Supro Normandy S613 - a very cool vintage guitar from Chicago

guitarz.blogspot.com:

It might have not have the snuggest fit of a neck into the neck pocket and perhaps a higher action than many of us are used to, but for me this vintage Supro Normandy guitar is über cool. The eBay seller tells us:

This Supro was toward the end of the National, Valco, Supro, Airline Era. The Chicago factory closed a few years after these were made there, and this model has simpler controls and some Japan hardware on it in a last effort to be compete with the Japanese imports coming in at the time and try to gain some more market share for Valco products, but has the same famed pick-ups under the black covers that give the sound Link Wray made famous with his old Dual Tone Model, and More Recent bands like White Stripes & The Black Keys have adapted that sound for their own music. I personally like the thinner neck profile on these as oppose to the baseball bat profile on their older models...

Did you see what he did there? It's the old "use a Link Wray connection to make it seem ever cooler" ploy.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of US $599.

Before I sign off today, let me just tell you that I won't be able to post for a couple of days. I've got a big gig to play tomorrow night (well, big for me anyway) that involves some travelling and a very full schedule so I shall be away from the computer for a while.

G L Wilson

© 2014, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
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1967 Custom Kraft hollow-body

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This Custom Kraft semi-hollow has some killer details - the beautiful Custom Kraft headstock, the double pickguard, the flash-shaped soundholes, the one bloc bridge/stoptail... I cannot tell if the strange positions of the knobs is incoherent or practical (I was playing my 25 year-old Ricky 620 today and I still don't get what knob does what - they have been on 10 all this time...)

When this guitar was made, Custom Kraft was a brand of the short-lived company created by the fusion of Kay and Valco, struggling to survive in the late 1960s and about to make room for the upcoming Japanese invasion. In just two years it released several very cool guitars, we'll definitely have to show some of them here! 

Bertram D

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!

Res-O-Glas English Electronics Tonemaster by Valco

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You are probably familiar with this guitar model since it's been released under several historical US brands in the 1960s - mostly Supro, National and Airline -, revived lately by Eatswood and Guitar Kits USA (as Res-O-Glas bodies only), and put in the spotlights by Black Keys' guitarist Dan Auerbach.

Nevertheless you probably don't know the English Electronics Tonemaster brand under which this one was released - well it was just one of many that branded and sold Valco instruments - mostly amps if I understand well.

That's a very desirable guitar if you want my opinion, I love the 3 knobs on the top, and the famous 'aztec' stoptail! One of these days I'm going to get myself a kit and make one like this...

Bertram D

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Dwight-branded Valco/Supro guitar from 1960

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Valco was a manufacturer of guitars and amplifiers from the 1940s through to 1968. Originally formed in 1930 by the former owners of the National Dobro Company, the name "Valco" comes from the initials of given names of the three business partners - Victor Smith, Al Frost, and Louis Dopyera - plus Co. for company. Valco guitars were sold under various brandnames depending on which retailer they were being sold through, and these names most famously include Supro, National, and Airline.

A lesser-known brandname was Dwight, with a small quantity of guitars being built for Sonny Shields Music stores - owned by a certain Mr. Charles "Dwight" Shield, hence the brandname. Apparently only 18 such examples exist as manufactured by Valco, although Epiphone were also known to have produced a limited number of guitars with the Dwight brandname.

The above pictured Valco/Dwight guitar circa 1960 is currently listed on eBay; it is in fantastic condition for a vintage guitar of its age, which no doubt is reflected in the Buy It Now price of $2,499.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1962 National Studio 66

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I recently bought a GuitarKits USA National Supro Res-O-Glas guitar body on ebay and have been seeking out some suitable parts to go with it. The one thing I didn't want was to end up with was a kit guitar that looked like everyone else's.

That's point of a kit guitar I guess.

So, I've been searching "pickup rings", "vintage pickups", "vintage pickup rings" and a myriad of similar and dissimilar terms on ebay and elsewhere. I bid on a nice 50s Framus pickup and pickup ring combo but it went out of my range. I searched through listings with bewildering amounts of information and listings with little more than a fuzzy picture and a ludicrous BIN price (uploaded with my iPhone).

