Dave Of England hand-built solidbody - Zemaitis related

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Here's a stunning UK hand-built guitar from a luthier I was hitherto unaware of (hey, you can't know them all) and which has strong stylistic and heritage links to the legendary guitars made by the late Tony Zemaitis.

It's a Dave Of England guitar, currently being offered for sale on eBay. It'd probably be easiest just to copy the text of the auction rather than reinterpret what the seller has written so well already:

This is an unique guitar made in 2011, completely by hand, for me, by now-retired guitar maker (luthier!) Kevin Parsons. We made guitars using patterns and jigs supplied by Tony Zemaitis upon his retirement, and this is one of our last. Our guitars are/were all “Dave Of England” guitars, and we have built them for the likes of Ronnie Wood, Pete Townshend and many more. All by hand.

The body shape is one of Kevin Parsons’ original designs, it is quite slim when compared to a Les Paul, but has a similar tone, as the best quality mahogany and flamed maple are used. The top is an incredible flamed bookmatched maple set, and the back is 3 pieces of mahogany with reverse grain construction, as favoured by Tony Zemaitis. There is a smooth cutaway for easy access to the dusty end. The two-piece bound neck is mahogany, too, with a rosewood fingerboard and rosewood head face on the Zemaitis-shaped headstock.

The high quality Gotoh tuners are complemented by wooden buttons.

The bridge and tailpiece are hand-made, as well as the pickup surrounds, all from top grade aluminium. They too are made in the Zemaitis style, to get the fantastic sustain and tone that these instruments were noted for. The bridge and tailpiece are mounted into threaded brass inserts in the body, using galvanised steel bolts. The aluminium parts are all hand engraved by Kevin Parsons.

The pickups are from the Creamery, hand-made again in the UK, to order, just for this guitar. They sound powerful, and quite thick, in a nice way.

The finish is nitrocellulose over a very old stain, supplied to me by Mr. Zemaitis. The colour fades out after a year or two to give a very vintage amber look. Although shiny and glossy, the finish is very thin, again, a Zemaitis trait. It helps resonance and shows grain like antique furniture, it is not like glass or a Japanese instrument, you can see and feel the undulations in the grain.

This instrument is quite a bespoke affair, and won’t suit someone looking for a Les Paul lookalike. But if someone was looking for an easy playing modern hand-made, great-sounding unique electric solid body guitar, they should look no further.

It is a really excellent professional quality instrument, made from the finest materials by hand, here in England.

Scale length is 25” and the scalloped nut is approximately 1 11/16ths of an inch.

The case is a Hiscox.

Don’t confuse this with, or compare it to, a factory-made guitar. It is a complete one-off and took many, many hours to build.

This guitar was originally sold to a studio owner friend of mine, who took great care of it then traded it back to me for a vintage Telecaster.

A Dave Of England solid body guitar was listed recently at Sotheby’s of New York at $17,500 or  thereabouts. One of my old headstock badges with my name on it is currently for sale for $499! Grab this one while you can.

Currently listed on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £1995.00.

G L Wilson

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Vintage & Rare guitar of the week: Zemaitis GZV 500 MF

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This Zemaitis GZV 500 MF is a Japanese-made Greco/Zemaitis guitar rather than one built by the late legendary British luthier himself. Nevertheless it is a very elegant piece, one of the most attractive Flying V style guitars that I have laid eyes on. Metallica's James Hetfield is also a fan having played the exact same model guitar on the World Magnetic Tour. The guitar features a two-piece Mahogany body, engraved aluminium top, DiMarzio DP103 PAF pickups, a 25" scale, and Schaller M6 tuners.

This guitar is currently being offered for sale via Vintage & Rare priced at €3709.

G L Wilson

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

Zemaitis Diamond custom

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A cliché I regularly read on the guitar blogosphere, is the claim that the new made-in-Japan Zemaitis guitars are not the real things, that trying to prolong the work of craft-master Tony Zemaitis is pointless and almost blasphemous, and by extension that these guitars are probably just bad instruments (but if you dig a little bit, you find people saying that handmade original Zemaitis guitars were sometimes botched and badly finished, looking much better on photos than is real, a little bit like Wandre's).

