toronado, introduced in 1998 and discontinued in 2006, didn't become a standard Fender model, in addition to their more classic guitars. It is clearly an incursion on Gibson's territory with its humbuckers, tune-o-matic bridge and stop tail, shorter scale, four knobs, switch on the upper horn and in the case of this one even a very SG-like pickguard, but why not, it is a fine looking guitar, and it deserved to be given a chance (what if the rules of current capitalism had been applied at the birth of electric guitars? - we'd probably still play accordion).

Though it was short-lived, there've been many versions of the Toronado, with different pickguards, finishes, electronics and pickups - as you can see on the Toronado Tumblr.  

Bertram D

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Burns guitar and bass doubleneck, one-off possibly employee-made

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another bizarre doubleneck instrument, this time it's a Burns guitar/bass combination. Although it has genuine 1960s Burns parts, we do not know for sure its back-story. The seller believes that it was possibly made by an employee of Burns or else was a prototype or one-off tradeshow model, but freely admits that he is unable to offer any proof to these theories.

Currently listed on eBay UK with a starting bid of £1,050.

G L Wilson

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Cyan Guitars - made in Germany

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The other day I posted about the Farin Urlaub signature guitar by German company Cyan Guitars - well there are some neat guitars on their website - I picked up a few (the Hellboy, the Hellcaster and the Zodiac) (I chose white models because of the black background on the pictures but there are other colors of course). I love the pointy Mosrite style of the horns, the slanted outline, the German carve, the aligned tuners, the bridge plates and pickup rings - well, everything... 

Bertram D

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Jim Rodford's doubleneck behemoth comprising Fender P-Bass and Strat

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I was looking on YouTube for some footage of Argent's Russ Ballard playing his customised Holy Stratocaster (which also featured a cut-down body so that the top horn echoed size and shape of the lower horn), and found an interesting clip of Argent playing "Hold Your Head Up" on The Midnight Special TV Show in 1973 with an introduction from none other than John Denver (see below).

Sure, there was Russ playing his Holy Strat, but I was also intrigued to see bassist Jim Rodford thumping away on an enormous doubleneck seemingly composed of a Fender Precision Bass and a Strat. Alas I've not been able to turn up any better quality close-up photos of the instrument itself and so I though I'd have a little shout out to the faithful Guitarz readership to see if anyone has any more information about this remarkable instrument or knows where we might find some better photographs.

A Google search reveals various guitar and bass forum discussions in which this instrument is mentioned. Apparently the P-Bass making up one half of this doubleneck behemoth previously belonged to Chris White of The Zombies (keyboardist Rod Argent's previous band).

There are other clips of Rodford playing the bass as a single necked instrument (e.g. another performance of "Hold Your Head Up", this time from 1972) where the bass is clearly shown to have an enlarged or secondary pickguard on the upper portion of the body. One forum mentioned something about the doubleneck being convertible into two separate instruments, so possibly this upper pickguard was there to hide the join in the body with the upper horn section of the bass.

This is all conjecture on my part. I just think it's an interesting instrument worthy of further investigation.


G L Wilson

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Cyan FU Virgin

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This FU Virgin by German company Cyan Guitars is the signature guitar of Farin Urlaub, the frontman of Die Ärzte, one of the most famous German punk-rock bands. Classic and classy (Urlaub's personal model sports a skull, fortunately non standard), it combines an elegant outline with an impression of strength and efficiency I'd call German if I didn't want to avoid pointless clichés. And I love these modernist soundholes!

It's not only the looks, the pickups choice is special, on the same guitar you have a Di Marzio Megadrive in bridge position and a Duesenberg Grand Vintage in neck position - that probably allows a great range of sounds.

Bertram D

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Gitison Holy Explorer with more than a touch of the Blade Runner to it

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Take a look at that headstock logo. It looks a lot like "Gibson", doesn't it? However, it actually says "Gitison". This guitar is a Gitison Holy Explorer handmade in Budapest, Hungary, by Tibor Turcsak. Although the name and logo would suggest a connection with a famous American manufacturer, the body design is a near identical replica of the Guild X-100 Blade Runner guitar. The guitar supposedly is equipped with two Kent Armstrong mini humbuckers and DiMarzio humbucker in the bridge position which ought to make it more versatile than the Blade Runner.

Currently listed on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £880.

Thanks to Zirig Árpád for bringing this guitar to my attention.

G L Wilson

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1960s Japanese-made Guyatone Victoria: one to turn heads with!

