1960s Defil Samba from Poland

This cheesy-looking 60s-era guitar is a Polish-made Defil Samba, and has a couple of distinct nods to both Hagstrom and Hofner guitars of the same era. It's certainly not one you see every day and looks to be in nice condition, but who can say how well this plays? One for the collector rather than the player, possibly.

Eko Solid-bodied Violin Bass

I rather like this different take on the now familiar violin bass, this example being from Italy's Eko guitars in the 1960s. The black finish on this solid-bodied bass is not original, but makes for a very attractive instrument. With a 30" scale length, it's a short-scale bass, and no doubt it has that particular 60s-era bass sound. Personally I have a soft spot for short-scale basses - I think it may have been a reaction to all that slapping and popping nonsense that happened in the 1980s - it's had a lasting effect on me!

Squier Strat Made In USA!

Hey, its Ben again from All About Guitars again

And this is my USA Squier!

USA Squiers are very rare. Some of them have a serial number with a E = Eighties (1980s) prefix, and some of them have a serial number with a N = Nineties (1990s) prefix.
USA Squiers were made for less than a year spanning 1989 and 1990 before production of Squiers went back to Mexico.

This was a period when Made in Japan Squiers had stopped and then they moved Squiers to Mexico, but there was a fire in the Mexican factory which disrupted things for a few months in which Fender USA made the Squiers.

My Squier was made in 1989 in Corona, California, US. The sound is very good, just like an american Fender guitar from that time & I really love it!

2,500th post! The electric banana!

Yes, indeed, this is the 2,500th post on this, the world's longest running guitar blog. I find that quite astounding, especially when you think that I usually only post at a rate of one a day (at least I have done so for the last three or four years).

So, to celebrate, I'm showing you this particularly bonkers-looking instrument. You'll notice that it has eight strings - I think it's some kind of electric mandola or octave mandolin. The burning question, however, has to be: Why the ridiculous banana-shaped body?

Actually, this eBay seller - Cassandra Elk Design - has quite a few wacko designs on its books, some of which look like they've been knocked up from cheap Strat copies in the garden shed with a jigsaw. I'll probably be re-visiting this "brand" in future posts.

Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric ... for Phil

In my post about my own guitars at the start of this month, I listed a Top 20 guitar amongst those that I'd owned and sold on. These were the kind of cheap and nasty guitars you could pick up at Woolworths for relatively minimum outlay. But that didn't stop a youthful Wreckless Eric playing one as we see on this clip of him performing his seminal hit, "Whole Wide World". You've gotta give the guy credit for writing such a catchy song with only two chords!

I dedicate this to my friend Phil C, who I only just found out died last month.

Shiver Me Timbers

Gorehound1313 writes:

"This one of my students guitars, he works at the Sparrow Guitars factory.


"These pictures are of a Sparrow Guitars of Canada, Big Daddy model. This beautiful axe was painted by Vancouver Artist/painter Bob Scott, and belongs to Skinny Tim McLeod. Tim works at Sparrow and plays with Vicious Cycles and Raised by Wolves. These pics don’t do this paintjob justice; the color is incredibly deep and vibrant. This was a one of a kind work of art.

"I really like the way the front turned out, the colors are bright, but still very tasteful. The back is so vivid, it’s almost like watching a huge Guitar-shaped TV. Here’s a link to Bob Scotts site: www.bobscottartwork.ca/shows.htm

"Check out Sparrow Guitars and Bob Scott's Custom Guitar Painting"

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.