Can you identify this fretless bass guitar?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I have absolutely no idea as to the identity of this small-bodied fretless bass guitar currently listed on eBay UK. It's a weird one for sure with quite a space-age design incorporating a monkey grip in the body, three pickups, and unusual looking hardware. I'd guess that it might be Eastern European, but that really is a shot in the dark. If anyone can give us a more definite idenification, then please let us know via the comments!

Thanks to Alex for bringing this oddity of a bass to my attention.

G L Wilson

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

Never mind the CBGs here a Marks and Spencers biscuit tin guitar!

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Very much in the style of a cigar box guitar, this three-stringer is a Marks & Spencers Biscuit Tin guitar based on a novelty biscuit tin shaped like a Marks & Spencers delivery van.

This guitar is currently listed on eBay UK with a starting price of £0.99. The seller very honestly comments that: "As you would expect, it ain't a great sound, but it is great fun!"

G L Wilson

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

Duff McKagan Fender P-bass / snowboard hybrid!

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's an email from JPM:

Longtime Guitarz reader, it's an amazing blog.

Anyways, I don't know if you're aware of this or not but I just saw on YouTube a snowboard company that build a snowboard out of a Duff McKagan Fender P-bass that is both playable and rideable - its pretty crazy. They even have footage of it being ridden accompanied with a sound from the pickups that they hooked up to a wireless rig.

Check it out, I figured you'd appreciate something like this.

Hey, thanks for that JPM. We've seen a few guitars already made out of pieces of sporting equipment (cricket bat guitar, tennis racquet guitar, even a guitar made from a boat oar) so I guess it figured sooner or later we were going to get a guitar convered into a piece of sporting equipment instead!

G L Wilson

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

Unusual one-off 5- and 6-string through-neck doubleneck guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Steve writes:

Hi, I enjoy your Guitarz Blog and recently found this strange item advertised in a local Buy/Sell. I was tempted to buy it, but the $200 asking price and impracticality of such a guitar made me pass. There are probably more than $200 worth of vintage parts on it, though.

Impractical it may be, but it would be a real shame to break up a one-off instrument like this for parts. It looks to be hand-made, possibly by a luthier although no-one of great distinction. Note how the short-scale 5-string neck's fretboard position markers echo those on the 6-string neck from the 6th fret upwards. I briefly wondered if the necks may have come from donor instruments with the 5-string neck being shortened and with a headstock grafted on, but of course these are through-necks so that wouldn't really be possible. Perhaps the fingerboards themselves came off other guitars?

Also looking at the shape of the 5-string neck's headstock and comparing it to that of the 6-string, I wondered if it had also been a 6-string but part of the head had broken off and thus it was converted. However, the positioning of the rather cheap Japanese Teisco-like pickups on the 5-string side of the guitar so that the 5-strings align to 5-pole pieces with the one on the bass side left unused would imply otherwise - unless it was a later mod.

All in all, it's a very curious guitar and worthy of our attention here on Guitarz.

G L Wilson

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

Unusual left-handed baritone guitar from Budapest

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Hello,

My name is Daevid, I live in France and I really like your guitar blog. I have pictures of a friend's baritone left-handed guitar from Budapest that you will be insterested in, I think. It's a small guitar with a strange XLR output.

Daevid

Hi Daevid, thanks for sending those pictures. It's certainly an oddity. I wonder if any of our readers might recognize this guitar and perhaps be able to tell us some more about it.

G L Wilson

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

El-gitarrorgel - a hybrid guitar/electric organ from Sweden

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Hi, thanks again for maintaining such a great blog. Here is something you might like from a swedish auction site:

http://www.vend.se/ad.php?83223

Below is a translation, some info is repeated and the first line is a classic, but you get the idea:

This is a unique instrument! It is also the only one of its kind!

It is constructed as a guitar with all the possibilities of an electric organ. The instrument contains the circuit board of an electric organ, which is controlled from the strings and fretboard. Basically the organs "lower/under manual" (not sure what he means here) is replaced with a fretboard and strings.

When a chord is played on the fretboard and strings, a preset rhythm, background and bass line starts. The strings work as they would on a conventional guitar.

An organ keyboard is built into the instrument, with different harmonies.

The construction is a easy to handle electric guitar, with all the possibilities for rhythm, backgrounds and bass lines of an electric organ.

The builder was a musician and telephone electrician, who for years had been thinking about how to build a guitar with backgrounds, just like an electric organ. In the end he built this prototype. Technical drawing is available.

