Buying a guitar in the UK?

Guitar123.co.uk is a nifty little price comparison site for anyone in the UK (or Europe even) who is thinking of buying a guitar. They've rounded up the most popular electric, acoustic, electro-acoustic and bass guitars from many of our favourite brands and allow you to see easily on one screen which online-retailers are stocking your chosen instrument and at what prices.

Obviously they don't have the info for every model of guitar you can think of, but all the most popular models are there and I feel this site would be of benefit to those choosing their first guitar or else upgrading from a basic instrument.

Bear in mind also that it would be near impossible to cover all retailers, but those that are listed are some of the bigger retailers and the ones that usually are able to make the best price offers.

Hendrix's burnt Strat sells for £280,000

This Fender Stratocaster which was set alight as a publicity stunt by Jimi Hendrix during a concert at London's Astoria in March 1967 has been auctioned off for £280,000 ($595,000) to a collector in the US. The successful bidder Daniel Boucher is quoted as saying "I thought I'd have to pay a little bit more for it, actually. I am going to play it, I hope some of it rubs off on me."

So, it didn't make the speculated $1million.

Check out this footage of a BBC reporter playing the guitar.

Japanese Ardley Playmate guitar

Here's an obscure Japanese guitar from a brand that I've never encountered before. Sporting a rather unusual body shape, this Ardley Playmate is finished in bright orange and with a blue perspex scratchplate. I'm guessing this would have been from the late 1970s or early 1980s. Despite its peculiar shape and judging by the pickups installed I'd imagine it'd sound something like a Telecaster. But the weird shape and colour scheme beg the question: Who would use a guitar like this? I can imagine an 80s-style electro band, or perhaps a quirky band in the Devo mold. What do you think? And have you ever seen one like this before or have you heard of this brand?

Strobel Guitars - The Guitar That Fits In A Briefcase

Strobel Guitars offer high-quality full-scale length travel guitars. The small body and detachable headless neck allow the whole guitar to fit neatly into a briefcase with plenty of room to spare for files and accessories. They claim to be the only guitar "you can take in your briefcase", so obviously are unaware of the Stowaway guitar from Stewart Guitars.

Guitare de Voyage

You know how I love featuring weird guitar designs on this blog. Here's a very strange-looking electro-acoustic travel guitar being offered from a seller in Canada. Unfortunately, the seller doesn't supply very much information so the photo is all we have to go on.

Country Music's "Guitar Man" Jerry Reed dies at age 71

The Grammy award-winning session and tour guitarist Jerry Reed has died at the age of 71. As well as playing with Chet Atkins, Joan Baez and Ringo Starr, writing songs for Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Brenda Lee, Jerry Reed also found time to be an actor, and famously appeared alongside Burt Reynolds as The Snowman in the Smokey and the Bandit movies.

Kevin Deane Guitars - Ireland

I suppose one of the things I'm (in)famous for on this blog is trawling eBay for weird and wonderful guitars, but of course eBay isn't my one and only source. I found Kevin Deane Guitars over on MySpace and I was mightily impressed with what I saw.

Kevin has come up with some amazing designs, some of which are based on band logos. You should see the guitars he has made for a-ha and The Corrs - very intricate!

His most recently finished project is the Metallica guitar pictured here. The design of the guitar is based on the original Metallica logo which appears on the "Kill Em All" album. Kevin noticed that the shape of the logo wasn't too far away from a Flying V.

The wood used for the body is Maple ply. Kevin explains that the use of ply adds extra strength to the unusual shape and that it is also very dense in structure with no voids. (I'm reminded of the Abba "star" guitar - its creator Goram Malmberg told me that it was built from ply so the the edge of the horns would not break).

Kevin explains that this guitar is the prototpye, and that he plans to build three more: "One will stay here in my collection and two will go to other places in the world... I'm not sure where or how yet, but I'm hoping it will be places that Metallica fans can see them, play them, or use them!"

Let's hope that Metallica themselves get to see his work. I'm sure we'd all love to hear what they think of Kevin's work.

Kevin is now working on a Metallica Ninja logo bass, the design of which looks fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished item.

(Photo used with permission).