• 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 >>

Electro-Harmonix’s Mike Matthews

EH is Back!

EH is back!” So ran the ad copy for the Electro-Harmonix Corporation in the early 1980s. By that time, the company had been in business well over 10 years and…

Fender Ltd & Montego

Jazz Guitars

The Ltd was introduced as CBS Fender’s entry into the archtop jazz guitar market. It was to be a prestigious example of Fender’s ability to produce a highly crafted, handmade,…

Hagstrom Guitars

The Fastest Necks

Ca. ’73 Hagstrom Viking I N also known in the U.S. as the Scandia. Part 2 This month we continue the Hagstrom saga. To recap: the Hagstrom company was founded…

Michael Bloomfield’s ’63 Telecaster

Michael Bloomfield’s ’63 Telecaster

This Guitar Killed Folk!

A silver-spoon teen who loved sneaking into Chicago’s southside blues clubs, Michael Bloomfield reveled in absorbing all he could from the many legendary players he saw perform in the city’s…

Jim Campilongo & Steve Cardenas

Mutual Musical Idiosyncrasies

Steve Cardenas and Jim Campilongo have been playing guitar together for a long time, though the constellations only recently aligned so they could record. Captured on three nights in September…

1962 Gretsch Country Gentleman Custom

Atkins Oddity

By the early 1960s, the Fred Gretsch Company was riding high with an array of eye-catching electric guitars highlighted with models endorsed by Chet Atkins. At the top were 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…

Fender Precision Elite II

Sleeper Axe, Gorgeous Finish

If you could only see the beautiful hue of this Precision Elite II finished in Sienna Burst, you’d melt. Arguably the most devastating of Fender’s bursts, this finish was made…

Wandré Modele Karak

We all recognize that guitars are art, but rarely has the instrument been as consciously approached from this perspective by the maker as with the ’60s creations of Wandré Pioli.

Sound City L/B 120 Mark IV

Sound City L/B 120 Mark IV

Preamp tubes: three ECC83 (12AX7), one ECC81 (12AT7, in the phase inverter) Output tubes: six EL34 Rectifier: solidstate Controls: Normal Volume, Brilliant Volume, Bass, Middle, Treble, Presence Output: approximately 120…

Dickerson Melody King

Few who love vintage amps can resist its art-deco appeal, let alone its luscious hand-wiring and edgy, touch-sensitive 6V6 tone. A tweed Champ doesn’t stand a chance in a cage…

Small Screen, Big Pickin’

Crew Strives to Keep it Real on “Nashville”

It’s not often that prime-time network television captures an audience of working class, professional musicians. In 1968, players watched Elvis Presley and Scotty Moore swap their Gibson SJ-200 and a…

Matchless JJ-30

Stage Staunch

Rare and sought-after, in part because only about 40 were built, the Matchless JJ-30 John Jorgenson is the only Signature Series amp ever made by the original company. Designed for…

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…

An Early Manuel Ramírez

This fascinating instrument from the shop of Manuel Ramírez ca. 1909 is unusual in that the complete history of the instrument is known to us, there having been only two…

GIBSON FIREBIRDS

Gibson Firebirds

Say the words “custom color” to a collector or enthusiast and most will think of “Fender.” But Gibson had its own multicolored baby – the Firebird. Born in 1963 and…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Redd Volkaert

Season 03 Episode 03 In Episode 3.3 of “Buy That Guitar,” host Ram Tuli is joined by Redd Volkaert, one of modern country’s foremost pickers. Any fan of Western swing and…

The D’Angelico Excel Mandolin

The 1,164 archtop guitars made by John D’Angelico have brought him great renown as the finest individual archtop guitar builder in the history of the instrument. His mandolins, however, are…

Marshall 2100 Lead & Bass

Rock Breaker

Adescendant of the legendary “Bluesbreaker” combo that helped launch the cranked-Marshall sound into the annals of rock, the 2100 combo is also one of the rarest post-plexi models – and…

J.D. Simo

Playing for Elvis

Psych-blues guitar maestro J.D. Simo was the wizard behind the guitar work heard on Elvis, the new Baz Luhrmann film starring Tom Hanks and Austin Butler. Unlike the actors who…

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…

One of Two of a Kind

Gibson’s L-3 Ganus Brothers Special

Making custom instruments has always been problematic for companies designed to manufacture in quantity. Though it had an unenforced policy against one-off projects, this guitar illustrates how the company did…

National Style O

National Style O

Although it has never been the favorite guitar of Hawaiian players, National’s Style O, with its shining metal body and tropical imagery, stands today as one of the strongest icons…

Beat Portraits: Burns Volume 1

Beginnings – The Early 1960s

In early 2009, VG columnist Peter Stuart Kohman turned his focus on Burns, the pioneering British guitar builder. We’ve compiled the first three installments for a special edition of VG…

Stromberg Master 400

Stromberg Master 400

The Stromberg Master 400, measuring a gigantic 19″, is considered by many to be the ultimate orchestral rhythm guitar. The instrument of choice for Freddy Green with the Count Basie…

St. Moritz Stereo

The notion of a stereo guitar became almost implicit when guitars started having two pickups. But it didn’t become a reality on an actual production guitar until the great tapping…

Dan’s Guitar RX: Adding Master Volume to a Les Paul

Plus One

My friend Alex Aguilar recently asked me to do something most guitarists would consider sacrilegious – add a Master Volume pot to a Les Paul, and put it in easy…

Masco MAP-15

1946 Masco MAP-15 Before Leo Fender’s rise to prominence, which is to say, before anyone knew what the Platonic form of the electric guitar amplifier would ultimately be, a broad…

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…

Antonio de Torres

The Birth of the Modern Guitar

To date, I have covered most of the major schools of guitar construction/design, and some of their contributions to the evolution of the gut/nylon-string guitar. In the April ’96 issue…