Zenta vintage semi-hollowbody bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This late '60s Zenta semi-hollowbody shortscale bass is quite an interesting one. The angled neck pickup (and the end of the fingerboard) looks to be distinctly Mosrite-influenced, whilst the symmetrical shape and the S-holes combine to present an attractive instrument. Although the seller refers to it as a Zenta, the headstock clearly proclaims "Felt" (although looks suspiciously as if it were done by hand) but no mention is made of this in the eBay listing.
This post originates at http://guitarz.blogspot.com - beware of those damned scraper blogs!
Currently listed on eBay with a starting bid of £225.

Edit: As Greg Cadman points out on our Facebook page, it's probably a copy of a Martin guitar (this one for instance, complete with the S-holes!).

G L Wilson

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

Ideal vintage semi

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Hi Gavin

Been reading your blog for well over a year now and I just love it.

I have an oddball early 60s Japanese Semi Hollow Body Gretsch White Falcon Knock-off.

I have found next to nothing about this guitar. The manufactuer dates of production etc. I haven’t even come across any info other than this: http://www.ludlowguitars.com/item/falcon-copy-1960s

Well mine was a gift from the guitar gods. Found her in a trash can on the side of the road all in pieces. I put her back together this past fall and I gotta say that she might just be the sweetest player I have ever had. Great tone out of the single coils... nice action and a fast neck to boot. Perhaps someone out there knows more about these??? Would love to find out more about where in Japan this came from!

Keep up the great work!

This post originates at http://guitarz.blogspot.com - beware of those damned scraper blogs!

Scott

If anyone knows any more, please tell us using the comments. More photos in the comments, by the way! - GLW

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

Fender Swinger: a look under the hood

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's one of our favourite guitars, one that we've looked at before here on Guitarz. The Fender Swinger is one of that company's rarer production models, with only approximately 300 being made in 1969. Fender had recently been taken over by CBS and the Swinger (a.k.a. Musiclander, a.k.a. Arrow) was a cunning ploy to use up unused stock from unsuccesful instruments from previous years.
This post originates at http://guitarz.blogspot.com - beware of those damned scraper blogs!

Here we get to look "under the hood" where the pickup routing from the body's previous designation as a Fender V five-string bass is uncovered to see.

This particular fine example of a Fender Swinger is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $2,590.

G L Wilson

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

Harmony/Silvertone Espanada 1950s vintage guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The American department store chain, Sears, Roebuck and Company (often referred to simply as Sears) had from 1915-1972 its own line of sound equipment. This included phonographs, radios, and musical instruments.
This post originates at http://guitarz.blogspot.com - beware of those damned scraper blogs!
Their guitars were inexpensive for the time, but were well-made and had their own distinctive vibe. Of course, there was no Silvertone guitar company, the instruments were made by Danelectro, Harmony, Kay, National and Teisco.

Here we see a Harmony-made Silvertone Espanada guitar from the early 1950s. This was one of the more upmarket guitars bearing the Silvertone brandname, it has Gibson P13 pickups and an unusual but interesting feature in having metal binding around the top.

Hear this model in action here:

Thanks to Dirk Lubbe for bringing this guitar to our attention.

G L Wilson

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

Airline Town and Country vintage guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This vintage Valco-made Airline Town and Country hardtail guitar from 1961 illustrates quite nicely that not all Airlines had those Res-O-Glas bodies for which they were famous. With the back plate removed, the construction is revealed to be quite crude. Obviously the three pickups (actually single coils in humbucker-sized cases) are front loaded, but note that there's no way of adjusting the height.
This post originates at http://guitarz.blogspot.com - beware of those damned scraper blogs!
Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,899.99.

G L Wilson

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

ESP Doraemon (slight return)

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Firstly, before I comment on the lovely guitar pictured here, I'd like to apologize for our brief hiatus. Blogger were having technical issues and whilst they were sorting these out, somehow, Thursday's blog posts went missing.

According to Blogger all missing posts have now been restored across their network of blogs... but not on Guitarz, so it seemed.

However, I was able to cobble together something to replace the missing post about the Argentinian Morgan guitar from what little text I had already copied over to our Facebook page.

As to Bertram's post about the Hoyer solidbody, ironically I was able to reconstruct that from one of those dreaded scraper blogs! Which doesn't stop me from wanting to eradicate said scraper blog from the face of the blogosphere. Seriously, these scraper blogs are one big headache, and now I am up against the 4th one I've had to wage war with since the beginning of April. If anyone has any good workable ideas about how to contend with this menace, then please contact me, I'm all ears. But I am going through the official channels, reporting them to Google Ads, etc - trouble is that takes time to sort out.

Anyway, long-term readers of the blog may recognize the ESP Doraemon guitar which we originally looked at in December 2008. Still, it bears repeating because it is such an oddball guitar, and we now have many more readers who may have missed it first time around.

Japan is the source of some particularly wacky guitars, but I think for me, this is my favourite. Unlike many novelty guitars - particularly those of the cartoon character with built-in speaker variety - it actually sounds pretty damned good as this video (below) will testify.