Price: £142 / €165

Kalle Mattssonwww.hijackyourlife.com

Thank you, Kalle. That is, indeed, a classic. Love it. - G L Wilson

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

Maltese Cross guitar from Madrid in the style of Harvey Thomas

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I got quite excited just now when I saw that this Maltese Cross guitar had just been listed on eBay UK with a starting price of £300. Then when I looked closer at the listing I saw that it was a copy built by a Spanish luthier and was not an original by eccentric American luthier Harvey Thomas. The Thomas Maltese Cross guitar was, of course, famously played by Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople (see this blog post for more).

This guitar features maple body and neck with a relic nitro finish, two handwound Strat-type single coil pick-ups with Alnico V magnets, metal dot markers (the orignal Thomas Maltese Cross had cross-shaped markers), a light German carve to the body, and headstock binding.

Alas the guitar needs some work doing to it as the tremolo is said to be "not working" (who knows what that means, it might just need an arm, or it might need more attention), and control knobs are missing.

G L Wilson

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

Antique vintage tenor guitar banjo uke banjitar - handmade and possibly unique?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another instrument that looks to be a handmade one-off, although a lot more craftsmanship has gone into creating this than on the boat oar guitar we saw in the previous blog post here on Guitarz.

I'm not sure what instrument the maker thought they were building here, but for our purposes I think it's safe to call it a cross between a tenor guitar, a tenor banjo and a baritone ukulele. The headstock style is very banjo-like, as is the general shape, but the all-wooden construction and soundhole are more guitar- and/or ukulele-like. The scale length is 21 1/2" which is more akin to a tenor guitar or banjo than it is to a baritone uke, but I guess it's up to the player to decide how to tune it and play it. I do like the hexangonal shape at the back of the body. If you've ever tried playing a banjo you'll know that a round body is not the best shape for playing when seated; I'm sure a hexagon-shaped instrument isn't going to slip as easily.

It does need some minor repair work doing to it, but with a starting price of $0.99 on eBay it could provide a nice little project for someone which is unlikely to break the bank.

G L Wilson

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

3-string boat oar guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Do you really need me to write an in-depth blog post about this boat oar guitar? It's a boat oar, strung up with three strings and with a pickup mounted on it, and would be used for sldie playing in cigar box star style.

Currently listed on eBay with a starting price of $100 for those who don't want to be bothered with building something similar themselves.

See also the Tennis Racquet Guitar.

G L Wilson

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

Burke, USA-made, aluminium-necked electric guitar, design patented in 1961

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Apologies for the sub-standard photo, but this was the only one that showed the entire length of the guitar in question face on.

The eBay seller claims that this 1960s Burke electric guitar in metallic burgundy finish was the very first electric guitar to feature an aluminium neck and was thus the forerunner to Wandre, Veleno, Travis Bean, et al. Apparently Glen F. Burke patented the design in 1961. Whether the patent was for the concept of an aluminium neck or if it was for the entire design of the guitar, we are not told; I suspect the latter.

The aluminium neck runs all the way through the body to the end strap button, so it's actually an aluminium neck and centre block with pickups and bridge sitting upon it. The fingerboard is rosewood and the body itself is maple and is hollow, no doubt contributing to the instruments allged "acoustic tone". The body shape is most peculiar, looking as if a symmertical design had been sawn down the middle and one half flipped over. (In fact, I am reminded of this).

The pickguard is odd in that it has no screws mounting it to the body, but instead is kept in place by the pots for the controls, which are comprised of a volume and tone for each pickup, and a 3-way pickup selector.

This guitar is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $10,000.

Thanks to Jeffrey Jones and to Dirk Lubbe who both emailed me about this guitar.

G L Wilson

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

Holy unknown Chinese-made guitar, Batman!

Eric with the Bat guitar. Do  you think there
might be a theme going on here?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

ERiC AiXeLsyD writes:

Hello,

I was wondering if you guys would be able to help in tracking down the origin of this prize-guitar from Six Flags? I purchased mine on ebay a while ago, actually thanks to a commenter on your Superman logo guitar post. I waited until I saw one at a more reasonable price, as I had to have it due to being a huge Batman fan and to sheer goofiness. (I have started a rather odd collection.)

I really enjoy reading the Guitarz blog, and am amazed at the knowledge people seem to bring forth. All I know about this guitar is that it was apparently a prize at Six Flags. I have seen others online... different guitars, same concept (I've seen a V-shape and a Jackson/Ibanez 80s-looking one). They seem to go for around $75 or so if purchased at the parks.

Mine came with 1 extra string (looked like the high E), two allen keys, and a ridiculously oversized really thin red plastic pick.

All I know about it is from the text stamped on the back:

SIX FLAGS, INC.

GRAND PRAIRIE, TX 75050

MADE IN CHINA

BATMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics.

(s11)

11-04

Is the s11 possibly a serial number? Maybe the model number? Is 11-04 a manufacturing date?

Is there a guitar manufacturer in China like the fabled Un-Sung/Silverstar factory in Korea that pumps out Galveston & possibly a slew of other brands?

