"Stella" Soviet Russian stereo electric guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Here's another Soviet-era Russian-made guitar festooned with pickups and switches, and with the now familar 5-pin DIN output often seen on these instruments. This is another guitar that I freely admit I know nothing about, so I'm going to unashamedly borrow text from the eBay listing.

This thing was made in the USSR since '70. It was produced by the Rostov na Donu factory of keyboard instruments, and was probably the most hi-fi and experimental instrument ever produced in USSR. It has four pickups (two single coil and two split coil pickups), stereo output and was stuffed with electronics. It is a stereo guitar, but if you want you can switch from stereo mode to mono. It has 1 mono/stereo mode switch, 7 small switches for different pickup modes and 5 knobs for different sound modifications.

G L Wilson

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

Crazy Russian guy makes guitars out of shovels

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Micha brought this to my attention - never mind cigar box guitars, these are shovel guitars! (More photos here and see also here). Admittedly, the above video does go on a bit too long, and I guess is supposed to be funny. I suppose it helps if you speak the language.

G L Wilson

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

Not just RARE but EXTRA RARE. Soviet rare doubleneck guitar YEREVAN #089 double neck

This is one of my favourite eBay sellers. Not because I've ever bought anything from him (yet) but simply because of the wonderful instruments he digs up. AND THIS BEAUTY IS NO EXCEPTION.

Those Soviet manufacturers were no slackers when it came to souping up the humble six string. This one even has an extra neck. Not to mention enough wood in the body to make three normal guitars. I've not heard of Yeravan until now but this is certainly an eye opener and I will be researching this brand in the not too distant future.

To be perfectly honest, it's not really my cup of tea but it does have a decidedly WTF aspect to it that would be hard to ignore. The solid black colour is pretty restrained considering the shape of the body and the pick ups are nicely understated but the single horn and the strange shape of the rear edge, the mismatched headstocks, the apparently cheese cutter action all conspire to make this hard to justify it's $500 (plus shipping) price tag. To me, the word "rare" is bandied about a bit too much in the vicinity of odd guitars. And don't get me started on "extra rare". That should only be applied to steaks, according to my missus. It may well be extra rare but in this instance, I'd say there was a very good reason.

David in Barcelona

guitarz.blogspot.com:Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Soviet-era Armenian electric mandolin

guitarz.blogspot.com:
The almost circular body give this electric mandolin the resemblance of a table tennis bat. Its pickups are a dead giveaway, and betray it as being a product of the former Soviet Union. From the location of the controls you might think it was a left-handed instrument, but it is strung right-handed and other examples I have seen have the same layout. Indeed, the output jack is on the right-hand side in keeping with a right-handed instrument.

G L Wilson

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

Elgava Unika-2 Soviet vintage electric guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
This rather eccentric-looking guitar was recently offered for sale on eBay, courtesy of a seller specialising in old East European and Russian guitars, whose guitars we have featured on this blog previously. (Possibly you could dedicate a whole blog exclusively to such guitars).

Unfortunately practically zero information is given about this instrument, other than a name - Elgava Unika-2 - which is contradicted by the "Untain" legend on the headstock. The name "SAMOPAL" is also given, but not explained.

The guitar itself is a typically crude example. The front of the body is faced with what looks like a metal plate, although I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually plastic, seeing as part of it has been snapped off. The body is very likely hollow within. Note how the guitar lead is wired straight into the guitar, which is probably slightly more convenient than having to mess about finding a guitar lead with a 5-pin DIN plug as with other of this guitar's contemporaries.

I wouldn't honestly expect this guitar to be a good player - the seller rather astutely declines to guarantee its playability. This is one for the collector of the weird and unusual.

G L Wilson

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Vintage Russian Thinline Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:
We've not looked at any basses recently on Guitarz, so I thought it was high time we tried redressing the balance a little. I find myself looking more and more at semi-hollowbody and thinline basses. There is something very elegant about the design that lends itself quite nicely to the bass, giving it a distinct retro look.

The Russian-built thinline bass we see pictured here has been listed and re-listed on eBay several times over the last month or so. It's certainly a very intriguing looking instrument; whether it's really worth the Buy It Now price of £450, I couldn't comment with any authority, other than to say that my gut instinct is that perhaps the seller is being a tad optimistic. Having said that, the seller claims that it plays well, has a low action, and sounds great either plugged-in or acoustically (which can't be said for all thinlines).

