Rayner Guitar from the 1960s. Not made in Japan?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

There is very little information in the listing for this Rayner guitar. Just a phone number. I thought perhaps it was a lazy seller, but found that there is not a lot of information about these guitars. My first thought was that it was a Kawai with a different name but in some searching i found that it was quite possibly built in Ireland by Statsford.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?

No matter the origins I love the look of this hollow-body beauty. I feel I've seen a similar shape in another guitar, but cannot quite place it. 

Perhaps it was just a wonderful dream.

R.W. Haller

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Kawai S180 4 Pickup Hounddog Taylor Model from the 1960s

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Break out your sunglasses, it's going to get a little shiny around here.

Look at all the chrome on this hot rod.

Four pickups, rocker switches, and a tremolo arm that could easily be weaponized ( for some of the more unsavoury gigs ).

Does anyone else see a similarity to Ibanez Jet King guitars?

The high E being pulled so far out of alignment by the string tree is hurting my slightly OCD brain though

R.W. Haller





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Very Cool Vintage Japanese Solid Body Guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Look at the upper horn on this awesome Japanese guitar. I'm not sure I've seen this model before.


Someone has looked after this guitar quite well. It has a few marks on the finish, but no noticeable dings or gouges. Sporting 3 gold foil pickups, mini switches, and an intact tremolo, it's hard not to message the seller right now and ask if they would consider shipping.

If I had to hazard a guess I'd say it was a Kawai or perhaps Guyatone.

Thoughts?

Update: I went to check the sale again and I guess someone loved it as much as I did, as the guitar is no longer listed.


R.W. Haller


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Japanese-made Apollo violin bass with scroll headstock

guitarz.blogspot.com:

When it comes to violin-styled basses (and guitars come to that matter) I am usually quite ambivalent in my enthusiasm for them, but I think that this Apollo violin bass is just glorious. Something about the shape and the execution of the build is just right. I also really love the traditional scroll-style headstock.

The eBay seller gives some interesting background information:

The best information on these basses that we could find is this "Apollo was an import line of St. Louis Music from 1967 to 1972. Apollos were made in Japan by Kawai, which had taken control of Teisco in 1967 and adopted some of Teisco's designs. Matsumoko also supplied guitars to St. Louis Music, but those were under the Electra trade name. There were EKO violin basses, but I assume they are all copies of the original Hofner bass.

I think he's wrong about this being a "copy" of the Eko violin basses. They were hollow-bodied and quite a different shape from this Apollo; nowhere near as elegant. As for them all being "copies of the original Hofner bass", that's not quite correct as - of course - the Hofner violin bass was inspired by Gibson's original bass guitar, the EB-1.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of US $550. (I'm trying to resist temptation... I need to sell a few guitars, not acquire more!)

G L Wilson

© 2014, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

Silvertone 14409 vintage Japanese Mosrite-inspired surftastic guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This 1960s Japanese "Silvertone model 14409" guitar (made by Kawai possibly?) has some very strong Mosrite stylistic influences, although that proto-Ibanez-style headstock does look a little at odds with the body design. Despite the obvious influences instruments like this are becoming increasingly sought after in their own right, with more and more collectors becoming interested in vintage Japanese-made guitars.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $344.99.

G L Wilson

© 2014, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

Kawai "Crystal Moon" acrylic-bodied Moonsault guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The Kawai Moonsault (we've looked at examples previously here and here) is one of my favourite guitar designs, partly because it just looks so impractical but also because it demonstrates beautifully the wackiness of the Japanese when it comes to guitars.

These guitars were created for the Japanese home market and are rarely seen in the West as it is, but here we have the extremely rare Crystal Moon version which features a clear acrylic body. Unlike the top of the range Moonsaults, which can be likened to Gibson's Les Paul in terms of construction and quality of build, the Crystal Moon utilises a bolt-on neck. It also lacks the body binding of its siblings, but does have the same "Phase of the Moon" fretboard inlays.

This particular example is currently located in Germany and has an eBay starting price of £1,999.