Could this be a Cort? Why would anyone make a guitar and not put a logo on the headstock? Ha ha. I'd at least put a Batman logo, the DC comics logo, or a Six Flags logo there.

I had a guy at a local shop put in a new nut... what I thought was a lopsided nut was actually crooked and lopsided, so it needed replacing and a setup and it plays really well now, especially considering the low price-tag. Next it's getting a new pickup, and maybe some sort of homemade logo for the headstock!

Thanks in advance for your time and help!

Rock on!

-Eric

.seitilibasid gninrael fo nuf ekam ot ynnuf ton yllaer s'tI

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

Pre-war, French-made "Pineapple" guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I'm afraid I have virtually zero information to give you about this French pineapple guitar other than it looks to be a nylon strng instrument (although it originally had a trapeze tailpiece which would imply folk guitar rather than classical guitar) and is supposedly pre-war French (2nd World War, I believe).

Its shape echoes that of the pineapple ukulele. I've not seen a pineapple-shaped guitar before, although we have previously looked at an egg-shaped acoustic guitar.

This guitar does require some attention and as such is being auctioned on eBay UK as a project with a starting price of £50.

G L Wilson

Additional: We believe it is a Hawaiian guitar - see the comments below this post.

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

Marlin PB-26 Bass - a 1960s Japanese hollowbodied pre-cursor to B.C. Rich perhaps?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This Japanese-made Marlin PB-26 bass circa 1968 is no relation to the Marlin brand that issued a range of colourful and cheap Chinese-made plywood-bodied Strat and P-Bass copies in the late 1980s. Put those out of your mind; we shall endeavour not to mention them again.

As with other guitars and basses coming out of Japan they were marketed with different brandnames. This same model was also available under the "Idol" brandname. There was also a 6-string guitar sibling, the PA-26, complete with vibrato. They would all have been built at the same factory, possibly the now legendary Matsumoku factory although I am not able to verify this for certain.

You have to wonder if some of B.C. Rich's designs were inspired by instruments such as this. It just goes to show that some ideas are not as original as you might at first think.

The seller assures us that this is one of the finest basses he has ever played (which begs the question why is he selling it?) and it is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,899.99.

Thanks to Oinque guitars for pointing this one out to us!

G L Wilson

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

One-off 1970s Ibanez Artist made from solid brass is quite literally Heavy Metal

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Wow! I mean we've seen metal guitars before, but not any made from solid brass. That's right, solid, not plated. I couldn't say whether or not the guitar body is chambered, but weighing in at a whopping 70 lbs it's possible that this one-off brass Ibanez Artist IS solid all the way through! Imagine what that must feel like... and you thought a Les Paul was heavy! Despite the weight, apparently it IS fully playable and has recently been professionally set up. Looking at the condition of the body with scrapes and dings it looks like it may have been used over the last 4 decades too.

But "WHY?" you may well be asking. Apparently it was created as a centre piece for the unveiling of the Ibanez Artist line at NAMM sometime in the mid 1970s. (Has anyone got a more specific date for me here?)

Other than unusual choice of body material, specs are: 25" scale, 1 11/16" nut width, ebony fingerboard, Flying Fingers humbuckers, active 3-band equalizer.

This one of a kind guitar is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $24,999.95.

Thanks to Jason Moody for bringing this guitar to my attention.

G L Wilson

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

ESP Gundam Axe guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here we see an ESP Gundam Axe guitar listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $799. The seller doesn't tell us very much about it, only that he bought it in Japan in 2007 literally whilst running for the return flight home.

The insubstantial body does look very much as it has been crafted from plastic; the fact that the blade section of the axe shape contains a built-in amp and speaker make this all the more likely. Of course, ESP are no strangers to the use of plastic in their guitar bodies, witness the Devil Girl.

As for the shape of the guitar it is most odd, and especially strange for guitar that looks designed for the metal market it has a lone humbucker pickup in the neck position and not in the bridge position. Also with the bridge having such a small footprint on an area of "body" comprising more thin air than actual body material I can't imagine that the guitar would sustain very well.

Although it looks very metal the ESP Gundam is more of a novelty guitar; it's another guitar inspired by a Japanese anime series, the Gundam being giant fighting robots or "Mobile Suits". The guitar we see here appears to be based on a weapon as used by one of these robots.

Personally I think I prefer the Doraemon guitar (now, don't get all technical with me and say that Doraemon was originally a manga series rather than anime - it's all related).

G L Wilson

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

So-called "handmade model guitar" built from el cheapo Encore Strat copy parts

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I'm curious as to why this so-called "handmade model guitar" is described as a "model" when it uses bona fide guitar parts, albeit those from a basic cheap Encore Strat copy. My guess is that it doesn't actually play. It may have been intended to be a playable instrument, but perhaps the maker didn't realise about one of a number of things, such as correct bridge placement or how to wire it up properly. Or maybe it was intended just as a prop all along. Those volume and tone conrols could be glued on for all I know.

