Teisco / Kay upgrade

guitarz.blogspot.com:

If I'm not much mistaken, guitars like this were rather ubiquitous in the 1970s in mail order catalogues and on displays in Woolworths and bearing the "Kay" brand although they were most likely made by Teisco in Japan. They are not really what you'd call desirable guitars today, although you do see one or two eBay sellers proclaiming their alleged "rarity" and being somewhat optimistic with the pricing.

At least with this example, currently being offered with a starting price of £150 and a Buy It Now of £250, the guitar has seen some serious upgrades. If I were being uncharitable, I might say something along the lines of "polishing a turd", but the seller claims that this was always a nice player and deserved an upgrade to get the best out of it. Here's what he says about it:

The old, worn pickups have since been replaced with Rickenbacker-style "toaster" pickups, which produce a beautifully warm and unique sound (the scratchplate was carefully re-cut to accommodate them). The old vibrato/tremolo has also been replaced with a Fender Jaguar-style tremolo system, which works perfectly (some of the body was skilfully hollowed-out to accommodate this larger tremolo system).

Furthermore, a tune-o-matic bridge has been added; the tuners/machineheads have been replaced with Wilkinson Deluxe "Kluson-style" tuners; the volume/tone knobs have been replaced with Jaguar-style knobs; and, the input jack has been replaced. [Why do people insist on saying "input jack" when it is an OUTPUT jack? - GLW] The pots, switches and electronics have also been thoroughly cleaned. The cost of parts and labour exceeded £200.

The overall result is a revitalised, utterly unique and beautiful-sounding guitar. You simply won't find another one like it; the pictures alone demonstrate this. I also believe that the guitar has not so much been modified as improved.

No doubt the guitar has been improved - I'd say the pickups, trem system, bridge, etc are worth more than the original instrument itself. Whether it'll appeal to anyone other than the guy that put it together remains to be seen.

G L Wilson

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

1970s Kay LP-type guitar with on-board FX

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here we have what is listed on eBay as a "Rare Kay Les Paul with onboard effects. Collectors item". OK, so I realise that as a seller on eBay you have to apply a certain amount of spin when listing your item, but really, these guitars are neither rare nor what would ordinarily be considered a collectors item. Seriously, these come up for sale all the time, and the fees slapped on them are somewhat optimistic. The singer/guitarist in a band I was in several years ago had one of these. It was alright, I suppose, but no great shakes. (It couldn't have been that great because he always wanted to borrow one of my Fenders.) The on-board effects were gimmicky and largely unusable.

What nearly everyone seems to forget, however, is that the guitar isn't an Les Paul copy per se, but is modelled after the Roland GS500 controller for Roland's very first guitar synthesizer, the GR500, which was introduced in 1978. This was back in the day when any new and exciting guitar spawned Japanese-made imitations - in this instance the guitar that was being "copied" was also Japanese. Obviously, it would have been prohibitive to make it a guitar synth, hence the on-board effects as a suitably high-tech alternative.

G L Wilson

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

Kay semi-hollow

guitarz.blogspot.com

I'm afraid that there's nothing I can tell about this Kay semi-hollow guitar (Kay is a complicated topic), but that I love semi-hollow body guitars with double florentine cutaway, the sliding pots are really cool, the F-hole is quite special, and the pickguard looks like the batwing ones you find on some vintage Höfners.

Bertram

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

The Serenader from B&J New York

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Alas, the auction for this probably 1930s-era Serenader guitar by B&J New York has already finished. Ren Kay tried to post this on the Guitarz Facebook page, but Facebook - for its own mysterious reasons - moved this into the "spam" list where I didn't find it until the auction was well and truly over.

Serenader was a brandname of B&J New York distributors, B&J standing for Buegeleisen and Jacobson who started business around 1897 in New York city. Their guitars came from a variety of sources, which included the manufacturers Harmony, Kay and Hagström. I'm pretty certain that the guitar we are looking at is a Kay.

The auction listing doesn't tell us much about this particular model other than to describe its physical condition:

Six stringed guitar, gold glittered pick guard.
The finish is worn at the base of the guitar.
Visible markings to this area as well.
The wood is a very nice rich brown in color.
Uncertain of the wood used. There are two areas

where the edges are chipped, black and white pos. celluloid edging.
There is a neck pull to the guitar, no visible splits in the body.
There are nineteen frets in total, I see a few deep scratches in the wood.
The steel bar at the side has one missing screw.
This guitar was likely made sometime in the 1930s though sort of hard to pinpoint.
The guitar measures approx. 36.5" L X 13.5" W.

