• The story of the Martin F-50

    Classic Instruments

    The story of the Martin F-50

    Our friend Nate Westgor from Willie’s American Guitars shares the story of Martin’s first step into the booming 1960s electric guitar market. Enjoy, and have a wonderful holiday season from all of us at Vintage Guitar!

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Carvin Factory Tour

Carvin Does It Different

Imagine a company that builds 600 high-quality guitars and basses per month, with a normal backorder count of 700. “Well, that’s okay…” some guitar enthusiasts might observe, “but some guitar…

United Guitar Corporation

United They Stood…. A Jersey City Tale

The history of the United Guitar Corporation, which unfolded in Jersey City, just over the river from the glitter of New York, is one of the great obscure stories in…

Baldwin Guitars and Amplifiers

Quest For Guitar Fortunes

Back in the Swinging ’60s, one of the coolest things hip companies could do was own a guitar company. After all, guitar-driven pop music was red hot, especially after the…

Magnatone Amps

More Magnatone!

Non-MOTS Magnatones By the mid ’50s, mother of toilet seat (MOTS) had lost its appeal, as had Hawaiian music, so Magnatone discontinued its use on all the amplifiers and offered…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Howie Statland

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Howie Statland Season 01 Episode 10 In Episode 10 of VG’s “Buy That Guitar” podcast, host Ram Tuli is joined by Howie Statland…

Gibson L-10

Photo: Kelsey Vaughn. Instrument courtesy George Gruhn Gibson did not put the L-10 on a price list until 1931, but according to the serial number on this example, the company…

Beat Portraits: Burns Volume 7

1965: Summer Of The Hollowbodies

The Way Back Beat survey of instruments designed by James Ormston Burns continues with the final products developed by his company before it was bought out by U.S. keyboard manufacturer…

Dan’s Guitar RX: Doubleneck Redux

A Return to Glory for “Jerry”

In 1977, I was doing guitar repair in Big Rapids, Michigan, and my services included picking up and delivering repair instruments for several stores. One was Schafer Music, in Mount…

Tech 21 Trademark 60

Incredible sound at a nice price

In the past six years we’ve focused mostly on used gear, but occasionally included new stuff that works so well it’s impossible to ignore. This month’s entree, the Trademark 60,…

The Norma EG 470-2 Deluxe

Everyone of a certain age – and no doubt some younger folks – remembers the sage career advice given young Benjamin Braddock in the classic film The Graduate: “Plastics.” In…

Dano Redux

A Look at Everyone's First Electric Guitar

In his book, Neptune Bound: The Ultimate Danelectro Guide, author Doug Tulloch charts the adventures of Nat Daniel as he rode the electric guitar boom of the 1950s and ’60s…

Martin 00-18

They were days, before Kent State, when everywhere you looked, kids sat under trees, singin’ songs and swappin’ licks. Fresh-faced young girls with names like “Star” painted flowers on their cheeks and…

Dan’s Guitar RX: Reviving a ’56 Duo-Jet

Ugly, But An Oldy

Blake Burkeholder, a repair expert in my shop, has always wanted a Gretsch. So, when he found a ’56 Duo-Jet fixer-upper at a reasonable price, he grabbed it. Like other…

Fender’s 1960 Bandmaster

Power of Three

The earliest renditions of our gear icons are often the most valuable, but on many occasions it’s the transition models – those that bridged one era to the next –…

Fender’s 5E7 Bandmaster

There’s something about the 3×10 Bandmaster that drives vintage-Fender nuts gaga. Introduced in 1953, it underwent substantial design changes in its first few years, earning status as a true classic…

Gibson J-200 Rosewood

The Gibson company was founded on the belief that carved-top guitars were superior to flat-top designs, and consequently, Gibson was a reluctant entrant in the rising flat-top market of the…

National Westwood Home Feature Image

National Westwood

Whether Valco – the company that made National guitars in the 1950s and ’60s – was actually inspired by U.S. geography when it created its legendary “map” guitars is unknown,…

Gretsch Astro Jet

“Meet George Jetson! And his boy Elroy!” The year was supposed to be 2062 AD, but it was really 1962 when the catchy theme song introducing the characters in the…

Selmer Modele Jazz and Stimer M.10 Amp

Electricfying Early Jazz

In the 1930s, the quest for volume was the Holy Grail of guitar construction, as guitarists sought instruments to slice through the sound and fury of a jazz band. And…

The Gibson EB-3

When it came to electric basses, Michigan-based Gibson spent the ’50s playing follow the leader to California’s Fender. So it’s a touch ironic that while Fender made only one model…

Gibson Custom Colors in the 1960s

Burning Embers, Chilled Whites

Unlike its rival from the West Coast, Gibson did not readily embrace the concept of offering custom-color finishes. It wasn’t averse to custom work or colorful finishes, but saw them…

1967 EKO Condor

1967 EKO Condor The Summer of Love. Hippies, flower power, psychedelic drugs. Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and feelin’ groovy. 1967 was a heady time for a lot of…

Joe Long’s “stack-knob” Fender Jazz Bass

Joe Long’s “stack-knob” Fender Jazz Bass, serial number 57392. Instrument and photo courtesy of Nadav Galimidi. If you’re a fan or aficionado of vintage instruments, odds are that any early-’60s…

Vox AC-30

The First AC-30?

Introduction That the Vox AC-30 Twin is a great-sounding amplifier goes without saying, since it spent the past 40 years creating music for countless artists of varying stature and styles.…

Vintage Gibson Amplifiers

EH-100 and 125

“No longer is the electric Hawaiian Guitar restricted to professional players – here is a genuine Gibson instrument that costs only $100, complete with instrument, case, amplifier with slip cover,…

Sonny James's Epiphone Excellente

Epiphone Excellente

Sonny James' Epiphone Excellente

The Epiphone Excellente was the fanciest flat-top Gibson made in the 1960s, and to some ears it was Gibson’s best. But in its seven-year production run, from late ’63 until…

Gibson Guitars

The Experimental '70s

That guitar collectors are a conservative lot has always struck me as curious. You’d think that the instrument which “killed fascists,” in the immortal Woody Guthrie’s phrase, would inspire a…

Marcelo Barbero Guitars

Twentieth-century guitarmaking legend

Before we start, I need to correct a major blunder in my last installment on Ignacio Fleta (VG, June '99) which was caught by sharp-eyed reader Jim Forderer of Los…

The Gibson ES-5

Instrument Profile

Gibson, like all American guitarmakers, had to shut down electric guitar production for three years during World War II. But when production resumed in 1946, Gibson made up for the…

The City of Guitars

Git-Shopping in Paris

On your way to Paris for a romantic getaway? Wanting to see the sights in the City of Light? Then take this advice; forget Rick Steves, think Stevie Ray. Skip…