1975 Eko Kiwi

guitarz.blogspot.com

OK, this Eko Kiwi is maybe just another Italian 70s LP copy, but with several cool details - mostly the P90s and the bridge and tail covers that gives it a soft frankenstein-ish touch, and exactly the right proportion of shining metal... If I'd have a LP it would be one like this (Czech company Jolana also had a cool model...).

And it's quite in a good state for a 35 year old guitar!

Bertram

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Duesenberg 49er

guitarz.blogspot.com

I've been posting German guitars regularly here, but so far I never had the opportunity to show the classiest of them all, the Duesenbergs. Actually these guitars are so luxurious that's it's hard to find a photo that doesn't seem to come from an expensive erotic magazine - and they hardly ever show up second-hand on eBay...

Anyway, let me finally introduce you to the Duesenberg 49er, with its 21st century art deco retro-futurist look, strings-thru-body bridge, bridge humbucker and neck P90... No vintage here but an inevitable vintage look!  

One day I hope I can show here an Outlaw model with its black snake skin finish - there's one here but the pics suck.  

bertram

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1970 Ampeg Dan Armstrong

guitarz.blogspot.com

This plexiglass body Ampeg Dan Amstrong guitar from 1970 is a classic that most guitar lovers already know, but I  thought that these unglamourized pictures from eBay can allow a more accurate look at it - and it's always a pleasure... 

And if you want to know more, have a look at danarmstrong.org.

bertram

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Vintage Japanese Teicso Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This bass, although unbadged, is quite unmistakably a Teisco, namely an NB-4, a model which dates back to 1965. It's not as sexy as the Teisco 6-string bass that we looked at last year, but you'll notice from the obvious similarities between the two that they are sibling models.

I particularly like the headstock. It looks like the design was based on the famous Fender headstock shape, but then they ignored the shape and arranged the tuners above and below in the classsic 2+2 layout.

Judging by the position of the bridge it must surely be a short-scale bass, but the elongated body and huge headstock make you think at first glance that it ought to be a long-scale.

G L Wilson

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Mickey Mouse Club Tenor "Mousegetar"

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Hello GL, from snowy and cold Washington DC, where we're about to break our all-time record for snowfall amounts by Wednesday morning.

A guitar that's quite a curiosity is this nearly 60-year-old relic from American television's "Mickey Mouse Club" -- the original tenor "Mousegetar", played by host Jimmie Dodd. This particular instrument is in the Disney Museum in California, and the photo is credited to Megan Duffy, posting on Flickr.

The curiosity is that no one seems to know who built this guitar; whether it was a private luthier, the props department from the Disney organization, or a commercial maker preferring to remain anonymous. This is a perfectly playable instrument and can be seen in web videos from the old Mickey Mouse Club.

Disney manufactured plastic toy copies of this tenor guitar, but this one remains the "cool one". If your followers can contribute any info on this guitar, have at it.

Regards,
Alan Peterson
Broadcast Engineer & Proud Gretsch Owner
Washington DC

Thanks for that, Alan. When I first saw the photo, I thought that the mouse ears were the soundholes (similar to the "modern" idea of positioning a large soundhole to the left and/or right of the neck on acoustic guitars) but on viewing the YouTube video below I see this is not the case.


G L Wilson

UPDATE (15 December 2011) - Carl writes:

Since Disneyland was in Southern California a nearby luthier was sought out to build a guitar for the Mickey Mouse Club show. They had to look no further than Brooklyn Street (since renamed Caesar Chavez Avenue) in Los Angeles.

Two brothers, Porfirio and Candalario Delgado sold guitars they had hand made in Juarez and Tijuana Mexico and they were very successful. They moved their business to Los Angles in 1948 and opened a store called Los Hermanos Candalas where they manufactured and sold their handmade custom guitars. They developed an excellent reputation. Disney Productions asked Candalario, known as Candalas, to build the Mickey Mouse Guitar to their specifications. In fact the store is still there and still selling wonderful hand made guitars and Latin string instruments.

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Headless lute-style roundback nylon-strung guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
The guitar that I found in this eBay listing is a complete mystery to me. I think I just about said it all there in the title - it's a headless lute-style roundback nylon-strung guitar, and it's acoustic. From the photos it does look pretty old, but how old? There really is no way of telling. The only thing that could offer a clue is the presence of Grover tuners, but even that's not saying much as tuners are easily replaced.

The seller mentions that:

"These vintage guitar-lutes where most common in Germany during the late 1880s to about the 1920s. This era was called the wondervogel movement..."

...but would this particular instrument have come from that era? I'm particularly interested in the headless design and am wondering what were the very first ever headless guitars (or guitar-like instruments)? I know that, contrary to popular belief, Steinberger wasn't the first, but just how far back does the concept actually go?

G L Wilson

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Kustom K-100 amp and speaker cab

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Several of you correctly identified the Kustom Kat in our quiz last week.

Kustom Amplification were founded in 1966 and their solid-state amps were quite eye-catching being covered in Tuck-And-Roll naugahyde, similar to automobile upholstery of the era. Colours included Red Sparkle, Blue Sparkle, Gold Sparkle, Cascade Sparkle (Teal), Charcoal Sparkle, Silver Sparkle, and Flat Black (no sparkle).

The Kustom Kat was a promotional item originally given away with purchased Kustom amps and were available in the same colours. They were similar to the naugas, supposedly being the creature from which naugahyde comes from. (Apparently naugas shed their skins naturally and - luckily for them - no naugas were killed for their skin in order to make naugahyde!)

Pictured here is a Kustom K-100 amp and speaker cab in Cascade Sparkle. This amp is currently for sale on eBay, but the seller doesn't mention there being a matching Kustom Kat.

The Kustom Kats themselves are quite collectable. The one we looked at in the quiz is currently for sale on eBay with a starting price of $295.95 - I'm told these can sometimes fetch up to $1,000.

G L Wilson

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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

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Montana Custom Leathercaster

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Have you noticed that if there was ever one type of guitar that is consistently chosen for the covered-in-leather treatment - be it partially or whole-body - then it's the Tele? It must be something to do with the country and western association that this particular guitar has.

This alder-bodied Montana Leathercaster T-type guitar not only has a hand-tooled leather pickguard, but it also features a skull and crossbones and a liberal dose of nickel skull studs and a pair of skull-topped control knobs, and as such will appeal not only to the C&W crowd but also to the type of people that like lots of skull emblems all over the place.

See more at www.montana-music.co.uk/lc.html

G L Wilson

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A vintage Kent-brand solidbody electric

guitarz.blogspot.com:
An anonymous Guitarz reader writes:

Here are two snapshots of my old Kent guitar.

I acquired this circa 1995 at a ramshackle roadside shop in rural Georgia (USA), whose sign advertised "APPLIANCES - GUITARS". The place was full of beat-up used stoves and refrigerators, but there was only one guitar for sale, this Kent, which I purchased for fifty dollars, not a low price, but I couldn't bargain him down.

Note the stylized V and T on the volume and tone knobs. The movable plastic bridge is held in place by string tension, like that of an archtop guitar. The wear pattern on the aluminum pickguard indicates that someone played it a lot. It's basically a toy, but its amplified tone is clear and twangy.

Kent was a US-brandname for guitars imported in from Japan and Korea in the 1960s. Most were produced by Teisco and Guyatone, although later on the Kent name started appearing on Swedish-made Hagstrom guitars produced for the US market.

G L Wilson

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