Can you believe it! This beautiful vintage 1962 Harmony Rocket had been sitting around the shop in a half finished state for over 2 years, owing the fact that John was so daunted by the prospect of re wiring her, that it sat in the “too hard” basket.
until now…
Finally here she is, freshly re wired, re fretted and ready to go. The super slim neck will be a treasure for those with, shall we say “petite hands” or maybe not. The Gold top pick ups are surprisingly fat and the tone is warm and woody.
A shiny, lovely 1977 Fender Telecaster Deluxe. What can we say that hasn’t been said about this little classic?
The fat, warm tone of the wide range humbuckers are offset by the one piece maple neck and northern ash body. This guitar is original in every way real stunner with street cred to burn.
National Bluegrass 35 compact resonator C. 1963 with molded Reso-glass body.
The First time I ever saw one of these cutie’s was back in 1992 at a Deborah Conway Gig. Deb was cute, however her Reso glass took the cuteness and “cred” factor to a whole new level. As you can tell it left quite an impression on me, even though most of you, dear readers weren’t born at that stage. I coveted one then and still covet one now. If I could “back door” it without the little lady finding out. Listen to the intro of this song and you’ll get an idea of what our little girl sounds like, please excuse the second rate audio.
The Banjo mandolin or “banjolin” was designed with the vaudevillian beer halls of the late 19th through early-mid 20th century in mind. With no Electric amplification, volume and projection were the key. I suppose you could say that “in your face” is another way to describe it. With that in mind, I present to you this “large bowl” professional Banjolin is just that. It’s a headache inducing, ear splitting piece of mid range punch. Wanna cut through in your folk ensemble? Wanna get sacked from your Folk ensemble? Wanna annoy your neighbours? Wanna get evicted?…. Well this is for you.
This guitar is suffering from a condition known as “man-sat-on-guitaritis” and as a result the soundboard caved in. Distraught, distressed and ready to try any new fangled, yet to be proven medically, luthiery magic in order to restore his Maton EBG808L to its former glory. Luckily for Dave, Maton repairs are somewhat of a specialty for us.
The First Hawaiian Conservatory of Music was a marketing tool of the Oscar Schmidt Company of New York, started around 1919 and continued until the late 1930’s. They would sell a guitar and 12 months of correspondence guitar lessons for a nominal down payment and monthly repayments. They would advertise these courses in Popular Mechanics and other magazines of the period.
The guitars they supplied with this course are now widely regarded, along with the Oscar Schmidt Stellas, as the cream of old blues guitars. These rarely come up for sale in the US, and never in Australia. Artists keep these guitars when they get a hold of them. This guitar was used extensively in studio work in Alabama until we managed to get our hands on it!
To see our current instruments, consider a visit to the shop. We also post all new arrivals on our Facebook page, and select items for sale on our Reverb Store.