I searched for Art Deco plastic (and wood and aluminium) handles that I could modify into a bridge base and/or funky pickup rings to take a couple of new/old Ovation Viper pickups or old/old Gibson Marauder pickups that I've had floating around for years. Anyway, still no luck so I'll keep looking. One thing I did unearth with the "Art Deco - Guitar" combination was this beautiful guitar from 1962. The most obvious stand-outs are the scratchplate and Art Deco pickup. Now that would suit me fine!

This is what the sellers are saying:

Description: 1962 National Studio 66 electric guitar finished in Sand Buff.

Cosmetic Condition: Various minor nicks, chips, dents & dings; some scuff marks on the body & light weather checking on the neck.

Neck: Bolt-on maple neck with rosewood fingerboard & pearloid dot inlays. Frets are in great shape with no wear. Original Kluson Deluxe tuners are a little rusty, but are in perfect working condition.

Body: Single cutaway, Res-O-Glas body with nickel trapeze tailpiece & fixed wooden bridge.

Pickup: Art deco bridge pickup with single volume & tone controls. 8.87K ohms.

Set Up: Professionally set up by our guitar tech & strung with brand new Ernie Ball .10-.46 gauge Slinkys.

Playability / Sound: Nice, low action; smooth playing neck; cool vintage tone!

Case: Vintage chipboard case included.

I've always been a big fan of Res-O-Glas guitars since seeing one in a second hand shop in East London when I was a teenager, and have been coveting one ever since. They also had a pale green Microfrets guitar which was the dustiest guitar I've ever seen.

But, coming back to this guitar, I especially like the Art Deco pickup and the eccentric scratchplate and pretty much everything else (except the price. Ouch!). And, that's a good enough reason to post it. Now, if I could find a pickup like that...

STOP PRESS: I just found that we posted one of these a couple of years ago but I hope Gavin doesn't mind if I let it ride as it is a beautiful guitar and the ebay pics are stunning. Well worth checking out.

David in Barcelona

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Airline Town and Country vintage guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This vintage Valco-made Airline Town and Country hardtail guitar from 1961 illustrates quite nicely that not all Airlines had those Res-O-Glas bodies for which they were famous. With the back plate removed, the construction is revealed to be quite crude. Obviously the three pickups (actually single coils in humbucker-sized cases) are front loaded, but note that there's no way of adjusting the height.
This post originates at http://guitarz.blogspot.com - beware of those damned scraper blogs!
Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,899.99.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Airline archtop acoustic guitar

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Further evidence that you can't always believe what you read on eBay. The seller of this gloriously Art Deco-looking Airline archtop obviously hasn't done his/her homework when listing this guitar on eBay, claiming it is from the 1940s. Although now revived by Eastwood Guitars, originally Airline was a brandname of the Valco Manufacturing Company for guitars sold through Montgomery Ward mail order between 1958-1968.

By the way, although this guitar looks fine in the above images, photos on the eBay listing showing the rear of the guitar tell a sadder story. The neck/body join needs some serious repair work.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

1959 Valco Airline

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Another original of these vintage Valco Airline guitars re-issued by Eastwood in the 2000s. 

Airline was a house brand of department store Montgomery Ward - built by Valco - and we already posted about the complicated cross-brand background of this kind of guitars...

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Airline 3P DLX by Eastwood

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OK, it's easy and most of our readers already know Eastwood's reissue of this Airline rejuvenated by Jack White (before he became an idol and switched to custom Gretschs), but I like this guitar a lot.

It's somehow the perfect anti-Fender/Gibson guitar, and Eastwood's replacement of the original Airline 'res-O-glas' body by a chambered mahogany one upgrades the cool but cheap vintage guitar to a modern quality one. And it still has the many Italian style knobs and switches above the strings we enjoy so much, plus the very special shape (who would dare to design this nowadays?), the german carve, and the strong presence of 3 pickups in line with a Bigsby trem.

Some say that Eastwood pickups are not the greatest (the demos I heard convinced me though) but there are many replacement pickups out there - and it would make sense that one wants to personalize this kind of guitar since it's not mainly noticeable for the specificity of its sound!

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!