Goldentone from 1964

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another Japanese-made Burns-influenced guitar, this one carrying the Goldentone brandname. You might want to compare and contrast with the Ibanez/Montclair guitar in the previous post. They are not identical, but very very similar.

Currently being offered for sale on eBay in the UK with a possibly optimistic Buy It Now price of £889.

G L Wilson

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

1960s Ibanez 3904 Montclair

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This rather wild looking guitar with four pickups, a bank of selector switches, multi-pickguards, metal control and output panel, and original vibrato carries the Montclair brandname but is - apparently - a 1960s-era Ibanez 3904 made at the Hoshino/Tama factory in Japan.

It's obviously heavily influenced by Burns, although I don't think it's a direct copy of any one Burns guitar. If anything, it's taken the Burns design and gone even wilder with it. It's a pity they resorted to using such a generic looking headstock on this - it's probably a stock Ibanez neck from that era - but it rather lets the side down.

Currently for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $849.50.

G L Wilson

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

Burns/Hayman prototype hybrid guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Am I the only one who thinks that modern electro acoustics and and hybrid guitars look just too sterile? I really never did like this business of hiding away all the gubbins. "Oh, you can't have any visible pickups or control knobs, that'll spoil the illusion of this being an acoustic guitar." Huh! As if those horrible little slider controls they stick on the rim of an electro acoustic are any kind of replacement!

I've always liked acoustics that have obviously been electrified with pickups and control knobs on show for all to see. They can have a rather Heath Robinson appeal sometimes (Oh, if only Heath Robinson had designed a guitar!), but to me they seem all the more honest, as if to say, "Yes, this is an acoustic but it's hardly unplugged!"

Think John Lennon with his Gibson J-160E, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain playing supposedly "unplugged" with a Martin D-18E, or John Martyn with a Martin guitar with pickups obviously gaffer-taped to the guitar creating loops on an Echoplex machine (as if an acoustic could do that without all the electrickery!).

So... the above pictured one-off Burns/Hayman prototype is a guitar that I find mightily appealing. It's an acoustic/electric hybrid guitar that proudly displays its electric components for all to see. I like the electric style compensated bridge set into an acoustic style "moustache" - that's a nice touch. Actually, I doubt that acoustically this guitar is very loud at all - looking at the picture of the back of the guitar (I'll put some more photos in the comments) it does appear to have a very shallow body. It's like they took the Burns Steer guitar, and made it a little bit more acoustic-y.

I don't really have much info on this guitar other than what the eBay seller tells us (hey, it is a rarity), so let's quote from the listing:

Rare Virginian hybrid guitar designed by Barry Gibson and Keith West of Burns London Ltd. featuring:

• Burns Rezo-Matik pick-ups
• Solid Spruce Top
• Rosewood back and sides
• Burns badged Gotoh tuners
• Burns Tortoiseshell bridge section

A real collectors piece for Burns/Hayman fans 1 only made as this model was never put into production. The guitar was made over 12 years ago in the U.K. and has been sitting in the Burns warehouse since then, untouched.

I'm actually surprised it's as recent as that; it looks older. Anyway, it has a starting price of £249 on it and a But It Now price of £850.

G L Wilson

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

La Boz - Japanese Burns Double Six copy

guitarz.blogspot.com:

We looked at a Baldwin Double Six 12-string last month, and at a glance the guitar pictured here would appear to be another example of a Burns or Baldwin 12-string electric (the horns look Bison-esque), but is in fact a Japanese-made copy bearing the La Boz brandname. Looking at the picture below, you'll notice that they even - very cheekily - copied the "Wild Dog" and "Split Sound" tone settings... I'm not sure how well that would have gone down in the Burns camp!

Thanks to Tom for bringing this guitar to my attention. It's currently being offered for sale on eBay with a starting price of $499.

G L Wilson

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

Burns Barracuda Baritone Guitar or VI string bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Well, talking of Burns, this is a coincidence. I was browsing eBay España just this morning and came across a Burns Barracuda VI string bass or baritone guitar. I'd not heard of it before and I'm in two minds about it. There are a lot of features I like about it but I am a big fan of Burns's turned aluminium knobs and I'd love to see this kitted out with those. These knobs just look too cheap.

David in Barcelona

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

The Flyte Of the Conchordes or Flyte from the long arm of the law

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Now, this Conchorde prototype is a turn up for the books! It has a bit a twisted story to it too. According to the "owner", the guitar was stolen from Jim Burns's workshop! He knows it was stolen because Jim Burns told him! So if you're in the market for a hot guitar, you know where to look. I don't know what eBay's policy on selling stolen goods is but I suspect this auction may not run its course. I believe they check for counterfeits (or as we known them - "Lawsuit", copy etc.) so I suppose they'd check for items that had fallen of the back of the proverbial lorry too.

