Electro-acoustic Yamaha AEX 500 N

Looong time ago I was a classical guitar player and I kept the taste of nylon strings guitars such as this Yamaha AEX 500N. And of course I couldn't help being attracted by its sober beauty... It's not so often that you can find an electro-acoustic nylon strings thinline with F-holes and stuff. Even the blue slight sunburst is nice, though it's usually not my cup of tea.

So I could play this guitar.

bertram

Orfeus XII from Bulgaria

Here we have a Bulgarian-made Orfeus 12-string semi, which from the looks of it, I'd guess dated back to the 60s, perhaps early 70s. According to Cheesy Guitars, "this guitar is made front and back out of carved solid wood=archtop" but "strangely the rest of the guitar isn't that high quality: bad tuners; painted fingerboard with 20 frets(and zero fret); fixed (although four) factory (with Orfeus logo on them) designed pu's and DIN-output."

The headstock is obviously Fender-inspired so possibly the whole guitar was based on the Fender Coronado XII. I wonder why the four pickups are staggered like that? Possibly it was too much trouble to line them up accurately.

This particular model is said to be in "playable condition", but "needs some repair".

An interesting one for the collector, but I wouldn't fork out big bucks for it.

G L Wilson

The Tornados play Robot

We often celebrate vintage guitars and the blissful 60s when everything was so creative and daring (I'm talking guitars)... But what kind of music was actually made with these great guitars? Before The Kinks, before The Who, before The Rolling Stones, well our parents were listening to The Tornados!

Krundaal Davioli Bikini

Now here's a guitar with the cheese factor simply oozing out of it! It's a Krundaal Davioli Bikini guitar and, as you can probably guess if you know your weird guitars, was made in Italy. You'll also know that despite the Krundaal name, it's really a Wandre guitar under a different banner. Just check off those cheese points: metal neck, control plate with push buttons, coloured fretboard inlays, and of course that amp and speaker pod!

This auction finishes today and bidding is already over $2,000. I'll be checking back later to see what the final price is.

I need to show you a few more photos of this beastie before the auction ends and the photos are lost forever:






Thanks to Jeff for pointing this one out! (I don't know how I missed it).

UPDATE (10 June): Sold for $5,900.00.

Defil Melodia 2

Another interesting communist era guitar, this late 70s vintage Polish Defil Melodia has the rare particularity of having a nice large pickguard on its ES-335 type semi-hollow body. Also I of course really like the sliding potentiometers!

bertram

Hagström III left-handed guitar

Recently I've been trying to find some more interesting guitars for the southpaws out there, and so this week I bring you this Hagström III in mirror-image configuration. These guitars were made in Sweden (of course) between 1964 and 1976, with American export models being designated the F-300. If you're a left-hander, and love wacky vintage guitars with lots of switches on them, this could be the guitar for you.

70s Roden bass

Nothing like a good old soviet guitar to cheer up! Wouldn't trust this Roden bass for its sound and it's in a poor shape, but what an interesting design... I hope than one day some firm will explore the history of east-European electric guitars and revive some models with a better technology... We need an eastern Eastwood!

bertram