G L Wilson

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

When is a Burns Bison not a Burns Bison?...

guitarz.blogspot.com:

...when it's a 1960s Japanese-made Kawai Telestar!

These days it seems the only guitars that get copied are the same tired old designs from the likes of Fender or Gibson (and throw Martin into the mix too when considering acoustic guitars), but not too many decades ago the Far Eastern copyists (in those days, Japanese) were much more adventurous. This Telestar is a beautfiul recreation of the Burns Bison, complete with batwing headstock shape, TriSonic lookalike pickups, split pickguard (or should I say "scratchplate" seeing as it's a British design), and even Burns' trademark Wild Dog, Treble, Jazz, and Split Sound tone settings.

This guitar, which surely must be as collectable as the real thing, is currently listed on eBay UK with a starting bid of £249.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - 10 years and counting!

What's that guitar? Unknown "phases of the moon" semi-hollowbody

guitarz.blogspot.com:  

Hi Gavin,

Just ran across your website and thought I'd see if you and your team had any idea what this guitar is.

First, the background.  I'm not a guitar player nor musician.  30+ years ago I used to be a roadie and had my own sound system for a while so I'm not a total moron on the subject.  But the reason I'm contacting you is that my girlfriend's brother died two weeks ago and left five guitars to the family.  Since no one in the family plays, they've asked me to dispose of them.  Three were fairly easily identified while two are problematic.  The one I'm asking about now is the most interesting.

One local (Madison, WI, USA) guitar shop owner with 30+ years experience with acoustic guitars was unable to identify it.  Other people around the world are also flummoxed which is my reason for contacting you.

This is what we do know about the guitar.  The tuning heads appear to have been made prior to the fall of the USSR as they are imprinted with "Made in W Germany".  The pickup covers have "USA DiMarzio" on them (or DiMarzio USA).  The numbers on the back of the pickups are "59N-M and JB-D".  No other identifying marks have been found.  And finally, the workmanship seems to be pretty good.

Speculation about the guitar is fairly narrow but includes:

One person believes this is an older guitar because of the natural degeneration of the patina on the guitars brass (putting this guitar's origination somewhere in the 50s or 60s).

Most everyone thinks its Japanese because of the logo but, to everyone's knowledge so far, that logo has only appeared on the Kawai MoonSault.  I've personally looked at photos of hundreds of Kawai guitars and this is the only one with the moon and stars logo and the progression of the moon on the neck (other than the MoonSault).

Most people seem to think that this may be a one off guitar made either by an amateur (who sold it to Kawai or had it stolen by Kawai) or maybe Kawai which never made it to production for one reason or another.

Any consideration would be appreciated. And please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Mindido

OK, I have to confess that I am unable to conclusively identify this guitar. I thought - briefly - because of the crescent moon headstock inlay that it might be one of Jimmy Moon's earlier efforts; however the crescent moon on his guitars is quite a different shape, and the name "Moon" is missing from the headstock, so I think we can rule out Moon Guitars.

Maybe it IS a Kawai. It might have been a "non export" model, not intended to be sold outside of Japan (inevitably one or two models escape to the outside world), or perhaps it's a prototype.

The "Made in W Germany" machine heads are probably Schallers; I doubt the whole guitar is German made. Besides, the presence of USA-made DiMarzio pickups would suggest otherwise. These were favourites amongst Japanese manufacturers, which again points us in the direction of Kawai.

As to the guitar dating back to the 50s or 60s, I'd say that the 50s dating was very optimistic thinking indeed. If the pickups are original to the guitar, that would date it firmly in the 1970s, because the first DiMarzio pickups did not appear until 1972.

Do any of our readers have any other theories to offer concerning the identity of this guitar? Answers in the comments, please! Thanks!

G L Wilson

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

1968 Kawai roundback acoustic - Japanese Ovation Glen Campbell copy

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I'm going to be lazy and lift the details about this Kawai guitar straight from the seller's description on eBay. When it's already been said so well, why re-write it?