It would appear to be a handmade (by Jim Burns) prototype of the famous and lovely Flyte and probably ought to be in a museum.

In the listings own words:

Burns Conchorde Prototype Bass Guitar
Believed to be the only one ever made (any comments welcome)
prototype of the Flyte Bass
there is a six string Conchorde (looks newer than this bass to me)
but this is the bass version (looks older)
has pre - Burns U.K. lettering etc.
The bass seems older than a 1970s Burns U.K. instrument
It looks more late 60's / early 70's ...
obviously a prototype , obviously handmade
the pickups etc look like a late 60's Burns ( they look hand-wound )
I bought the Conchorde bass in approx 1974 ( used / secondhand )
from a dealer in Northern England.
I spoke to Jim Burns in approx 1975 about the Conchorde ...
(at a trade fair / exhibition in London, Russel Hotel ?)
He was very angry because he said the bass was stolen from his workbench
some years earlier.  He was very aggressive to me, he thought I'd stolen it)
I said I had bought it in good faith but he was so angry I had to leave quickly.
I played the bass in a band for many years
It sounded good and was good to play.
I want to sell this Burns to someone who will appreciate it.
any offers considered / any questions are welcome
U.K. delivery F.O.C. (no charge) international at cost.

David in Barcelona - not to be confused with the Costa Del Crime

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

Burns Steer

guitarz.blogspot.com

The Burns Steer is a strange guitar indeed, first because its design seems to have been conceived to avoid any kind of glamour - not that you can't appreciate the central rectangle metal plate with the O shaped soundhole on a acoustic guitar body or the beetle headstock, but it takes a certain sense of second degree... Actually the body is not so big as you'd expect, it's a thinline and has the scale of a regular electric guitar.

All the reviews about this guitars are really laudatory for its sound, its split bridge humbucker and a singlecoil in neck position allow a great versatility and as one review states: 'all the sound you can have are interesting'. This is far from being true for all the guitars with plenty of pickup combinations! The O-hole, the chambered body and strings-through-body bridge contribute also to its powerful sound.

Conceived in 1979 by Jim Burns but actually issued by Burns London only in 2001, there is also a later version with a small cutaway that is slightly less bizarre, but all the finishes are sunburst (the green one being the main one), that is a pity, I'd love it in a sober transparent black...

bertram

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

Burns Scorpion Gothic

guitarz.blogspot.com

Since we got started on guitars with rear horns, I couldn't avoid to present here the Burns Scorpion, the first one to feature this design if I'm not wrong ; a beautiful vintage chrome plated Burns Scorpion bass was already presented on this blog, so this is the guitar.

The Scorpion was first released in 1979 during the penultimate incarnation of Burns - Jim Burns Actualizers Ltd. - but here is the 2002 reissue by Burns London Ltd., under the Gothic label (something terrible to rock music happened when gothic started to be misused for metal music...) - now it's called the Scorpion Design. This is the hardtail version, it's more common with a Floyd Rose trem.

In 2003 there was a short lived model with golden finish and hardware, definitely too late for glam-rock, I wonder who ever bought it, but some crazy Japanese Visual Kei band (you can see how coherent this blog is!)

Anyway, the Scorpion is a nice looking guitar for such a radical design, I appreciate the challenge, but it's not as good as the Bison that shares its front horns (in my humble opinion).

bertram

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

Flyte-inspired lap steel, a.k.a. the KKK Hawaiian!

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Lately I've been looking through some of the lap steels and Hawaiian guitars being sold on eBay, becuase, let me tell you, there are some really wacky designs in this whole sub-group of our favourite instrument.

Look at this one. There are currently two sellers on eBay.co.uk selling a guitar like this (here and here). Both are using the same photos and have copied the same text from somewhere which very mysteriously claims that:

This guitar is made by an "official" overseas manufacturer for one of the biggest name-brand guitar companies (which I can not name here, per eBay's ebay rules).

I'm not aware of anything in the eBay rules that says you can't name the manufacturer of the goods you are selling, but I get the impression that this isn't really what the seller means. It's more likely a question of copyright infringement.

This lap steel guitar is obviously based on the now legendary Burns Flyte guitar, which is one of my personal all-time favourite designs. However, unlike the real deal, it does not look sculpted, elegant and classy. It looks flat and two-dimensional as if it had been cut out of a sheet of MDF (although apparently it's the ever-popular basswood) and the pointed headstock looks like it could be lethal.