The bass is absolutely huge, and the body is - unusually for a thinline - constructed from fibreglass. One of the features that really stands out for me is the size of the f-holes. Have you ever seen such fat f-holes?

G L Wilson

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Soviet guitar with secret compartments

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Just by looking at it you can tell that this SOLO-2 is a Soviet-era Russian-made guitar.

I'm posting this picture really because I've not seen switches quite like these on a guitar before.

The pickups look very similar to those found on the "Flight Of The Conchords" Kavkaz bass.

Apparently it was made in the mid 80s by Belarusian Musical Instruments Factory in Borisov city and has fuzz and phaser built-in effects (currently not working on this example).
The battery for the built-in effects is located beneath the neck plate.

Additionally there is an integral screwdriver beneath the rear strap button which screws out.

I'm remimnded of one of Fender's Strat models (the Strat Plus? or was it the Elite?) which had a hex key on the end of its tremolo arm.

G L Wilson

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Flight of the Conchords bass guitar

Here's one for all fans of Flight of the Conchords - it's a Russian-built Kavkaz bass as used by Jemaine Clement in the TV series, and is currently for sale on eBay. It even has the green pickguard, just like Jemaine's, although it seems to have an extra pickup in the bridge position - or possibly those two coils are wired together as a humbucker. I'm not sure what happened to tbe volume and tone pots and why the output jack is positioned where you'd expect to find the volume control. Also, it looks like someone's had a go at earthing the tailpiece with a piece of wire.

It might look like a piece of junk, but as a big Conchords fan I was seriously considering buying this, although seeing as I'm out of work at the moment, now probably isn't the best time to be spending money.

Musima/Migma semi-acoustic

Bertram from Guitarren has brought this lovely old Musima/Migma semi-acoustic to my attention.

I know next to nothing about these guitars. I think it's a Russian instrument, but I'm not sure. (Unfortunately I do not read German so cannot translate the eBay listing).

If anyone has any further info, please feel free to pass it on!

Additional: it is East German. See the comments.

Soviet Russia's finest! Tonika Guitar and Sovtek Amp

Back in January of this year I featured a Soviet-era Russian-made Tonika bass, so how could I pass up this opportunity to feature its 6-string counterpart, the Tonika guitar?

These are weird-shaped beasties, for sure. You have to wonder about the thought processes that gave birth to this bizarre design.

Lovers of vintage tube amps might like to know that the same seller is also selling the Sovtek MIG-50 amp featured in the photo.

Soviet Doubleneck

Regular readers will know by now that I can't resist posting a picture or two of some crazy Soviet-era Russian guitar, and as a doubleneck this one is rarer than most.

Another Funky Russian Guitar

Here's one for all you bargain hunters. There's just a few hours to go on the ebay auction for this rather eccentric-looking Soviet-era Russian Aelita 1 electric guitar. I just love stuff like this!

Specifications:
Body: heavy
Neck: thick
Controls: many
Pickups: 3 single-coils
Action: high
Vibrato: Jaguar/Jazzmaster - style unit
Output jack: 6-pin DIN type (as on all Soviet guitars)

Note that it says the action is high. Personally I'd tune it to an open tuning and use it for slide. Either that or just put it on the wall for display.

Edit: Sold for £102. I did consider bidding, but the seller quoted me a shipping fee of approx £60 which I felt was a bit too steep for shipping within Europe. I've sent a Vox AC30 head to Madrid for half of that.

Jemaine Clement's Russian Bass

Russia - Why Not?

In my previous post about Flight Of The Conchords I briefly mentioned Bret McKenzie's Casio DG-20 digital guitar. However, I'd been wondering, what is that retro-looking bass that Jemaine Clement plays? (See above left).

I've found a very similar looking Russian bass (above right) over at Cheesy Guitars in their Unidentified Guitars section. Unfortunately the only information we have is that it was made in a factory in Belarus. Still it narrows things down a bit, as I had previously suspected that Jemaine's bass was a Teisco or some other 60s/70s Japanese bass.

EDIT: It's a Kavkaz!

Rare early Russian Bass up for grabs on eBay now!

This Tonika bass is one for all you collectors of the bizarre and curious. It looks like something that Devo would play (only as a southpaw, Gerry Casale would play it upside-down making it look even weirder). According to the fantastic Cheesy Guitars website: "The legendary Tonika bass is the first Soviet-made electric bass. Made in the sixties together with Tonika guitar - the first Soviet mass - production electric guitar."