• 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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1944 Martin 00-28

This Martin 00-28 is a highly unusual instrument. Made as part of a group of six created with shop-order number 366 (dated 12/14/1944) and bearing serial numbers 90002 through 90007,…

New Lease on Life

The Sound of Rock Gets a Brush-Up

If restoring dusty, neglected old tube amps built more than half a century ago isn’t challenging enough, restoring amps with delicate built-in tape-echo units, no fixed schematic, and quirky hand-wired…

The Koch Studiotone

No-Sweat Double-Duty

Koch Amplifier’s 20-watt Studiotone uses an all-tube circuit powered by a matched pair of Ruby EL84 tubes producing 20 watts and three 12AX7A preamp tubes. The Studiotone’s lightweight, compact (19…

Carvin 8-15-B

Mail-Order Prize

In the days when the printed catalog was king, Carvin guitars and amplifiers often boasted a stature that outweighed their in-the-wild availability, while robust quality and appealing feature sets kept…

The History of Hamer

High-End Boutique or Budget Vintage?

“We didn’t quite get it,” explains company cofounder Jol Dantzig, discussing the birth of Hamer Guitars. “It was kind of a mistake. When we created Hamer, we created the high-end…

Fender Custom Shop Marks 30 Years

Dream Makers

In “official” terms, the Fender Custom Shop opened in 1987. But its story actually began February 1, 1985 – the day CBS announced the sale of Fender Musical Instruments to…

National Bel-Air, Photo courtesy George Gruhn Big thmbnail

National Bel-Air

The idea of Gibson providing guitar parts to another prominent guitar maker is laughable today, but in the 1940s and ’50s, relationships were cozier between some of the major instrument…

John Oates’ Prized Guild F-30

Roots Return

Most people know Hall & Oates as a pop-music hit machine that has sold millions of records. What you may not know is that John Oates is a lifetime student…

George Ducas: Modern Honky-Tonkin’

Taste of “Long Way From Home” Singer/songwriter George Ducas is a Nashville traditionalist influenced by Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Wynn Stewart. His new album, “Long Way From Home,” was…

Jorge Garcia’s FM Anthems, in Jazz

Fresh takes on revered classics Joge Garcia’s “Still Crossing” is a collection of stellar instrumental performances of familiar tunes like “Kashmir,” “Little Wing,” and a classical spin through Joni Mitchell’s…

Grammer Guitars

Photo: Kelsey Vaughn. Instrument courtesy Jason Davis. Grammer guitars, made in Nashville in the ’60s, are easily recognizable by their oversized pegheads, pickguards and bridges – not to mention the…

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…

Danelectro’s Four-String Basses

The guitars and basses made by Danelectro in the ’60s epitomized “no frills.” And though they were considered the nadir of American-made electric instruments of their time, many a babyboomer…

Custom Pearl

PH-44 Phaser

This month, our “Little Known Wonder” is the Pearl PH-44 Phaser. The Pearl Instrument Company made a series of effects in the early ’80s called Sound Spice effects pedals. Although…

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…

Mosrite Basses

The Golden Decade: Ventures and Beyond

Mention the Ventures to a pop-music aficionado and the conversation will likely focus on the surf-music phenomenon of the early 1960s or – if that person also happens to be…

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…

Home Feature Image

The Gretsch Round-Up

In 1954, what could possibly be more “contemporary Western” than a Gretsch Round-Up? Introduced in 1954, the Round-Up (listed in Gretsch literature as model PX6130) and the Rancher (PX6022) were…

Carvin DN640K

Doubleneck instruments have always been a unique niche in the guitar market, for good reason. They’ve also carried an air of superiority or the insinuation that they were intended for…

G&L F-100

1981 G&L F-100-I If guitars are in your blood – really in your blood – you can’t walk away from them. That was certainly the case with Clarence Leonidas Fender,…

Gibson Johnny Smith

In 1961, Gibson’s Johnny Smith model not only associated Gibson with one of the most popular guitar stylists of the day, it also brought high-quality amplification and high-quality acoustic sound…

Classics: November 2023

Al Caiola’s Gretsch Prototype

Robby Zolezzi has been a touring pro guitarist since he was 18 years old, having taken up the instrument at 11, spurred by TV and movie themes played by Al Caiola emanating from…

The Voxmobile

Too Fast to Live, Too Cool to Die

Free love, slick guitars, hot cars! Few pieces of late-’60s pop culture were anywhere near as hip and groovy as this marketing stroke of genius.

Kalamazoo KG-1

Collectible value in guitars can be defined any number of ways, and not just by having a popular brand name such as Fender or Gibson. That’s certainly the case with…

Gibson’s First Cherry Red 335

It came from the Books

Gibson introduced the ES-335T in the spring of 1958 as the progenitor to its double-cutaway,semi-hollow body “thinline” series of guitars. Characterized by the maple block running down their centers, most…

Maestro Rover R0-1

The UFO of Rotating Speakers

To record “Little Wing,” Jimi Hendrix plugged his Stratocaster into his usual amplifier, then did the unthinkable; he ran guitar signal into an organ speaker – a Leslie rotating-speaker cabinet.…

The Electra Endorser

Flame-top guitars were fairly common during the 1970s “copy era,” but few reached the levels of figure we often see on modern high-end guitars. Then came the Electra Endorser X935CS,…

DOD 690 Chorus

Something a Bit Different

Borne amidst a windfall of chorus units, it offers Something a bit different In the mid to late ’70s, chorusing for guitarists was a relatively new effect on the market…

Supro Guitars and Amplifiers Part I

Supro Part 1

Some of the earliest electric guitars, amps-in-cases, pickups under the bridge, fiberglass guitars, built-in electronic vibratos. Sound curious enough for you? The subject of Supro guitars and amplifiers represents a…

The Martin OM-28

Although popular music of the 1920s featured the tenor banjo as the preferred rhythm instrument, the guitar’s popularity rose steadily through the decade, and by the ’30s, it had overtaken…