Doraemon himself, eponymous star of a Japanese manga comic series which first appeared in 1969, is a robotic cat from the 22nd century sent to aid schoolboy Nobita Nobi.

As to the ESP guitar, it certainly wouldn't win any prizes for ergonomics! Nevertheless, I would love to have one, if only for kitsch value.

Thanks to Bill Cesavice who saw this auction on eBay. ($519.99 Buy It Now price, if you're interested).

G L Wilson

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

Morgan solidbody electric guitar from Argentina

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I don't think we've looked at an Argentinian-made guitar here on Guitarz before. This Morgan guitar from 1965 is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,800.

OK, it's certainly unusual and it might be a rarity, but does it really warrant that kind of an asking price? Furthermore, again we see a guitar listed on eBay which is pictured without any strings. That doesn't fill the prospective buyer with much confidence. How long has it been stored without strings and what condition is the neck in? The seller says that "The action of the truss rod of neck is OK", but how do you tell without having strung it up first?

It's an interesting guitar, but I would advise any potential buyers to approach with caution.

(AND if you're the seller, string it up already! Let us know what it's really like!)

G L Wilson

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

1950s Kay Thin Twin Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I find myself quite drawn to this 1950s-era Kay Pro Thin Twin Bass. I realise that it's not going to perform nor sound like a modern-day bass, but it is quite beautiful in this blond finish with the gorgeous flame of the timber revealed for all to see but without looking gratuitous like so many flame and quilted finishes we see on modern guitars. This is, of course, the bass version of the guitar made famous by Howlin' Wolf, and comes from the days when most manufacturers building basses simply adapted one of their guitar models despite the lead taken by Fender with the Precision Bass in making it a long-scale instrument.

As well as the volume and tone controls that you would expect, there is an additional switch - but of course on a single pickup instrument this can't be a pickup selector. According to the listing on ebay, the switch "flips the tone from the tone setting you have dialed in to the opposite setting". I'm not sure how useful that would be in practice, but it's an interesting feature.

As gorgeous as it is, I do not fancy the $3,495 Buy It Now price on eBay. Sadly, it's one for the collectors.

G L Wilson

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

Dan Quillan's electric sitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This electric sitar is the handiwork of Dan Quillan, artist and sometime guitar maker.

It has an interesting feature which is quite in keeping with the traditional sitar - the back of the body is made from a gourd!

Please see Dan's blog for more.

Via the Guitarz Facebook page.

G L Wilson

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

Danelectro Wild Things

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The Evets Corporation, current day owners of the Danelectro brand, have hit on an interesting marketing strategy in recent years. They re-issue guitars from the 1950s and 60s in limited edition and make them available for a year. This means there are frequently new models for fans and collectors of the brand. Of course it won't be too long before they exhaust the back catalogue of instruments and have to start repeating themselves. The latest crop of guitars sees the single-cutaway '56 style yet again, in a new interpretation has a lipstick humbucker at the bridge and a single coil lipstick at the neck and is also availble with a choice of headstock styles including the clasic "dolphin-nose" style.

More interesting, I think, are the above pictured guitars that Danelectro have dubbed the "Mid 60s Guitars" but which most suppliers are referring to as the "Wild Thing" series. Apparently these are based on a 1960s Danelectro prototype guitar. It is unmistakeably a Danelectro design, although the twin pointy horns both pointing southwards are reminiscent of the B.C. Rich Mockingbird. (A Danelectro/B.C. Rich hybrid - now there's an off-the-wall concept I'd like to see if it was done properly!)

Available in guitar, bass, and baritone models, these latest offerings from Danelectro are priced at $399 each, although many retailers are selling them for $299. Colours available are black, candy apple red, and candy apple blue (eh? Whoever saw blue apples?).

G L Wilson

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

Merlin/Greco Arthur Smith Country Squire

guitarz.blogspot.com:

In August 2010, Bertram posted a Guitarz blog entry featuring a 1960s Merlin/Greco 921 guitar, which prompted reader Jim Garcia to submit the above photos. Jim writes:

I just picked up that same guitar, except it has a different pickguard (I'm thinking the white one [on the guitar we featured before] may be a replacement, maybe from the Greco), the pg on mine has semicircle cutouts that wrap around the curved bottoms of the single coil pickups - the material is black with cream binding, and it says "Arthur Smith" (in gold script) "Country Squire" (in Abalone script). Arthur Smith had a hit in the late forties with "Guitar Boogie", as early an example of rock n roll guitar that you will find. The model was distributed through Lowe's from '62 to '64 from what I've read and been told. I had thought the Merlins were made by Teisco but it's likely all the Greco/Teisco parts got interchanged.

Hey Jim, thanks for filling in another piece of the big jigsaw puzzle that is the history of the electric guitar!

As always, we want to see your guitars, and the more unusual they are, the better! (I think we've all got the measure of what Strats, Teles, Les Pauls, SGs, etc, are like by now, but if yours is an intriguing variation on a theme then it's still good!)

Keep 'em coming, folks!

G L Wilson

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