1960s Fender Jazzmaster Body Guard - The original Anti-Relic

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In an age where misguided souls with lofty ambitions and access to power tools are a threat to any unsuspecting guitar ( I'm looking at you, Ted ), it's refreshing to see that the generation before us sometimes went to great lengths to keep their precious axes in pristine shape.

I personally fall somewhere in the middle of these schools of thought. Hard played miles are fine but keep the grinder away from your guitar.

I have a vague memory of a something similar to this Fender Jazzmaster Body Guard being marketed in the 1980s. Only then it was made of spandex.

No joke

R.W. Haller



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1973 Jolana Kolor, a Czechoslovakian beauty

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Always a fervent (virtual) adept of Jolana guitars (I'm the creator of the Czechoslovakian guitar label you will see under this post, though it was mostly for the pleasure of writing "Czechoslovakian", it's not something you can do often nowadays), I'm happy to show this Jolana Kolor model from the early 1970s.

Though it's not as cool as the Tornado that is kind of perfect, a mere look at its gear makes clear that Jolana was without any doubt the best of cold war east-European electric instrument makers. The trapezoid pickup rings and control plate combine elegance and constructivist simplicity, and the bridge and stoptail are more sophisticated that many found on US or Japanese equivalent models of the time. And of course it has the classy Jolana headstock.

Bertram

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

Symphony with strange rail pickups - can't tell more

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Can't tell anything about this guitar, where it's from, when it was made, I can only acknowledge its flashy sparkle perloid finish and above all its very special pickups - something I've never seen before and that should make it identifiable at first sight -, thick dual rails coming right out of the body. It's branded Symphony and the bridge has a slight German feel to me but I wouldn't dare telling more...

Anybody has a cue?

bertram

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

Hembry Gemini Custom with Skulls

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I hate carved guitars, I hate skulls, I hate EMG pickups (above all when it's single in bridge position), I even hate strats, so you know what I think of this Hembry Gemini...

The Hipshot bridge is very cool though!

Bertram

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

Höfner Telecaster

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In the 1960s Höfner made Telecaster one of its unescapable models.

But they didn't just copy the Fender original model, this is their own version, that has everything more or less different: as much as I can see with the angle even the body shape (bigger horn, isn't it?) is slightly modified, as is the headstock, also the rectangular control plate with the jack output, big knobs and flat head switch, the truncated pickguard and of course the pickups that look like nothing I've seen so far...

And on top of that it has one of these extra cool Höfner trems!

Bertram

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

Klira 'Lady' jazz guitar

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This is a 1965 Klira Lady (another Klira after this one) with a new view at this great vintage tremolo... Since the company collapsed a while ago, it shouldn't be too difficult to copy, upgrade (it would be too high for nowadays standard action) and release this nice piece of gear, why doesn't anybody do this?

Anyway, Klira was quite a good brand from West-Germany -  it's compared to Höfner with which it shared parts - that unfortunately disappeared without anybody gathered a proper database on the Internet about it. These guitars will probably be the next big collectible ones, they seem to be much better than their reputation used to tell.

Bertram

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

Maestro Sideways Vibrola

The question about Hetfield's SG strange vibrato has been answered - thanks to Andy, Ron and Pappy. It's a Maestro Sideways Vibrola with its cover removed, and it looks pretty cool like this! This kind of vibrato was apparently not unusual on SGs in 1963...

On the other hand, Robb Flynn's baritone Gibson Flying V stays a mystery - but we are pretty sure that it is a baritone from the size of its neck... The question keeps open!

Something else, on Iconic Guitar blog there is an excellent post about the pretty nice Guild S-300 - I couldn't do better, so it's worth having a look there!

Bertram