That "steel bar at the side" would appear to be a Teisco (or similar) gold foil pickup. Yep, someone has had a go at electrifying this old (not quite antique) guitar. Witness also two pots - without knobs - and an output jack behind the guitar's bridge. But... What's the deal with the weird location of the pickup? Shouldn't it be under the strings? My guess is that the pickup is so microphonic that it works just about anywhere.

G L Wilson

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

Teisco / Kay semi-hollowbody

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Wil McGrath writes:

I've been enjoying the blog for a while, and I've finally found something to contribute! My girlfriend picked this up from a local store that deals with goofy vintage guitars a while ago, and we've been unable to find any information out about it. It's obviously a Kay-badged Teisco, and while I've seen similar hollowbodies with sliders instead of pots (you featured a Harmony a while back, ferinstance), I haven't been able to find another guitar exactly like it. At this point it doesn't really matter what it is, I just figured I'd share (and if anyone asks, it isn't for sale)!

Thanks for that! I hadn't actually realised that Teisco built guitars for Kay, but it doesn't surprise me at all.

G L Wilson

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

TrueTone vintage guitar ... any more info?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

James from Krazy Cat Music in San Antonio, TX, has been in touch again with another interesting vintage guitar to show us. He writes:

We've been getting a lot of cool old cheesy guitars lately; this one's a bit harder to find info on. TrueTones are Kay and Harmony guitars with different headstocks, and were sold at Western Auto in the 60s. This one's got two pickups, two volumes and two tones, 3 way toggle. Still has the original cheesy wooden bridge on it. 3-bolt neck. This sucker's got killer vintage tone. Not sure of the model on this one, if anybody knows drop us a line.

If anyone knows anything more about this guitar, please share with us the comments below and we'll pass any on info onto James. Thanks!

G L Wilson

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

1965 Kay Vanguard

guitarz.blogspot.com:
James of Krazy Kat Music in San Antonio, TX, emailed these photos of this unusual vintage guitar they just got in. He explains:

It's a 1965 Kay Vanguard. The body is made of some sort of MDF (you can see it where the paint is chipped off on the headstock). The pickguard is very cool! The single coil pickup is glued to the bottom of the pickguard, and the pickguard has a raised section with the design of the underneath pickup. Nothing of the pickup is exposed thru the top (the pole pieces and shape are etched into the pick guard). We've been jokingly calling it the "soap dish" pickup. Single volume, single tone. Strangely enough, the tone is the first knob, which is counterintuitive. Three bolt neck. The headstock still has the sticker of the store it was originally bought at, Mary L. Spence Music in Plainview, TX. The tuners have been replaced over the years, the original screw holes are still evident under the new tuners.

Something else strange too: when I removed the pickguard to check it out, I noticed that the electronics weren't grounded to anything. The pickguard was completely independent from the rest of the guitar.

Thanks for that, James! We always enjoy seeing unusual - and even downright cheesy - vintage guitars. Thanks for sharing.

G L Wilson

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

Vintage instruments used by Irish showbands and beat groups in the 1960s

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Hello there,

I just came across your blog and thought that you might like to see my site with photos of guitars and basses played by Irish bands in the '60s.

http://irishshowbands.net/instruments.htm

Francis Kaye

It's worth having a look through the pictures here; it's quite interesting to see the instruments used by working musicians back in the 1960s. Not everyone could afford the likes of Gibson and Fender guitars, you had to make music on what was available. I'm not saying that all these instruments were bad, but Egmond guitars - for example - do not have a reputation for being the most playable instruments ever made.

I was intrigued to see a picture of one guitarist playing a Wandre Krundaal Bikini guitar with the amp and speaker pod attached. I suppose someone had to play them, I've never seen any photographic evidence before!

If you want to search the archives further, there's a lot more on this website than just the guitars: irishshowbands.net

G L Wilson

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Silvertone Blue Kentucky

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Fancy paint on guitars is no news, this Silvertone Blue Kentucky model was issued in 1955, you can imagine it in the hands of some operette cowboy all dressed in white and blue to fit together with the guitar (it was before Village People definitely twisted American macho self-consciousness). Anyway, acoustic archtops are way cool, it's a pity that they almost completely disappeared, vintage cultists should do something about this!

