• 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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Veleno Guitars

Shiny Metal (Rare) Birds

Throughout the years luthiers have built guitars out of a lot of exotic materials, from Torres’ paper mache acoustics to Danelectro’s masonite to Dan Armstrong’s lucite guitars to Steinberger’s all-graphite…

The Acoustic

Black Widow

In the late ’60s, when Domino guitars were fading away, tube amplifiers were out of vogue. Old technology, man! Cool bands played through solidstate amps that delivered lots of clean…

Bex Marshall and her ’63 Hummingbird

Family History Straight from the “Classics” feature in the August issue, here’s Bex Marshall playing the ’63 Gibson Hummingbird bought new by her uncle, David, in his days with the…

Fender’s 6G9 Tremolux

Fender’s 6G9 Tremolux

Preamp tubes: two 7025, two 12AX7 Output tubes: two 6BQ5/EL84 Rectifier: GZ34 Controls: Bright channel: Volume, Treble, Bass; Normal channel: Volume, Treble, Bass; tremolo Speed and Intensity for both channels…

Classics: September 2023

Bill Fudge’s Micro-Frets Huntington

Several years before he became a luthier who deserves much greater recognition, Ralph Jones sold new Fender guitars and amps out of his home studio in Rockville, Maryland. One early…

1942 Martin D-45

The Martin D-45, offered from 1933 through 1942, is well-known as the Holy Grail of acoustic guitars. While players and collectors debate whether it’s the “best guitar ever made,” in…

Guild F-512

Iconic ’70s 12-String

Today, players typically equate the 12-string acoustic with Taylor and Martin. For its part, though, Guild’s F-512 remains one of the most revered, and this particular one veers off-spec with…

Warwick Thumb Bass

Generational Innovation

Founded in the early 1980s by Hans-Peter Wilfer, Warwick has a familial connection to another well-known German brand from a time when that nation was divided following World War II.…

Fender Palomino

Whether all collectors are as attached to nicknames as guitar enthusiasts is unclear. Do salt-and-pepper shaker collectors have fond shortcuts for, say, a Popeye and Olive Oyl set? “Spinach Special?”…

The Ray Butts EchoSonic

If you want to talk star-user ratio, the Ray Butts EchoSonic is near the top of the heap. Most accounts agree that fewer than 70 amps were ever made, yet…

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…

Gittler Guitar

Avraham Bar Rashi

One of the most intriguing electric stringed instruments to ever appear on the American amplified music landscape was the rare and starkly-minimalist Gittler. Simply an electric guitar constructed with as…

The RFT 12AX7

The Righteous Flame-throwin’ Tube

“…there is a time and place for that out-front spank, but if your mood shifts to slightly more mellow, there is a simple solution…” Those who plug into Fender amplifiers…

Rickenbacker Electric 12-String

Double-bound for Glory

George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher founded Electro String in 1931 to manufacture what everyone would soon call “Rickenbacker” guitars. Success with musicians came early. Rick steels were the measure of…

Vintage Dobros

A Guide

When John Dopyera stormed out of the National shop in January 1929, his resignation stemmed from more than a spur-of-the-moment tantrum. For months, the inventor of the resonator guitar spent…

Jeff Plankenhorn’s “Alone At Sea”

Tasty slide on a square-neck Oahu Singer/songwriter Jeff Plankenhorn’s music is a rootsy mix that embraces blues and pop while dodging categorization. Here, he and his vintage square-neck Oahu offer…

Rocky Athas’ Texas ’Tude!

Genuine Lone Star Jams Dallas guy Rocky Athas built a career playing blues in the vain of T-Bone and SRV, but his new album, “Livin’ My Best Life,” is more…

Epiphone “Bikini Logo” Amplifiers

Beach Party

Collectors know well the desirability of Epiphone guitars from the years after Gibson acquired the brand. Further off the radar, however, are the amplifiers that accompanied them – especially the…

James Ashborn

Innovative Entrepreneur

Circa 1850 James Ashborn guitar. All photos: M. E. Brune. James Ashborn was born in England circa 1816 and came to New England in the late 1830s, for reasons unknown.…

Jeff Plankenhorn’s “Alone At Sea”

Tasty slide on a square-neck Oahu Singer/songwriter Jeff Plankenhorn’s music is a rootsy mix that embraces blues and pop while dodging categorization. Here, he and his vintage square-neck Oahu offer…

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,…

Gibson J-35

Gibson J-35

Dreadnought guitars originated as early as 1916 with instruments made by Martin and distributed by Ditson, followed in 1931 with guitars sold by Martin under its own brand. The first…

Two Legendary Les Paul Deluxes

Southern Gold

In the late 1960s, Gibson reintroduced the single-cutaway Les Paul based on its classic ’50s model. But, a new version called the Deluxe proved the most popular Les Paul of…

Kramer Pacer Deluxe

Superstrat or Bust

On rare occasions, the zeitgeist – not some lucky designer – creates a guitar that captures hearts and minds. Such was the case in 1982, when tastes in popular music…

Vox Symphonic Bass

Fender Bender

Despite the way collectors and dealers freely apply the term “lawsuit guitars,” documented examples are few. One time it did happen was triggered by the Vox Symphonic Bass. A report…

Ampeg R-12-R Reverberocket

1962 Ampeg R-12-R Reverberocket Preamp tubes: two 6SL7, two 6SN7 Output tubes: two 6V6, cathode-biased Rectifier: 5Y3 Controls: Volume, Tone, Dimension (reverb), Speed, and Intensity (tremolo) Speakers: Jensen Special Design…

Gibson EH-150

An Odd Gibson EH-150

10 Strings, Lap-Style

Lap-steel guitars were the first commercially available electrics – ancestors of the guitars we plug in today, regardless of their shape. The popularity of Hawaiian music in the 1930s had…

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…

Arbiter Fuzz Face

When Jimi Hendrix released his first album, 1967’s Are You Experienced, he launched a new level of guitar heroics as well as a sartorial fad for ruffled shirts and band…

Gibson Nick Lucas

It’s a rare occasion when a star performer hooks up with a guitar company to create a classic signature instrument. Gibson’s Les Paul model comes to mind, as does Gretsch’s…