Like most guitar lovers, I never played a Zemaitis guitar, never even saw one in real (neither original or Japanese) since they are not guitars you easily find at your local music shop, but I think that they are some the most superb guitars ever, and I imagine that all the pro musicians who play or endorse the new Zemaitis instruments don't do it only for their good look.

The one you can see here, a Zemaitis GZ500S Diamond is actually from the GZ series - one could call it the budget line of Zemaitis if they weren't over 2500 €, handmade, with engraved gears, abalone binding and inlays - built on contract by law-suit era copy specialist and old-timer guitar maker Greco (so good at cloning guitars that a part of the company became Fender Japan). It has upgraded pickups and pots and just one look at it causes in me a feeling of achievement and perfection (together with the sour feeling that I'll never have enough money in my life to buy such a guitar...)


 bertram

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

Greg Lake's Zemaitis doubleneck

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Greg Lake used to feel a bit shortchanged next to his colleagues in Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Carl Palmer had a huge battery of drums and Keith Emerson was surrounded on all sides by keyboards. Meanwhile Greg Lake is standing there with just a guitar. Not only did he try to re-dress the balance of things by marking his territory on stage with a large antique Persian rug, but he also got himself this simply enormous doublenecked guitar/bass.

Apparently it was one of only two doublenecks built by the now legendary Tony Zemaitis. Unfortuantely it was also extremely heavy, and so Lake was unable to play it onstage for more than a couple of songs. Deciding it was too impractical, he eventually gave it away. Considering the value of original Zemaitis guitars (as opposed to the recent Japanese tributes - and they are costly enough!), he must be kicking himself now.

I wonder where it is now?

G L Wilson

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

Sorry, but what's it got to do with Tony Zemaitis?

Now, don't get me wrong, I think this aluminium-bodied Tokai 'Zemaitis" Talbo is a really tasty looking guitar, but why tag on the totally spurious Zemaitis connection?

The late Tony Zemaitis created some amazing high quality "boutique" guitars, and was quite an innovator with distinctive designs such as his engraved metal fronts and pearl mozaic tops. (See the Official Zemaitis Guitar Owners Club website).

I was alarmed a couple of years ago when the Japanese appropriated his name and began making faithful replicas (see www.zemaitis.net). They are high-quality replicas, but personally I find the idea of putting them out under the "Zemaitis" banner a little bit tasteless.

Now this Tokai Talbo is one step further away again. It's a Tokai Talbo (which always was a metal-bodied guitar) but with a Zemaitis-shaped headstock. As far as I am aware there is no genuine Tokai/Zemaitis connection so, again, this seems improper.

A fine guitar, but why cash in unnecessarily on the late Tony Zemaitis' name?

Leafing through a Japanese guitar magazine the other day, I was rather surprised to see an advert for a new line of Zemaitis guitars. How can Zemaitis guitars exist without Tony Zemaitis, who sadly passed away in 2002? His operation was hardly comparable to that of Gibson or Fender. He wasn't the head of a factory churning out guitars; he used to build all the instruments by hand.

It seems someone (or some company more likely) has bought the rights to the Zemaitis name. My initial impression is that it sounds rather like sacrilege to me, although is it any worse than the Danelectro re-issue guitars courtesy of the Evets Corporation that have nothing whatsoever to do with the original Danelectro guitars, or the new American Vox guitars?

For more about Tony Zemaitis and the original Zemaitis guitars, see this article.

If you've got any spare wads of cash lying about the place doing nothing, then you may want to head on over to Maverick Music and check out the vintage guitars on offer, including some drool-worthy Zemaitis and Patrick James Eggle custom instruments. (My thanks to Mark Hansen for the link).

I've only just found out that Tony Zemaitis sadly passed away on Saturday 17th of August last year.

He was one of the first guys that built guitars finished with metal or pearl fronts. They always looked great and were much loved by people such as Ronnie Wood and Ronnie Lane amongst others. You can see a gallery of some of his fabulous instruments here.