Silvertone's budget but appreciated guitars have been produced by several companies in the 60s, this one is a Kay product, so I take the opportunity to mention the King of Kays website, that is not only about Kay - though there is an important information there, that is that Kay claims to be the actual inventors of the electric guitar (to be added to the list) -, but also presents a nice collection of Japanese and European vintage guitars.

And even better, you'll find there a series of videos of some of these old ladys being played - that is not so often that they can be more than mere images. The demonstrator is not Steve Vai but he has heart - and guts!

Bertram


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Old Kraftsman square acoustic guitar

I've made no deliberate secret of the fact that between mid-June and July of this year I was very busily employed writing a book about guitars (yes, it was a very tight deadline, imposed by the publishers), which is why Bertram was looking after this blog almost single-handedly during that period. However, this may have escaped your attention as I haven't been harping on about the book mainly because I was waiting for it to be published in December before making a big noise about it.

Anyway, you know the kind of book it is. Lots of pictures and descriptions of guitars and basses, old and new, classics and modern innovative designs, the weird and wacky, etc. In fact, it's a lot like a book version of this blog.

The first job I had to do was to come up with a list of 500 different guitars. I needed a fair representation of everything. As well as the guitars everyone expects to see, I wanted to include a fair selection of oddities, and hopefully some that aren't in all the other guitar books. I think I suceeded fairly well, but you'll have to decide for yourselves in December when the book is released.

The reason I mention this all now, is that occasionally - as happened last night - I'm trawling eBay looking for an interesting guitar to feature on this blog, and I see something like this Old Kraftsman square acoustic guitar which makes me want to kick myself that I hadn's seen it earlier and included it in the book.

I have to confess, though, that I know nearly nothing about this guitar and had I needed to write about it I would have been scratching my head for a fair while trying to think of something to say, which isn't good when you're on a tight deadline.

What I do know is that Old Kraftsman is a brand name for the Spiegal department store and that the guitars were built by the Kay guitar company.

The design of this square guitar is quite unusual. It has a art deco feel to it, especially with the radiogram-styled soundholes, and the smooth contoured edges give it the appearance of having been built from bakelite. However, the close-up photos on the eBay listing show cracking in what must be a wooden body.

I have no idea what it would sound like, and confess that I can't get the idea out of my head that it must sound "boxy", however corny that comment might sound.

Note also that the body is not a geometrically precise rectangle and that it is tapered. The body shape is reminiscent of, although it pre-dates, the classic Steinberger bass and guitar from the early 80s.

My guitars...

The collection has changed a lot since I last featured an item on my own guitars on this blog. Here is the collection as it currently stands after having sold a few guitars recently (warning BIG pictures):

Fender Japan Blue Flower 70s style Strat circa 1988. Bought approx over one year ago - it had one lady owner previously who had played it once then put it away in its case for years, so it's in mint condition. Not to be confused with the more recent inferior re-issues.

Fender Japan candy apple red 12-string Strat

Feline Holy Panther - built by Feline guitars of Croydon using an original 1970s Fender body. Inspired by Russ Ballard's guitar.

DiMarzio one-off "Red Beauty" built for 1984 NAMM trade show. Read more here.

Sanox Sound Creator plexiglass bodied Strat-type guitar. Made in Japan in the 1970s.

Fernandes Pink Plexiglass Sustainer Guitar. Totally unique. One-off guitar made for the trade shows. VERY heavy. Has far more sustain than other Fernandes guitars I have played.

Ovation Celebrity acoustic. I can't remember the model number off the top of my head. Names are always much easier to remember. Nice sound and the built-in tuner is a god-send, but the action's a little high for my tastes.

Ovation Breadwinner - circa 1976. A true classic - the first truly ergonomically designed guitar - first production guitar with active electronics and 24-fret neck. Note glossy black finish and small scratchplate.

Gibson Flying V Faded Cherry, circa 2004.

Mania Fretless Bass. Bought to replace my Mexican-made Fender Jazz Bass fretless which I never got on with. Thru-neck, lovely woods, lovely sounds... (with roundwound strings, btw. I know a lot of people put flatwounds on a fretless because they are scared of marking the fingerboard but they sound like crap. Use roundwounds and the bass literally sings.)

Short-scale EB0-bass, probably Japanese, early 70s. No, it wasn't me who painted and decorated it. Cheesy-looking but nice sound - particularly from neck pickup.

