Bigsby Magnatone MkIII guitar from 1957

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Hear the name "Bigsby" and you automtically think of the now legendary Bigsby vibrato. It seems almost ironic that this "Bigsby" guitar doesn't have a vibrato (or tremolo) at all!

In fact this is a Bigsby-designed Magnatone MkIII. Magnatone were best known for their Hawaiian guitars and amps, but contracted Paul Bigsby to design a "spanish"-style electric. (That always sounds funny to me, because I think of Spanish guitar as being acoustic nylon-string. However, "Spanish" in this instance refers to the playing style familiar to all of us today as opposed to the lap style of playing.)

You can read more about the Bigsby Magnatone MkIII here.

Of course, Paul Bigsby together with Merle Travis developed what is arguably the first solid-bodied electric guitar back in 1947, which in turn influenced a certain Mr Leo Fender. You can see where the influence for the Fender headstock design may have come from (read more about that here).

See also: www.bigsbyguitars.com

G L Wilson

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Wilder Davoli plexiglass lapsteel

guitarz.blogspot.com

Yes, Davoli like in Krundaal-Davoli, the company that issued Wandre's amazing guitars in the 60s. Wilder is an Italian music gear import company created by Davoli's son, usually distributing alternative brands like Eastwood or Trussart.

They also release a few instruments under Wilder's brand, such as this bizarre plexiglass lapsteel guitar. I'm very unfamiliar with this instrument (the only image of it I have is David Gilmour playing One of these days on the 80s-ish Pink Floyd tour I saw when young and fresh), but this one seems remarkable to me, maybe the high-tech impression of plexiglass is contradictory with the dusty image of blue-grass associated with the instrument...

(On the other hand, I'm a fan of electric hurdy-gurdy when used for jazz or experimental music!)

Bertram

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Anyone for tennis?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

It's a bit early in the year, but... anyone for tennis?

From the same spirit of mind that creates cigar box guitars, comes the Sonny Daze 2-string Tennis Racquet Guitar.

Note that its creator spells it "racket". Some people unkinder than me would suggest that this is deliberate given the sound it makes, but not I. Obviously you're going to be limited as to what you can play on this, but the following video will give an idea on some of the kind of cigar-boxian slide riffs that are possible.

For an instrument (or "trash art", as its maker calls it) with practically no body mass, it's actually quite impressive. In a diddley bo kinda way.

G L Wilson

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When Relics Go Bad ... (again)

guitarz.blogspot.com:

At the risk of being accused of writing yet another blog post which has "content generated by other people" (apparently ALL my content is generated by other people - see the comment by "Guest" here), I'm going to share with you this rather inexpert "relic" job on what apears to be an otherwise perfectly good Squier Strat.

This horror was spotted by Suzanne, who comments that "Heavy relic is putting it mildly. That thing looks as if it belonged to Sloth from The Goonies."

G L Wilson

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Bartoli!

guitarz.blogspot.com

To celebrate this brand new year of the tiger, what's better than a glittery Italian vintage guitar like this cool Bartoli... So, as you can see, it's glittery, it's Italian, and, er... I don't know anything more about it!

But I can tell you where I found it, and there's much more where it comes from! Have a look at GuitareCollection.com, a French website particularly ugly but with many Italian vintage treasures, including the biggest collection of Wandre guitars I ever saw (and we love Wandre here!)

Bertram



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Vox Marauder

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I was aware of the model name Vox Marauder but I don't think I've ever seen one before. Blimey, and I thought that the Telecaster was "slab-bodied"!

My guess is that this is another one of the Eko-built Voxes from the later 1960s. It certainly looks very Italian with all those controls including a row of push-buttons. As with many other Vox guitars of the same era, this guitar features built-in effects. Unfortunately, it seems that on this example the electrics need some attention - it shouldn't be too big a problem for someone who knows what they are doing.

It also appears to be missing the trem arm, and the cover for the switch on the upper horn. The square-edged single coil pickups look to be standard Vox issue, such as on the Vox Harlem that we looked at recently.

G L Wilson

EDIT: So much for my guesses, apparently this Vox was all British!

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Screaming Leaming Scorpion

Screaming Leaming claims (and who am I to doubt his word?) to have worked for both B.C. Rich and Hamer and to have created guitars in the 1980s for the likes of KISS, WASP, Rick Derringer, Black Sabbath, Megadeth, Van Halen, Madam X, and others. This particular guitar carries the Gearhead Guitars brandname and is known as the Scorpion. It is a through-neck guitar and features parts handcrafted from steel and aluminium.

A second Screaming Leaming guitar, the Arachni-Goth, is also currently for sale on eBay. Both guitars feature an adjustable strap location for better balance. I'm guessing this is something to do with the threaded rod behind the bridge, although I can't imagine quite how it would function.

G L Wilson

guitarz.blogspot.com:

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ESP Devil Girl (slight return)

guitarz.blogspot.com:
We've looked and laughed at the ESP Devil Girl previously here on Guitarz, almost to the very day, seven years ago (see here) but seeing that the readership has grown quite a lot since then, I think it's well worth another look, not only for amusement value but also as there is an example for sale on eBay right now.

I've got no problems with the use of alternative materials in guitar making, but with plastics you can end up with something very cool looking indeed such as a whole myriad of plexiglass guitars from Dan Armstrong onwards, or else you can end up with something crappy that looks like it's been molded from the wax from the outside of a Dutch Edam cheese.

No doubt someone will insist that this guitar sounds great, but seeing as it's equipped with a single EMG HZ humbucker, I think that highly unlikely. Never mind, I'm sure someone will enjoy it.

G L Wilson

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ESP Star Turtle

guitarz.blogspot.com:
I guess you could call that a tortoiseshell finish!

It's an ESP Star Turtle Les Paul-style guitar and is apparently the signature guitar for Takamizawa of the Alfee (another Japanese band I've never heard of before).

G L Wilson

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Alvarez Dana Scoop

guitarz.blogspot.com:
I was beginning to think I'd dreamt this guitar years ago, because I've been trying to find a photo of one for years to put on this blog and could not find a trace of it. OK, it would have helped if I could have remembered the name of the instrument. I had it in mind it was something like an Aria; it seems that I got the initial letter correct, for it's an Alvarez Dana Scoop with a Modulus graphite neck, and was a model made between 1992 and 1995.

At the time this design was being hailed as the next big innovation in the world of guitars. And then it was never heard of again.

The lower cutaway of this could be described as extreme. The "scoop" cutaway actually extends beneath the strings at the top of the neck. (No room for a neck pickup, you'll notice.) It supposedly enhances the guitar's sustain and resonance properties, and eliminated phase cancellation between the neck and body resonance.

Personally, I would have thought a lot of those qualities could have been enhanced by the use of a graphite neck, rather than the eccentric body design.

I'd like to know where these guitars have been since the mid 1990s? Were they so embarrassing in appearance that they were hidden away never to be seen again?

G L Wilson

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