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Here's a magnificent example of a seldom seen Guyatone Victoria currently listed on eBay. Here at Guitarz we first looked at this model guitar back in September 2010.

It's a 1960s-era Japanese-made guitar, has quite a unique shape, lashings of chrome and an intriguing pickup selector system: a rotary control pot with positions for Off/Low/Mix/High and a Solo/Rhythm switch. Quite how these function in conjunction to control the three pickups, I could only hazard a guess. It's good also to see that the tremolo appears to be all present and correct. All in all, the guitar appears to be in remarkable condition for an instrument that is around 50 years old.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $650.

Thanks to Steve C for bringing this guitar to my attention.

G L Wilson

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Bowie and Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder dies, age 62

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Trevor Bolder, RIP.

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1970s Kaman Music Corporation metal-necked Applause acoustic guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Applause guitars were first introduced by Kaman Music circa 1976/77 as a budget brand version of Ovation's roundback guitars. The guitars featured the same moulded round backs as Ovation guitars, although whether this was made from the same "LyraChord" material I could not tell you. More idiosyncratically, these guitars featured one-piece aluminium necks with integral fingerboard and frets! The back of the neck was made of moulded plastic, supposedly designed to feel like mahogany. These metal-neck Applause guitars were built alongside Ovation guitars in Connecticut. Production of the Applause brand moved to Korea in the early 1980s with future necks being made from the more traditional timber choices.

This particular metal-necked Applause is currently listed on eBay UK and has a very reasonable sounding Buy It Now price of £160.

One other thing I have noticed about this guitar in where it differs from its Ovation cousins, is that where Ovations were designed from the ground up to be electro-acoustic guitars, this Applause appears to be wholly acoustic and features no pickups and no electronics of any kind.

G L Wilson

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1960s Vox Phantom VI Special with built-in special effects

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Guitarz reader Andrew K writes:

Okay, what we have here is the Vox Phantom VI Special with the onboard effects. This was the full, top-of-the-line, Vox Effects guitar. While the Starstream and other hollowbodies contained the smaller 3 effect unit the special contains ALL the effects. And I do mean all. Reliability notwithstanding these were truly special instruments, they were just about the only special FX guitar ever built that was fully analogue and actually functioned properly, and to top it off they were dead awesome and dead sexy. They are not as specialised as the guitarorgan or as standard as the Starsteam and other hollowbodies, they stand alone and thanks to the fact the company was circling the drain, there are relatively few of them in good nick. The fact they kept breaking may have counted against them in the long run.

And, Ian Curtis played one in Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" video. Enough has been said, but still I will say more.

I am now enclosing an interview done with Bernard Sumner for the excellent book by Pat Graham called Instrument. The instrument being discussed was the self-same Vox Phantom VI Special.

Ian really liked this guitar. The Phantom had tons of effects built into it, as an added bonus. It had a pause unit, and a thing called the 'replat'. when we got the guitar, half the effects didn't work, and we were thinking "what the hell is the replat?" We got the guitar repaired, and it turned out that 'replat' was actually repeat - it was just a misprint. The guitar has a battery in it, and if you press the buttons in the wrong combination it will go into the self-oscillate mode and start to make this strange twittering sound that Ian liked very much. It is a pretty wacky guitar.

Ian didn't' really want to play guitar, but for some reason we wanted him to play it. I can't remember the reason now. It sounded like some of the thinner guitars on the Velvet Underground tracks, clean and jangly. I think Ian used to only play on 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'... no I'm wrong, there was another track too. Maybe, 'Heart and Soul'? I do remember Ian used to play only one chord, which was D. We showed him how to play D and we wrote a song. I wonder if that's why we wrote 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', you could drone a D through it. I think he played it live because I was playing keyboards. On the record, I played guitar, a twelve-string Eko (misspelt 'echo') an Italian guitar that sounded pretty good.

To pick it out, I think we just went to a record shop and said, that one looks cool, get that one and he said, yeah, I like that. I kept the guitar after he died, kept it under my bed in a case and then gave it back to his daughter when she came of age.

We did use it on a couple of New Order recordings. The one I remember is 'Everything's Gone Green'. On the rhythm guitar part on that song, you can hear this guitar. It just plays the D chord. That's a joke...

-Bernard Sumner.

If all of that is not reason enough for a feature, then I have absolutely no clue what is enough justification.

Do as you will.