Kay K45 Travel Guitar. Thru-neck construction, DiMarzio designed pickups, brass hardware. Circa 1980s.

Traveler Pro Series travel guitar. Features magnetic single-coil pickup, piezo pickup under bridge for acoustic sound, plus "stethophones" which pick up sound from internal diaphram under bridge which lets you privately practice totally acoustically. Made in USA.

Yup! It's only got 4 strings. (No - it's NOT a bass). It's a tenor guitar. Very limited edition in Telecaster styling from Soares'y Guitars.

Guitbass. Three-stringed guitar as used by The Presidents of the United States of America. I built this from parts from an old Japanese Strat copy, Epiphone humbucker, plus various other bits and pieces that I had in my box of bits. The three strings are tuned C#, G# and C# (octave higher than the low C#). Looks like sh*t but sounds great.

Yamaha EZ-EG. Not really a guitar at all, but a guitar-shaped synth-controller. Has on-board sounds and can connect to other synths via MIDI. The right-hand has picking "strings" and the left hand has buttons laid out for each of the strings at 12 fret positions, so you can indeed play it like a guitar.

Countryman 6-string banjo. Banjo players would call it a guitar and guitar players would call it a banjo! It's a banjo, but with six strings so that a guitarist can use regular guitar tuning and get a banjo sound. Very loud.

My ukuleles. Greg Bennett baritone ukulele on the left and Mahalo soprano on the right. The soprano is a bit small for my large fingers, but I love playing the baritone.

Yamaha Pacifica. Bought in pieces, refinished and re-assembled my me. The striped "deckchair" look was an experiment with three different colour oil finishes and some tape! It's far from perfect but I quite like it. There is no tone control because I prefer it that way. (OK, truth be told, it fell off when I was removing the electrics from one broken pickguard to a second pickguard, and I couldn't be arsed re-soldering it on, but as I never use passive tone controls anyway this was no big deal). This guitar is actually a really nice player. It intones well and has a nice action. Perhaps it would benefit from some hotter pickups but they would cost me way more than the rest of the guitar. This is the guitar that I keep at my parents' house in Wales and which largely makes the travel guitars redundant. I also have the body and neck of another Pacifica which needs re-building. (An unfinished project - or perhaps that should say an unstarted project?)

Other guitars that I have owned and sold on include:

Vox Standard 25
Vox Clubman II guitar (later converted to fretless)
Westone Thunder I-A fretless bass
Eko Ranger XII 12-string acoustic
Eko mando-guitar
Aria Elecord FET-DLX electro-acoustic
Aria Legend Plexiglass Jazzmaster
Fender Japan Stratocaster pink paisley (circa 1988)
Fender Japan Telecaster pink paisley (early 1980s)
Fender Japan Stratocaster Antigua re-issue
Squier Stagemaster 7-string
Fernandes Revolver Pro with Sustainer
Fernandes Native Pro with Sustainer
Bass built with parts from Brandoni guitars
Sakai EB0-style shortscale bass
Avon EB0-style shortscale bass
Fender Jazz Bass Fretless (Made in Mexico)
Two or three Strat-a-likes self-built from spare parts
Top 20 (Woolworths) guitar complete with vibrato arm
Cheap but nice Telecaster copy
Tele-style guitar self-built from spare parts
Silvertone (Harmony?) Archtop acoustic
Unidentifiable Archtop acoustic
Washburn Idol WI64
Epiphone Les Paul Junior
Teisco MJ2
Danelectro Convertible
Danelectro 56'U2
Danelectro 12+6 doubleneck

...plus a couple of other cheapies that I didn't keep for very long.

Kay K45 travel guitar

This Kay-branded travel guitar, the K45 is currently for sale on eBay, and looks to be a pretty clean example. In the USA this guitar was known as the Austin Hatchet. Built in the early 80s, this guitar features a laminated through-neck construction, and has nut, bridge and fingerboard dot inlays all made of brass. The humbucking pickups are "DiMarzio designed" and the controls include a coil tap. The strap is integral to the design and doubles as a carrying strap when the guitar is cased up.

I own one of these guitars, although mine appears to have been very well used (and abused) over the years (not by me, I hasten to add - it was an eBay purchase last year). It also lacks the case. The construction is incredibly solid; the neck is like a baseball bat with a deep V shape in section. However, it needs some work doing to it. The electrics aren't great and it needs a good set-up. One of these days I'm going to get around to sorting it out properly.