The downright weirdness of this guitar may be lost on most of you, but for those collectors of 1960s Japanese vintage, bizarre and lawsuit guitars, this thing is so bad it's good. What we have is a 1968 Kawai knockoff prototype of what was at the time one of the strangest and most novel pieces of guitar technology out there: the Ovation smooth-bowl Glen Campbell model. You gotta give it to the Japanese, they didn't waste anytime. But not only did they copy what is now perhaps the rarest and most sought after Ovation, they one-upped them as well in the strangeness category. First off, the smooth FRP resin bowl is LIME GREEN! On top of that, the neck is triple-bound, the headstock is pointy and devilish and capped with three-ply laminate and an awesome Kawai emblem, and the fingerboard is inlayed with upside down Teisco Spectrum 5 inlays (makes perfect sense as the Kawai factory was turning out those Teiscos at the time). And if that isn't cool enough, the tuning keys have CLEAR enclosures. Talk about space age tech.

Currently listed on eBay with a $400 starting price and a Buy It Now of $600.

Thanks to Jaimie Muehlhausen for bringing this one to my attention.

G L Wilson

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

1960s Kawai solidbody electric in Daphne Blue

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Whilst on the whole I am a fan of Japanese guitars, that is not to say that everything with strings produced in Japan was of high quality. Some of the more budget instruments from the 1960s and 1970s were quite shocking. I fear that this 1960s Kawai might well fall into that category. Despite the attractive Fender-esque Daphne Blue finish (or an approximation thereof) it does look remarkably similar to some of the Kay-branded Teiscos that in the UK were stocked by shops such as Woolworths and which were quite gruesome when it came to playability. The seller claims that the guitar has a great action and tone, and that he used to use it in a professional band, so maybe this one was quite a player or maybe that's just eBay selling hype.

The guitar is currently listed on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £199.99 which, I think, is four times what it is worth. But who knows? Perhaps it IS an amazing tone machine.

G L Wilson

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

Vintage Japanese 1960s TeleStar Green Goblin

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another eccentric-looking (by modern standards) guitar from 1960s Japan. It's a TeleStar, which was a brandname used by Kawai guitars. I'm not sure if the model name is actually "Green Goblin" or if that is the name that the eBay seller has named it (I suspect the latter). Whatever, the $1,199 Buy It Now price on eBay is truly horrifying. These guitars may be "rare", but as I've said before, "rare" does not necessarily equal valuable. If I'd have to estimate a price for this I'd quarter it, and even that might be optimistic.

Thanks to Eric who spied this one for sale on eBay.

G L Wilson

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

Unknown Teardrop guitar - not a Vox as far as we know

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's yet another one for all you guitar detectives:

Hi Gavin,

I bought a lovely vintage teardrop guitar off of ebay, but am struggling to find the manufacturer of it... It's likely Kawai or Teisco, but I can't find a similar/same one online in Google searches. Usually the selector switches/plate are what doesn't match. Any ideas?

Cheers,
Bobby

Hey Bobby, any chance of a look at the headstock? Also, is there any indication of where it was made, like a stamped neckplate saying "Made in Japan"?

My guess would be it was made in Japan, and I think I'd incline more towards Kawai than Teisco, but I have to confess that I really don't know. Perhaps other readers may have some better ideas.

G L Wilson

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

Kawai Aquarius in Cellophane Red

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I know that Bertram is a fan of the Kawai Aquarius, but am not too sure if this example with all-over Cellophane Red finish would appeal to him.

We've seen a couple of cellophane red DiMarzio Strats on here before, including one that I own. (We've also looked at a similarly finished Ibanez DT-250 X series). I'm wondering if this Kawai guitar might have been made in the same Harayama factory that supplied the Strat parts to DiMarzio, or could this have been a finish that more than one Japanese manufacturer were specialising in?

G L Wilson

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

Saturn Violin Guitar by Kawai, Teisco or maybe Guyatone - you choose

guitarz.blogspot.com

After Gavin's post of the Guyatone Saturn, this is my Kawai Saturn Violin shaped guitar which I picked up on eBay about four years ago for the princely sum of £149, which may have also been made by Guyatone. It seems it was made for just one year during 1968 then discontinued. I'm sure it's the same story for many "odd" guitars from this period. I've mentioned this before and it's hard to believe but the guitar industry was in decline at the end of the 60s and there were a lot of novelty instruments produced to try and catch the imagination of buyers. I guess, if they didn't sell, they were discontinued pretty sharply.

