What's that guitar that Furry Lewis is playing?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Via our Facebook page, Simon Raw has asked us to identify the guitar being played by bluesman Furry Lewis in the photo reproduced here.

It's funny and quite timely that he asked this very question, because I had already bookmarked one of these very guitars that I saw on eBay only a few days ago with a view to featuring it here on the blog.

It's funny also that for a company so synomynously connected to the acoustic guitar as C.F. Martin & Co, we here at Guitarz seem to have looked at more of their electric guitars, none of which were produced for very long or in high quantities, than we have their acoustic guitars.

It's a Martin GT-70, circa 1966, which fittingly for a Martin is of fully hollow acoustic construction and is equipped with a pair of DeArmond Dynasonics. Some examples were also produced with a factory-fitted Bigsby.

The example pictured here is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $2,499.

G L Wilson

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

Deke Leonard's black and white bullseye Telecaster

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Seeing Bertram's post featuring the black and white ES335-alike guitar reminded me of the black and white Fender Telecaster used by Deke Leonard of legendary Welsh band Man.

You'll notice that Deke's Tele is painted in a bullseye pattern; this was years, decades even, before Eddie Ojeda from Twisted Sister or Zakk Wylde thought of doing the same. I've seen more recent photos and YouTube footage of Deke playing a Gibson SG decorated with a similar bullseye.

You'll also notice in the photo here that there's a large rectagonal hole cut behind the bridge of the Tele. There is also a hole cut above this, but this is partly obscured by Deke's arm in the photo. The story I've heard is that apparently he was bored one day and started cutting holes in his Telecaster and got carried away. He has joked that the idea was to fill the gaps with a couple of miniature aquariums and keep fish inside.

Check out this video from 1975 of Man performing live on the BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test which includes some nice close-up shots of Deke's Tele:

For more photos of Deke and the Bullseye Tele see this blog post at Brit Rock By The Bay.

Deke is currently working on a book, The Twang Dynasty, which is to be a discussion of his favourite guitarists, and ought to be one to look out for as I imagine it would appeal to many of the readers of this blog.

G L Wilson

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

Musicvox Spaceranger prototype handmade in the USA

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Whilst all Musicvox's production guitars have been made in Korea, a handful of prototype Spacerangers were produced for the 1997 and 1998 NAMM shows in Anaheim, California, and initially so as to give the factory in Korea something tangible to work from.

This Musicvox Spaceranger prototype dates from 1997 and features a yellow/gold/cream swirl "mother of toilet seat" top and a black acrylic veneer on the back of the body. It has a maple neck with lacquer finish, rosewood finger board and rosewood bridge, new old stock KAY (USA) trapeze tailpiece, Kent Armstrong neck-mounted Jazz humbucker and Kent Armstrong mini humbucker in the bridge position, and Kluson Keystone machine heads.

This guitar is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $3,600.

Thanks to Jim Hevesy for bringing this to my attention.

G L Wilson

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

Customized Keytone ES 335

guitarz.blogspot.com

I'm usually not a fan of paint job on guitars, and even less of fake battered looks, but I like this one for some reason... Maybe because it is the crossing between some patterns I like, the Rising Sun Japanese  flag, the Union Flag (as seen on the Epiphone Supernova) and the bizarre Art Deco rays seen on an Orfeus bass...

I know nothing of Keytone guitars, if someone knows more, information is welcome...

bertram








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

Unusual "pyramid box" La Flor Dominicana 4-string cigar box guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here is a unique cigar box guitar (actually if a CBG wasn't unique that would be something unusual in itself) featuring a so-called "pyramid"-shaped La Flor Dominicana cigar box, four strings, and a fully fretted neck. I think perhaps if I'd been the maker and had this box to work with, I might have been tempted to make a doubleneck.

