Teisco Del Ray guitar

Here's a Japanese Teisco Del Ray guitar from the 1960s, featuring a 4 + 2 headstock (way before Musicman thought of it) and a handle in the body (way before Ibanez thought of putting the monkey grip in the Jem range of guitars). It just goes to show, there aren't that many original ideas out there. Someone has almost always thought of it first a long time ago.

Actually, looking at the close-up pictures of this one on the eBay listing I'd say that this example is actually a six-string bass that someone who doesn't know any better has strung up with regular guitar strings. Check out the huge machine heads and the size of the slots in the nut. The scale length also looks longer than that of a regular guitar (for instance, look at the huge amount of space between each of the three pickups). I'd wager good money that this is a bass VI.

Additional: A quick check at the ID Parade over on the Teisco Twangers website tells me that this is TB-64 from 1965, and that it is indeed a bass. Pity the trem is missing on this example.