• 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!

    Read more >>

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…

Martin Style 000-28K

During the 1920s and ’30s, Martin made a considerable number of guitars with bodies constructed of Hawaiian Koa wood. The Hawaiian music craze was in full swing and the demand…

Stella Concert

Circa 1932 Stella Concert. Photo: Michael Wright. Had blues legend Huddie William Ledbetter (a.k.a. Leadbelly) not played a Stella 12-string, the brand might only have been remembered as the name…

1924 Martin 00-45

1924 Martin 00-45

When trying to determine originality, guitar dealers and collectors have a tendency to study instruments with the care of a forensic pathologist. Still, modifications can be difficult to detect, and…

BAKERSFIELD-HOME-MAIN-BIG

Basses from Bakersfield

The history of guitar manufacturing in the Bakersfield area of California includes names like Mosrite, Hallmark, and Standel. One of the most unusual (and rare) was the Gruggett Stradette. Guitar…

G&L SC-2

A Tele That's Not…

When is a Tele not a Tele? Well, when it’s a Leo Fender-made SC-2, among other things. This is a neat guitar my favorite repairman, Doug Lawrance, found here in…

The España 6/12 Doubleneck

More is always better, right? Eleven is better than 10 on an amplifier, three pickups are better than two, and so on! That’s the promise of the seven-string. So when…

Classics: December 2023

Cliff Antone’s 1952 Fender Precision

Texas is known for music, especially Austin, which in the mid ’70s became a hotbed thanks to clubs like Armadillo World Headquarters, Castle Creek, and Soap Creek Saloon, which mostly…

Fender Prototypes

Gone… And Forgotten

Philip Kubicki has been active in the music industry for over 30 years. He began building acoustic guitars at age 15. At 19, he was one of the first employees…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Steve “Frog” Forgey

Season 03 Episode 04 In Episode 3.4 of “Buy That Guitar,” host Ram Tuli is joined by Steve “Frog” Forgey of Elderly Instruments. Forgey has been at Elderly Instruments since…

Guyatone LG-160T

The Secret's Out!

Like plants, Japanese guitars have an almost secret life of which few people outside are aware. While many Americans in the ’60s were seeing fairly low-end commodity guitars at the…

Simon Adahl’s 1958 Höfner 162

Missing Link

He may not be part of anthropological history like Dutch paleontologist Eugene Dubois, but Simon Adahl did have to dig a bit to discover this “missing link” – a first-version…

Muireann Bradley, Old Soul

Vintage Blues, Vintage L-50 Direct from Ireland, 17-year-old Muireann Bradley indulges us (and tugs at our Led Zep heartstrings) with a rendition of Memphis Minnie’s “When the Levee Breaks.” She’s…

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,…

Jim Marshall

Father of the Mighty Marshall Stack

When it comes to guitar amplifiers, two names stand tall beyond the others: Leo Fender and Jim Marshall. Even “civilians” recognize these names. Two names, from two different countries, with…

Built to Survive

Gibson and Montgomery Ward in the Great Depression

In our nation’s darkest economic times, one of its most-revered guitar manufacturers was treading headlong toward extinction before an unlikely hero started placing big orders.

B.C. Rich Eagle

1981 B.C. Rich Eagle. Photo: Michael Wright. When my son was young I used to do “guitar shows” for his classes, showing off 10 or so electric guitars that started…

Geddy Lee

Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass: A Compendium of the Rare, Iconic, and Weird

Nearly two years in the making, Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass: A Compendium of the Rare, Iconic, and Weird features players and collectors discussing their connection to iconic…

Selmer/RSA Truvoice TV10

Shock and Awe

If the British market needed a couple of decades to decide what form the guitar amplifier would ultimately take, we shouldn’t be surprised; well into the rock-and-roll age, the U.K.…

Westone Genesis

1987 Westone XA6520TBU Genesis. Photo: Bill Ingalls Jr. Instrument courtesy of Rudy Abbott. The relationship between Japanese instrument builders and domestic distributors was critical in the evolution of guitar sales…

Dan’s Guitar RX: Installing an Acoustic Pickup System

Un-Unplugged

For years, one of the most common jobs I’ve been asked to do is put a pickup in an acoustic guitar. Compared to most of my work, it’s pretty basic,…

1843 Martin & Coupa

Retail Rarity

In 1833, C.F. Martin, Sr. and his family arrived in New York City. A trained luthier, Martin had studied under Johann Stauffer in Vienna and for more than five years…

Home Feature Image

La Baye 2X4

1967, the Summer of Love. Everything still seemed possible, and anything went. No more war, racial and gender equality, Fresh Cream, the Beatles best record ever, the Jimi Hendrix Experience.…

Jon Butcher’s psychedelia mastery

Jon Butcher tales his Olympic White ’63 Strat for a rip on “Jam,” a track from his new album, “Nuthin’ but Soul.” The disc is an homage to sounds of…

Home Feature Image

Gibson 1958-’60 Les Paul Standard

A ’Burst by Any Other Name…

One Thousand, Seven Hundred and Twelve. That’s the number of Les Paul Standards Gibson produced between 1958 and 1960. Amongst guitar collectors, it means there aren’t many seats in the “’Burst Club.”…

Classics: December 2021

1967 Rickenbacker 360/12

Live-music fans who roamed South Florida from the early ’80s until the mid 2000s might recognize Craig Ball’s ’67 Rickenbacker 360/12. Ball was lead guitarist in the Rockerfellas, a band…

Brian Setzer

What a Dude Does

You can’t keep an iconic rocker down. Brian Setzer’s The Devil Always Collects is his first album in more than two years. Featuring the Grammy winner’s trademark rockabilly fire, it’s…

The Gittler Guitar

A Talk With Builder Avraham Bar Rashi

One of the most intriguing instruments to appear on the amplified-music landscape was the starkly-minimalist Gittler. An electric guitar constructed with as few parts as needed to render it fully…

Fender AA964 Princeton

What’s (Not) in a Name

Getting the job done – five simple knobs on the Princeton’s control panel. 1966 Fender Princeton • Preamp tubes: one 7025, one 12AX7 • Output tubes: two 6V6GT • Rectifier:…

Classics: February 2022

Chuck Panozzo’s Gibson ES-125

For nearly five decades, Chuck Panozzo has been the bassist in Styx, enjoying the ride as it went from playing garage parties in suburban Chicago through its heyday as AOR-radio…