Andrew K

P.S. if you read the description, It has a neck made by a furniture manufacturer. Quirky enough?

Currently being auctioned on eBay UK with bidding currently at £1,500 and three days left to run at the time of writing



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Frank Hartung Frost Omega one-off

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It happens often that luthiers, to prove their unbridled creativity compared to established guitars companies, over-design their guitars, with contoured outlines, exotic woods, wacky finishes and technical gadgets. But they are never as good as when their creativity express itself through sobriety, like in the case of this Frank Hartung one-off. 

Everything stands in just one line, then one pickup, one knob, and a cool 2+4 headstock (I love 2+4 headstock, so Teisco), that's it!

Bertram D

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Bizarre EMG-equipped headless metal guitar on eBay in Germany

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Will saw this bizarre headless metal guitar on eBay.de (the German eBay site) and has kindly translated the listing for us:

Handmade Metal Guitar Bizarre and Cool!

The ultimate metal guitar! This Metal Guitar was handmade by my colleague, and is a real 'Unikat!' Made of Steel, Brass, Iron & Aluminum. All parts, including the bridge, battery compartment were hand made. Only the pickups, Knobs, tuners, electrical wiring, output jack and a couple of screws were purchased. Very impressive. Comes with Zak Wylde EMG 81 & 85 pickups. 2 volume controls blend the imput of the pickups. Weighs 17.5 pounds. Bizarre & Cool Require a very thick leather strap while playing. Absolute eye-catcher and may be of interest to collectors. Guitar sold "as is." We're always open to offers.

He goes on to add that:

At 17.5 lbs., this is the sort of plank that would make Les Paul players stop whining about how heavy their guitars become after a short time playing them. Check out the frets on this monster. Could they be any fatter?

Remember, it is both bizarre AND cool!

Those frets remind me of the now legendary Gittler guitar - but of course that didn't have the fingerboard.

Unfortunately - for those of you who might have wanted to bid - the listing has now ended. Could this guitar really have sold for as little as €141,50? I would have thought it was worth more than that in scrap metal value alone?

G L Wilson

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Gretsch Synchromatic Jr. G3967 Historic Series

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Gretsch guitars are usually associated with cool super classic outlines, but the rare Gretsch Synchromatic Jr. G3967 really stands out of the lot, with its claw-like florentine cutaway, thin waistline, cat's eye sound-holes and gold finish!

Reviews say that it has its own specific sound with its floating mini-humbucker creating an almost acoustic quality than people often associate with some kind of jazz, but of course you can play any kind of music with any kind of sound!

It's exactly the kind of guitar I love, a classic base with a twist - well this one has more than one!

Bertram D

PS. exceptionally I take the opportunity of this post to invite you to pay a visit to my other blog, where I posted my first pedal review - for the Inductor Guitars Mellifluous Pussy MP-1. 

I enjoyed making this review, and I plan to do more, feel free to leave comments! 

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1980s ESP Hybrid I Telecaster/Stratocaster crossbreed guitar in shell pink

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This ESP Hybrid I guitar from the 1980s is a Strat/Tele hybrid. It's essentially Tele parts on a Strat body, plus a Strat-like tremolo with a David Gilmore-sized arm. (Not that Gilmore is short, I'm talking about his preference for diminutive tremolo arms). Anyway, it's a lot nicer aesthetically than those other Strat/Tele hybrids that feature Strat parts on a Tele-style body, and which unfortunately look like someone has taken a saw to a Stratocaster.

As an 80s Japanese-made guitar, it's quality all the way, and so should appeal to those who like their Teles to look a little more contoured than usual and to have sprouted an upper horn and tremolo arm. Hopefully they like shell pink too. For those people, this guitar is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $790.

G L Wilson

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Westone Clipper Six ... someone please snap this one up!

guitarz.blogspot.com:

As I write this blog entry there are 17 hours left on the eBay UK listing for this Westone Clipper Six. Here's my recommendation: someone out there, snap this up soonest! I'd buy it myself if I wasn't financially embarrassed. It's a 1986 Matsumoku-made Japanese Westone guitar and has a Buy It Now price of £155. What more could you want?

It's a simple no-nonsense guitar, as the seller points out:

Slab hardwood body, maple neck with a beautiful genuine ebony fingerboard. Westone engraved genuine Gotoh tuners.Tele style through body bridge. The slant pickup is unique. This is NOT a humbucker, but 2 seperate single coils on 1 baseplate, that can be switched on or off using the 2 toggle switches. Single vol, no tone and a nice tight jack socket.