G L Wilson

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

Conrad "violin" 12-string electric hollowbody guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

We previously looked at quite a selection of Beatle-esque violin basses, violin guitars and even a violin 12-string guitar before. Here's another 12-string, a Conrad violin 12-string, which looks much more faithful to the Hofner design that inspired the myriad other copies (and yes, I am aware of the irony that the Hofner violin bass was itself inspired by Gibson's earliest bass guitar). This Conrad features the same slim outline as the Hofner; some violin guitars and basses are just too chunky, don't you think? It's Japanese-made (the seller even suggests it's Matsumoku-made, which is usually an indication of a quality Japanese instrument) also has a impressively lengthy scroll headstock, furthering the violin metaphor.

G L Wilson

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

Hohner Zambesi circa 1961 - a re-branded British-made Fenton Weill

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Fenton Weill guitars were formed by Henry Weill, a former partner with Jim Burns in Burns Weill guitars. The above pictured Hohner Zambesi model was produced by Fenton Weill for Germany's Hohner company. Hohner, who were most famously producers of accordions and harmonicas, never produced their own guitars but simply re-branded instruments from other manufacturers.

This guitar was described in the catalogue thusly:

The Zambesi 333

Another fine example in this range. With a beautifully veneered body in bird's-eye maple, improved single-sided machine heads, selector, tone and volume controls to operate the highly sensitive pick-ups. Celluloid finger-plate.

Soft Cover £1.18.0 extra

I believe the "celluloid finger-plate" is the raised plate with the Zambesi name on it. Notice also the Vox-like headstock, implying that various of these early British guitar makers must have shared parts or had a common manufacturer of parts between them.

Currently listed on eBay with a starting price of £40, but beware the condition is not good; I think this will be more of a museum piece than a player.

G L Wilson

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

Farnell Electra-lite - a guitar utilizing an intriguing and innovative construction

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The eBay seller calls this a Farnell UltraLite (and manages to spell it three different ways throughout the listing) but from what I can make out on the Farnell website, it's actually a Farnell Electra-lite (unless they changed the name), designed by Al Farnell, although it looks to me as if he's taken a Strat template as a starting point and made various edits to it. However, the appearance of the guitar isn't the clever part - it's what's inside that makes it innovative. To quote from the badly written Farnell website:

The New Farnell Electra-lite Series Guitar features a unique patent-applied for guitar that consists of a molded body made of High Impact Polystyrene which enables unbelievable sustain, attack, major tone enhancement and extremely strong!!

The Wooden insert and the other design features of the Farnell patented process provides for low-end bass tones. The durable Polystyrene/composite casing provides for incredible high-end to overall tone and strength.

However, the proof would be in the playing, I guess. But it's an interesting concept.

Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of £499.

G L Wilson

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

Brandless Stratocaster with EMG-ESP pickups, pitch black finish and lots of chrome

guitarz.blogspot.com

For a while now (and yes, it's been a while since I've posted here, sorry, but don't worry, I've been playing guitar a lot in the meantime), I've been wanting to post about a stratocaster - even if I'm not a fan of this guitar, it would be bizarre not to show once in a while the most iconic electric guitar in history on a blog that is dedicated to all guitars. Not so easy though, because there's not often something new or exciting about strats, neither about Fender models or any of their innumerable copies or clones...

And then I saw this one! And, surprise!, I not only find it worth writing a post about, I even like it a lot, I could have one like this - yes, even with the EMG pickups. It's said to have been 'reconstructed' but it doesn't say what was the original guitar, but I assume that you don't put expensive hardware and electronics on a total cheapo. I had already noticed that a chrome pickguard makes a strat look much cooler (here), and the tele knobs make it even better (if I'm not wrong some G&L custom strats have a similar combination).

Despite its EMG pickups - clearly metal oriented - one cannot call it a superstrat, it keeps the classic design and electronics, two humbuckers strats have been introduced by Fender themselves in the 1970s as fat strats - let's say it's a heavyset strat... A super cool heavyset strat!

Bertram

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

The Guitelevision

guitarz.blogspot.com:

As used by the guitarist of the Stillwater Prophets.  I'm reminded of Visionary Instruments' video guitar.

Via guitarfail.com. Thanks Eric!

G L Wilson

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