The logo is raised but is under the varnish - some kind of raised print, I guess - the one in the CrazyDave video (see below) has no logo so I supposed they were pretty slap-dash with some of the details and may have also made them under a different name for other distributers. Mine is in great condition and has hardly a mark on it. It's all original except I changed the pickups for some NOS ones from eBay. The originals were quite corroded and although they sounded fine, the NOS ones just look that bit better. Like many cheap pick ups from this time, they are quite microphonic but not distractingly so.

They only thing that's suffered over the years is the tremolo arm. The thread has stripped completely and now I use a slightly bigger nut to fill the old hole. Despite being a real cheapie, this guitar has a neck as straight as a die, a great action and even after some pretty strenuous wanging, it stays in tune.

The Presidents of The United States of America (the band not the wikileaks fearing politicians) used (ABUSED or TRASHED to be more accurate) one in their official video for their one and only hit "Lump" . After what they did to it, I guess there's one less Saturn in the world today. [Errrrmmm... David, you may want to read the comments - Chris Ballew of the Presidents said he loved that guitar and never abused it. - G L Wilson]

For a slightly more respectful video go and see CrazyDave play his. Not me, the other crazy Dave. Yeah Dave. Crazy man! Yeah!

There are scans of a 1968 catalogue from the Canadian company Eatons (as Gavin mentioned the other day) at http://www.vintaxe.com but you have to pay to see them. I did manage to get access to them a while ago (I guess there site was having problems) and was disappointed to find it didn't include my guitar. Actually I checked them this morning and they didn't include Gavin's find either. I put pics of the covers in the comments so you can get an idea of their overall cheesiness.




By the way, the second picture is the wall in my studio. I am rather fond of violin (or viola to be pedantic) shaped guitars. The Epiphone is new. Compared to the boxy-ness of the Univox it's a little dull but, with tape wound strings and using the neck pickup, it has a satisfying thump and a beefy ooomph that almost gets you into sub bass land. Which is why I wanted it. The Univox was a dog when I got it. I had to ditch the neck as it was seriously warped and the truss rod was broken and I've since replaced it with a NOS Hofner bass neck and extra light wound strings. A VERY different "twangier" sound than the Epiphone.

David in Barcelona

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

1960s Japanese 4-pickup solidbody

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Here's another "unknown" guitar from 1960s Japan. With the plethora of brandnames applied to the same guitars coming out of the same factories, it's very hard to identify guitars like this. The seller comments that it:

"...looks like a Bison copy. The headstock design looks like Bruno. The pickups are the same as the Kent 720 series - their topline guitars. I suspect this came out of the Kawai factory because they produced Bruno, Kent and Teisco guitars."

Interesting features include the two plates on the headstock matching the plate the pickups are sitting on; separate plates for pickups and controls; the German carve around the top of the instrument's body; and, of course, the four pickups and attendant switches (my guess is that the switch near the volume and tone pots selects between the front and rear pair of pickups, whilst the two toggles near the lower horn are 3-way selectors for each pair).

Anyway, a very interesting instrument.

G L Wilson

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

Kawai Aquarius AQ 305

guitarz.blogspot.com

On eBay, this rarely seen Kawai Aquarius AQ 305 guitar is sold as a rare 60s custom model, that is utterly absurd and obviously untrue if you just look at the one uncovered humbucker in bridge position, typical of shredding guitars of the 80s. They also mention the switch that is of course useless on a one pickup guitar, unless it's a splitable humbucker like it is the case on Aquarius guitars.

And anyway the Aquarius is an early 80s model (the AQ305 is a later version of 1984 with a modified really 80s headstock design), something you can check on the ultimate Kawai Aquarius blog (this blog would be a little more ultimate with the always expected contributions of Aquarius lovers - and the blog is mine of course!).