Even more disturbingly, standing up like that in the photo, it resembles the silhouette of a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Please don't tell me that this is genuine Burns products (if it was, why the secrecy over the name of the manufacturer?) because I'd hate to think they'd lower their standards so very much as to produce this abomination.

G L Wilson

NB: Please make sure you are reading this Guitarz post at guitarz.blogspot.com and not on a Scraper blog that copies posts without permission (and steals bandwidth) so as to profit from advertising. Please support original bloggers!

Leftie of the Week: Burns Nu-Sonic

Left-handed guitar of the week on eBay is this Burns Nu-Sonic from 1964. It appears to be in very good condition, all parts including trem seem to be all present and correct, and seeing that this guitar was only in production through 1964-1965 and this model is a leftie, well that's not going to be a guitar you'd find every day.

Burns Bison 1965

I've always loved the good old Burns Bison but this one is the most beautiful one I ever saw... Just the blond headstock doesn't fit. I still don't understand why a guitar according to its shape should be surf more than rock - also this British axe doesn't feel so Californian that it wouldn't sink if thrown in the pacific ocean...

It's not clear if it's a one-off or a real Burns prototype, it's said that it's made by Japanese luthier Hy-Lo (that is not a Japanese name) from guitar manufacturer Matsumoku - anyway it's a beauty...

bertram

Burns Flyte Guitar

Further to my recent post about a Burns Flyte Bass that had turned up on eBay, now I see that a Japanese seller has put up for sale its 6-string counterpart, the Burns Flyte Guitar. This one has the silver finish that I previously mentioned I preferred to the other option of a natural finish, and it looks to be in very nice nick generally. The scratchplate has been cut at the rear that suggests the bridge has been changed perhaps. Whatever, I'd love to own one of these babies but simply don't have that sort of money.

Additional (Saturday 16 May): Why are all these Burns Flytes suddenly coming out of the woodwork all of a sudden? Here's another one!

Burns Baldwin Vibraslim Bass

I haven't really got an "angle" for this post, only to say that I've always had a soft spot for short-scale basses, think that hollow-bodied basses are cool, and that this Burns Baldwin Vibraslim looks to be just the type of bass I'd like to own, although I don't like it that much that I'm going to shell out the asked for £900 Buy It Now price.

Burns Flyte Bass

The Burns Flyte has long since been one of my favourite designs, but I know that as players they weren't to everyone's taste. There were a guitar and a bass model and were specially designed by Jim Burns to minimise feedback, something which some people perhaps wouldn't have wanted minimised!

This Burns Flyte Bass is on eBay right now - they don't turn up for sale very often - and has a Buy It Now price of £899. Oh, how things change! I remember not so many years ago you couldn't GIVE these guitars away, and recall a conversation with a London music shop owner about such guitars ending up being thrown into a skip.

I have to add that I prefer the silver finish to the natural finish on the bass featured here. Silver looks much more Sci-Fi and given the shape seems more appropriate. The old silver Flytes often end up fading to a dull gold colour over the years.

I know that Burns have re-issued these guitars in more recent times, but they just don't have the same vibe. They are no longer made in the UK (a sign of the times), and the shape has been modified with a lower cutaway on the body which completely spoils the lines of the design in my opinion.

See also: The Burns Mirage

Burns Scorpion Bass

I remember when Burns Guitars launched their Scorpion guitar back in 1980. It was at the same time when they also launched the Western-looking Steer guitar.

I hadn't previosuly realised they made a Scorpion Bass too. Looks neat. Is that a short-scale, I wonder?

Burns Mirage

Gibson aren't the only guitar manufacturer who can take one of their own guitar designs and flip the body shape around, either vertically or horizontally, and come up with a new design (witness the Flying V, Explorer, Firebird and their reverse counterparts).

Here we have a very rare Burns Mirage which is based on their own Flyte guitar only with the body shape flipped around vertically so that the neck appears to be coming out of the wrong end. I always thought the Burns Flyte was quite a cool guitar but this upside-down variation, the Mirage, just looks peculiar.

Burns collectors will probably love it.

Burns Introduces Shadows Custom Signature Guitar: limited to a run of just 500 guitars in "Shadow Pink", the Shadows Custom Signature model comes complete with luxury case and photo signed by Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch.

New 2005 Models from Burns: Burns USA announce the addition of the Vista Sonic 5 bass to its product line, as well the Premier Series of acoustic guitars.