The singer of a band I was in during the tail-end of the 1980s had one of these guitars; he only used it on one or two songs, and despite the fact that I had a pair of Fenders (a Strat and a Tele), I always secretly coveted his guitar. It was such a nice player.

And yes, it does have a Telecaster thing going on stylistically (so much so that Status Quo's Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt were roped in to advertise it in the music press), although the sharp lower horn is a nice departure from the original Tele design.

If you do buy it, please tell us in the comments below.

G L Wilson

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K. Yairi YB-13 electro-acoustic bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The K. Yairi YB-13 gives us a completely different take on the electro-acoustic bass guitar, with more than a nod to the violin bass design of Gibson, Hofner, et al.

The Yairi name is well respected in Japanese luthiery, although you may have seen Yairi guitars variously badged with the names S. Yairi, H. Yairi, and K. Yairi. Basically what we are dealing with here is a family of luthiers: S. (Sadao) Yairi who built guitars in the 1960s and 1970s, his son H. (Hiroshi) Yairi and nephew K. (Kazuo) Yairi. To confuse matters further, Yairi guitars have been marketed under several other brand names including Yairi & Sons, Kohno, Shelly, and Wilson. Today, the K. Yairi factory also produce a line of top-level guitars for Alvarez.

On the bass we are looking at here, I am surprised - given the quality of instrument we are looking at - that the rear access to the electronics couldn't have been more elegant.

This bass is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,794.99.

G L Wilson

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MIJ vintage Elk strat

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Elk was an esteemed Japanese amps and guitars company in the 1960s/1970s - more known for its amps actually, and it ended up building some for Fender.

This two pickups strat copy is quite beaten, but I like the look of a Jaguar tremolo on a strat body - it feels right, isn't it?

Bertram D

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Pre-war 1930s vintage Harmony Supertone parlour guitar - La Habernera

guitarz.blogspot.com:

At nearly 80 years old and showing signs of heavy usage, this pre-WWII 1930s Harmony Supertone "La Habernera" parlour guitar could surely tell a few tales.

The "La Habernera" artwork on the front of the guitar could be considered kitsch by today's tastes, but to me it all adds to the guitar's whimsy making it all the more interesting. Personally, I'd much prefer this than anything with skulls all over it, as the modern cliché seems to be.

The fingerboard seems to be covered in some kind of pearloid material - I've seen the same on other parlour guitars of the same era - but you'll notice that wear and tear through heavy playing has worn away much of the pearloid down to the bare wood of the neck, possibly illustrating why it was used in the first place: so as to avoid using expensive rosewood or ebony for the fingerboard.

Currently listed on eBay this auction is finishing within the next 24 hours as I write this, with bidding at $50.99 at the time of writing.

G L Wilson

EDIT: Sold for US $168.39.

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MeloDuende Aluha 2 aluminium Hawaiian guitar

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What with French luthiers and metal body guitars? We saw already steel instruments by Trussard and LePape, here is MeloDuende - who dropped steel for aerospace grade aluminium, and as you can see the Aluha undeniably shares DNA with spaceships! Doing so they went back to the origins of electric guitar - the original 1932 Rickenbacker Frying Pan was made out of aluminium...

Unfortunately MeloDuende doesn't have original models - come on people, why have a luthier's guitar that looks like everybody's Squier? - but this Weissenborn style hawaiian guitar seems quite unique - and sounds terrific! 

Bertram D

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Please help us identify Eric's (probably Japanese) short-scale bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Eric writes:

I need some help identifying a bass guitar. Specs: standard sunburst JB/P-body, finger rest (no thumb rest), black block inlays, pickup and bridge covers (missing), machineheads of a type I also found on a Framus (and others), but what triggered me is the pickup. Looks identical to the ones on my Vox Symphonic bass (that has the traditional Vox headstock, by the way - not the F-shape I've seen in catalogues). Vox used similar ones on the Clubman bass, too, but those had 'Vox' engraved, the ones on the Symphonic and this mystery bass are clean.

So... do you know if Vox, or a company that worked with Vox (Eko, or the Japanese firms that made the VG-6 etc), had a bass that might look like this?? Or is this just another nameless Japanese? (No, it doesn't have 'steel-enforced neck' on the neck plate). It sounds fine, by the way, if you - like me - appreciate 'authentic' over 'hi-fi'.