Anyway this guitar is beautiful and modest, and the absence of the neck pickup changes a lot its line and makes it look super dynamic - I love it!

bertram

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

Kawai Moonsault with gigbag

guitarz.blogspot.com:
We've previously looked at the Kawai Moonsault on this blog (see here), but I think it's well worth another look because it's one of my all-time favourite designs and is one that is rarely seen outside of Japan. This particular blue-burst example is available for sale on eBay right now, priced at $3995, so as much as I love this design I'm not going to be buying one any time soon.

Furthermore, I had to show you the above photo, because it's rare enough to see a Moonsault itself, let alone its oddly-shaped gigbag. I bet you'd get a few stares carrying one of those.

G L Wilson

NB: Please make sure you are reading this Guitarz post at guitarz.blogspot.com and not on a Scraper blog that copies posts without permission (and steals bandwidth) so as to profit from advertising. Please support original bloggers!

Winston teardrop guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This may not be a Vox original, but it's still quite a beauty. Made in Japan in the 1960s, this vintage Kawai teardrop copy carries the Winston brandname. This particular example has the rarer blonde finish as opposed to the more usual sunburst.

Apologies guys (or should I say "dudes"? I think there's an unwritten rule that guitarists have to address one another as "dude". But I digress...), I was meaning to show you this guitar before the eBay auction finished.

The guitar eventually sold for $537.77 (approximately £334.40) which is probably a fair price for such an instrument. I wonder how much a genuine Vox badged instrument (many of which were made by Eko in Italy) would fetch? Probably at least double that price. But would it be a better quality instrument? I doubt it.

The auction says the guitar is labelled as "Winston Brian Jones Original", but surely Brian Jones played a solid-bodied Vox teardrop finished in white. The only player who immediately springs to mind as someone who played a hollowbodied teardrop 6-string guitar was Drooper from The Banana Splits!

G L Wilson

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Kawai Aquarius, blogs and stuff

Hi, this is Bertram.

As GLW pointed out in the previous post, I've been posting regularly here in the last weeks and it's been a very interesting experience, full of learning, sharing, exchange and - well - discipline; finding something interesting to post everyday is not always easy!

Anyway, I will keep posting once in a while when I find something worthwhile...

But I also have my own blogs, and I take the opportunity to advertise them to the Guitarz many readers.

First (and you will now understand why there is this bizarre picture on the right), I just started a blog about Kawai Aquarius guitars. This is not the greatest or most famous guitar, but I have a soft spot for it and it's very difficult to find information about it on the Web. So I call for contribution and invite players and owners of Kawai Aquarius guitars (and bass) to send me pictures, stories, tracks, videos... to feed this blog.

But my main blog stays gUitarREN (it's a mix of German, French and English for guitar - of course), a blog about guitar design and projects. From my background as a musician and a visual artist, I started one year ago to study thoroughly about guitars, first to master new aspects of guitar playing, then in the idea that I want to make guitars myself, then I got really involved (I mean even more than before) and went into drawing guitars every day as a creative design process and post them on my blog. I also started building my projects, but I have to learn everything while doing it, and have not so much time and will never have enough to actualize all my ideas...

So I'd love to meet a guitar maker who needs a designer and try a collaboration, if you are interested you can contact me via my profile (you know what? I contacted some companies already and Fender answered, they do have an office to receive suggestions from people like me, interesting, isn't it?).

Thank you for your attention.

unidentified 60s Kawai

Hello, I'm Bertram from gUitarREN, I was invited to post on Guitarz, and I'm honored to answer to this invitation.

There is a German eBay shop that offers some good vintage guitars, mainly East-european and Japanese ones. For now I selected this beautiful Kawai from the 60s - there is no more information about it, but just from its look you can see it's special (and also it's in a very good state for such an old lady). Kawai is an unfairly underestimated guitar brand, probably because they stopped making guitars before Japanese production was rehabilitated and Japan acknowledged as a great guitar nation - now Kawai is a respected piano company.

I like everything on this guitar, the one neck pick-up (mini humbucker?), the bridge cover, the solid neck joint, the strong headstock, the metal pick-guard, the shape that is classic without cloning any famous design... I wish I could hear its sound! (I also like the typically Berlin wooden floor on which the guitar is photographed).