Currently listed on eBay UK with a starting price of £20, which might be OK if you want a few cheap parts although the shipping cost is a bit on the high side.

G L Wilson

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

Rare unusual Tennessee see-thru acoustic electric guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I came across this wee beastie on eBay this evening and of course, it caught my eye.

This is what the seller had to say

RARE UNUSUAL TENNESSEE SEE THRU ACOUSTIC ELECTRIC GUITAR
I've Exhausted Myself Trying To Find Information Online About This Guitar, And Can't Seem To Find Any! It's A Very Imaginative Style & Plays & Sounds Like It Should. The Neck Has A Very Slight Bow To It, But Doesn't Affect The Playing. I Tuned It To An Open D Tuning & Played Some Bottleneck With It & Was Surprised At Well It Did. It Has A Built In Pickup That Sounds Very Good, & It Takes A 9 Volt Battery. It's A Little Tricky To Close The Battery Access Cover. You Can Be The Only Kid On The Block, Or IN TheCity, Or Maybe The State, To Have One Of These Very Cool Tennessee Guitars.

Buy It Now For $149

For $150, it seemed worth checking out. There are some interesting features, quite apart from the skeletal form. The long - to my eyes country looking - headstock, the add-on comfy chair armrest/horns bearing more than a passing resemblance to the OpenSource inspired ZoyBar and the decidedly painted on finish adding a craftsman-like retro feel to it.

The bow in the neck and problems closing the battery compartment are a little off-putting though and, I thought I'd better check and see if we've posted about these before and found that Gavin had in fact posted a few rather damning articles on the Tennessee brand. Like this one in April 2008.

It's hard to see where the marketing strategy for these instruments is heading and that makes things all the more confusing. It seems they are, generally, pretty cheap (in both senses of the word) and pretty weird designs. To me, beginners are most like to go for a recognisable guitar (LP, Tele, Strat?), more experienced players for a better quality and experimentalists will be concocting their own. That only really leaves more experimentalists who would buy it on a whim just see if it could make sounds that other guitars can't or performers looking for something different on stage. This seems quite a narrow niche.

I applaud the fact that these instruments are pretty off the wall but considering the standards set by run of the mill brands (like Squier) these days, they must be a difficult sell, especially when they appear to be so shoddy.

David in Barcelona

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

What's that weird guitar on page 15 of the book "500 Guitars"?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Via the Amazon.com page for "500 Guitars", Thomas Kelly has asked the following question:

What is the guitar on page 15? According to the book it should be the 57 Chevy but I can't find this model anywhere on the internet.

My answer (which a friend has posted on Amazon.com for me because having a UK Amazon account I am unable to post on the American site) is as follows:

Hi Thomas,

I wish the publishers had let me check through the proofs before going to print because they got a lot of the pictures wrong. I did offer to do this for them and was never taken up on the offer. Right at the start I was told I could choose ANY guitars I wanted to write about and that their art department would find the pictures, and that it wouldn't be a problem.

The guitar in the picture on page 15 is a guitar made by Auerswald Instruments, a German company specialising in innovative designs. On page 22 there is a write up of the Auerswald Model C guitar, but the picture on page 15 isn't a Model C. It's not a model currently on their website but you'll see from the other guitars in the range that stylistically it shares many traits including the "Sustain Bow" arm connecting the head to the body.

If you want to see a picture of a 57 Chevy, just Google "American Showster 57 Chevy" and check the images!

G L Wilson

STOP PRESS...  Antoine L tells us that:

"It is not a Auerswald. It's a model inspired by Auerswald made ​​by Ed Roman:
http://www.edroman.com/guitars/abstract/kingpin.htm

Grrrrr... This is what happens when you let your publishers collect together the photos to go in your guitar book.

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

Can anyone help identify this weird stringed instrument?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Hey Guitarz guys, this is James from Krazy Kat Music. We need your help identifying one of the weirdest instruments we've ever seen. It's like a lap steel, but has really weird bars that rotate and fret the strings when you push a button near the headstock. So bizarre!

Here's a video of the mechanism.

So funky.

James

krazy kat

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

One-off homemade 59 Cadillac tail-fin guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Probably inspired by the American Showster Cadillac guitar, this home-built guitar uses Strat-style parts (neck, pickups, electrics) mounted on an almost V-like body which is supposedly reminiscent of the tail-fin of a particular classic American automobile. To add verisimilitude, it is outfitted with a working tail-light.

It is currently listed on eBay UK with a starting price of £10.

G L Wilson

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