Although I cannot find an exact match, it looks Japanese to me, I'd guess it originated from the FujiGen Gakki factory in Japan because of the hardware used matching that on other of their guitars - I used to have a "no-name" Japanese Tele (similar to this Lero-branded example) which had two pickups that looked exactly like the single unit on the mystery bass. Ultra-short scale, I'd say looking at that photo. Probably more like a guitar scale length, about 25" or so.

But do any of our readers have any more definite information? Please let us know via the comments below. More photos follow.

G L Wilson

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The Croatian twins - doublecut acoustic and electric guitars

guitarz.blogspot.com: I know very little about this pair of guitars but I was intrigued to see them being offered for sale on eBay, where the sellers tells us:

The guitars were made in Croatia (ex Yugoslavia) in Muzička naklada Zagreb factory.

The 3 PU electric model (hollow body) is called City and the acoustic model is called Carioca.

Guitars are hard to find separately so they are very, very rare in pair. Both guitars are in very good condition for their age.

There are some marks of use and some laquer cracks on the both of them but normal for their age. They both function mechanical very well. Guitars are with all original parts except for th electric - City where one pot knob is not original.

The guitars were made probably at the end of the 60-es or early 70-es. Muzička naklada Zagreb was one of two musical instrument companies in former Yugoslavia and a lot smaller than Melodija Mengeš, so the guitars are hard to find.

It's interesting to see that both the electric and acoustic model share the same basic design - I guess it made things easier on the production line to have both models share the same basic construction. Interesting also to see the triple soundholes on the Carioca acoustic guitar.

These guitars are currently being auctioned as a pair by a seller in Croatia with a starting bid of £400.

G L Wilson

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Multivox/Premier scroll bass from late 1950s/early 1960s

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This Multivox/Premier scroll bass currently listed on eBay is quite a looker, but despite its alleged rarity I think that the Buy It Now price of $3,695 can only be called optimistic.

We've looked at Multivox/Premier guitars before now on this blog; I always thought they looked really classy although if you read this Guitarz review of a 1959 Premier guitar renovated by blog reader Mark you'll see he mentions that build quality could be inconsistent and that these instruments often suffered from quite basic issues such as bad fret spacing.

Of course, incorrect fret spacing wouldn't have worried the late great Mark Sandman of Morphine, who played a Premier bass strung with only two strings with a glass slide.



G L Wilson

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Link Wray would have been 84 years old today...

guitarz.blogspot.com:


...so I think it's only appropriate that we RUMBLE!

I'm going to play this on my Yamaha SG-3 at guitar club later today by way of tribute.

G L Wilson

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Could this Tokai MIJ doublecut electric possibly be a Black Widow?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This guitar, supposedly a Tokai doublecut, made in Japan, is currently listed on eBay by the dreaded music-outlet-shop of Cologne. As usual, this seller gives zero information and only one very small photo of a guitar which it is asking quite a large amount of money for.

I suspect that this may be one of the guitars that Tokai made for Acoustic Corporation / Bartell as it looks remarkably like the Paul Bartell designed Black Widow guitars, although perhaps the pickups have been swapped out for something a little more generic. The two-tone sunburst is unusual for a Black Widow which usually were only available finished in black (...if Henry Ford had made guitars!).

If anyone knows any more about this model, please leave a comment below.

This guitar is currently listed on eBay priced at $990.

See also: The Acoustic Black Widow Fan Page

G L Wilson

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The strange story of the Vietnam Serviceman Stratocaster

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Hmmmm... There's something a little fishy about this Stratocaster listed on eBay recently. Note how it has a trem but the lack of a spring cavity on the rear makes it look like a hardtail from the behind.

That trem looks to be a very crude version of the Jazzmaster-style tremolo. And speaking of "crude", just look at that bridge!

The neck bolts are actually beneath the neck plate which is held in place by screws where you'd expect the bolts themselves to be.

The Fender headstock looks a little wonky in shape and - appropriately - has wonky decals applied.

Apparently it's a Philippine-made forgery, as sold to Vietnam servicemen in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Jazzmaster and Jaguar forgeries were more commonplace as these were the top of the line Fenders of the day, and this Strat version is supposedly much more unusual. It could also explain why the choice of tremolo used too. The seller tells us that the middle pickup is a dummy stuffed with paper, and that the pickup selector switch was originally only two-way but has since been replaced by a three-way.

For more information on these Philippine-made forgeries, check this website.

Recently listed on eBay but unsold with a starting price of $399.

G L Wilson

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