• Zac Schulze gets straight to it!

    Classic Instruments

    Zac Schulze gets straight to it!

    If you’re a fan of Cream, Zeppelin, and Rory Gallagher (who isn’t?), you’ll dig Zac Schulze Gang, a British power trio that’s carrying the torch with both hands; they’ve played Clapton’s Crossroads and the Rory Gallagher Tribute Fest. Here, Zac flies solo on “High Roller,” tearin’ it up on his ’54 Guild Aristocrat M75 through…

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Tokai Talbo

For aficionados of copy guitars – replicas of mostly American classics that give U.S. manufacturers apoplectic fits – perhaps no company is more respected than Tokai, whose 1970s and early-’80s…

Epiphone Coronet

Epiphone Coronet

This Epiphone Coronet from 1959 was probably a shocking sight to a guitar buyer of the late ’50s. Not only was a solidbody guitar out of character for the company…

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…

Bay State Parlor Guitar

Play It In Any Room!

The parlor guitar. Designed by Mr. Parlor? No. First manufactured by the Parlor, Inc? No. Endorsed by the well-known recording artist, Parlor? Now don’t be silly, of course not! Then…

Gibson Les Paul Juniors

Beauties in Black: Two Rare Gibson Les Paul Juniors

Guitar dealers tell guitar stories much like anglers tell fish stories. There are those they “got” and those that got away, and either can render reactions ranging from a sigh…

Weissenborn Style #4

Weissenborn Style#4

The acoustic Hawaiian guitar of Hermann Weissenborn is one of the most specialized instrument designs of the 20th century. Weissenborns were made for guitarists who played the newest craze of…

Orville Gibson’s Handmade 1906 Artist Mandolin

Proving a Point

This instrument, bearing a handwritten label reading “Made by O.H. Gibson 1906 Kalamazoo Mich” is arguably the most elaborate scroll-model mandolin ever made by Orville Gibson. The 1906 date is…

Classics: October 2023

Michael Bloomfield 1963 Fender Stratocaster

Antonio Mazzara’s passion for music started at age 10, when he started playing a nylon-string classical guitar before moving up to a sunburst ’72 Strat and a ’68 Princeton Reverb…

Gibson GA-83S Stereo-Vib

Gibson GA-83S Stereo-Vib

If you hung around the audio world’s collective R&D room long enough in the late 1950s and early ’60s, you’d have thought that, very soon, everything would be happening in…

Furry Lewis' 1968 Gibson B-25N

Furry Lewis’ 1968 Gibson B-25N

Heart In Hand

Born in the heart of Mississippi’s fabled Delta region – from where Robert Johnson emerged and a blues-music form was born, Walter “Furry” Lewis was seven years old when his…

Gibson Style U

Harp Guitar

Gibson Style U. Courtesy Gruhn Guitars. This Gibson Style U harp guitar, made in 1906 or ’07, represents the top level of the Gibson lineup in the company’s first quarter-century,…

Hard Rock Cafe

Guardians of Grandeur

The Men Who Tend to the Guitars of the Hard Rock Cafe

“A lot of people think I go in [to a sale] with an open checkbook, but that’s not the case; we’re very strategic.” – Jerry Fraize When Peter Morton and…

Orville Gibson’s Handmade 1906 Artist Mandolin

Proving a Point

This instrument, bearing a handwritten label reading “Made by O.H. Gibson 1906 Kalamazoo Mich” is arguably the most elaborate scroll-model mandolin ever made by Orville Gibson. The 1906 date is…

Hank’s Protos

How Hank Garland Helped Gibson Develop Two Models Not Called Byrdland

There are guitars, there are great guitars, there are great historic guitars and there are great historic guitars bearing deep provenance. And then there are guitars of such immense mystique,…

O’Hagan Guitars

Jaws Invades the Upper Mississippi

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, Minnehaha gives a little yelp of surprise. There, just behind Mary Tyler Moore, cutting the murky waters of Old Muddy with its triangular fin…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Daniel Escauriza

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Daniel Escauriza Season 01 Episode 06 In Episode 8 of “Buy That Guitar,” presented by Vintage Guitar, host Ram Tuli is joined by…

Audiovox and Serenader Amps

An Interview with Bud Tutmarc

Introduction With this month’s feature story on the Audiovox bass (page 80), plus a comparison between Audiovox pickup (page 81) and early Dobro pickups, it seems appropriate to also dedicate…

Nils Lofgren Shines Solo – Again

Star Grabs Vintage J-50 for “Ain’t the Truth Enough? An in-demand sideman for more than 50 years, guitar wizard Nils Lofgren has worked with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street…

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…

The Supro “Model 24”

Okay, Zep police, sound the alarm and prepare to loose the hounds – we are finally about to lift the lid on the Jimmy Page amp. Well, maybe not the…

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…

Fender Headless Bass

Forgotten Prototype

Reflecting back through my years in the guitar industry, much of my time has been spent in product development, prototyping, and the making of specialty guitars. In recent years, quite…

Gibson’s 17″ Pre-War Electrics

ES-300 of 1940-’43

Among musicians and collectors, Gibson’s pre-World-War-II ES-300 may be less popular today than the ES-250, but in terms of sheer numbers, it was Gibson’s most popular 17″ pre-war electric, despite…

Out-Stratting the Strat

Out-Stratting the Strat

The Story of the G&L S-500

It would be an understatement to say that Leo Fender, with the help of George Fullerton, was prolific in the years after he sold Fender Electric Instruments. The tag team…

The Gretsch 6120 Tenor

This 1958 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 four-string tenor guitar is a very rare variation of the model. Gretsch built other tenors, including the Duo Jet, archtop acoustic, and archtop electric…

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…

Hofner 185

Have you heard the line, “If Hendrix had a Magnatone, Strats would be worth $200 now?” A highly debatable proposition, for sure! But if Paul McCartney had not used a…

Geddy Lee

Bass Conservator

In its 40-plus years, Rush evolved on its own terms. Mixing rock and jazz influences, the band’s 19 studio albums fostered a cultish fan base of prog-rockers, headbangers, and others…

Pop ’N Hiss: Taste

Breakout Blues

The ’60s may have been the most musically significant decade in the history of popular music, but very few countries were represented then or in the years that followed. Fronted…

How Ron Wood’s New Barbarians Saved the Stones

Ear-to-Ear Violence

Today, the Rolling Stones continue to perform live, more than 50 years since their first gig. But few realize how an unsung side project formed and funded by Ron Wood…