• Thomas Custom Guitars

    Classic Instruments

    Thomas Custom Guitars

    Rarities from the Pacific Northwest

    Certain makes and models of electric guitars are rightfully prized for their elegant physical designs and superior craftsmanship. Even better are those also revered for their playability and particularly rich tonal qualities. Thomas guitars, on the other hand, are usually noted for their odd (sometimes controversial) shapes and zany features. Built by the late guitarist/machinist/luthier/and

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  • Dan’s Guitar RX: A ’57 Strat Goes Under the Knife

    Dan’s Guitar RX: A ’57 Strat Goes Under the Knife

    Battle-Scarred

    B.K. Vaught recently walked into my shop with a vintage Strat that had been modified and refinished. While its changes represented a bit of American history, the guitar deserved to be restored. B.K. got it in the spring of 2022, while helping sort the estate of an uncle who had passed away. Among his belongings…

  • The Martin OM-28

    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 the banjo. As had been the case with tenor banjos, mandolins, and classical/minstrel banjos in earlier eras, the best-selling fretted instrument attracted the most attention…

Sigma by Martin

Sigma by Martin

Following the Line

July 5, 2016 · Kevin Dunham

Long overlooked and relegated to an obscure corner of the collectible market, Sigma by Martin guitars have recently gained popularity…

Prodigal Sunburst

Joe Walsh Reunites with a ’59 Les Paul Standard

March 9, 2023 · Ward Meeker

A master of delivering crystal-clear musical messages with an off-kilter wit, whether talking, singing, picking, or sliding on guitar, everything…

1949 Bigsby Tenor

March 7, 2023 · George Gruhn and Walter Carter

By the advent of the solidbody electric guitar in the 1950s, tenor guitarists were a dying breed. Consequently, electric tenors…

Ray Cummins – I’ll See You In My Dreams

January 1, 2023 · Vintage Guitar

Ray Cummins Plays the 1956 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 prototype “Dark Eyes” VG ace online tutor Ray Cummins uses the…


The BBE Soul Vibe

Taking Soul to New Levels

The original Shin-Ei Uni-vibe became hugely famous after Jimi Hendrix used it with Band of Gypsys (and at Woodstock). Later practitioners like Frank Marino and especially Robin Trower used the…

The Story of Melobar

Stand-Up Steel

Born in Northern California in 1920, Walt Smith took piano lessons and became a child prodigy on several instruments before developing a love of big-band music and Western swing. Chasing…

The Fender “Korinacaster”

Double-Cut Kuriosity

There’s irony in the fact that Leo Fender, creator of the first solidbody electric guitar to be mass-produced, wasn’t the adventurous sort. Rather, history tells us he was a pragmatic,…

Heil Talk Box

When Peter Frampton began using the Heil Talk Box in 1974, he remembers it being viewed with skepticism as an “alien effect.” Similar contraptions had been around since 1939, but…

The Leilani Lap Steel and Amplifier

You can receive more great articles like this in our twice-monthly e-mail newsletter, Vintage Guitar Overdrive, FREE from your friends at Vintage Guitar magazine. VG Overdrive also keeps you up-to-date…

  • Classics: February 2024

    Classics: February 2024

    Sean Slade’s 1964 SG Junior

    They might not seem to have a ton in common aside from first names. J Mascis, Dinosaur Jr.’s co-founder and guitarist developed a style equal parts guitar heroics and left-side-of-the-dial insouciance. In Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar helped popularize the alt-country movement by merging influences from Doug Sahm to The Stooges. But that might be where…

  • ’72 Marshall “NARB” Tremolo 100

    ’72 Marshall “NARB” Tremolo 100

    Mirror Image

    When is a Marshall not a Marshall? When it’s a Narb, of course. Long a fascinating footnote to the company’s history, this alternative brand arose as something of a bet between colleagues. For all the undeniable classics produced by Jim Marshall and his right-hand men Ken Bran and Dudley Craven, it seems the company’s marketing…

Universal Audio’s OX Amp Top Box

The Tube Abides

October 14, 2019 · Ray Wuolo

Since the mid ’60s, electrical engineers have been trying to drive a stake into the heart of the vacuum tube,…

Bex Marshall and her ’63 Hummingbird

August 26, 2024 · Vintage Guitar

Family History Straight from the “Classics” feature in the August issue, here’s Bex Marshall playing the ’63 Gibson Hummingbird bought…

Matching Mojo

May 4, 2023 · Willie G. Moseley

During the “guitar boom” of the 1960s, one method of getting a band noticed was to equip it with matching…

Watkins Joker

Beat-Gen Beaut

April 22, 2019 · Dave Hunter

This could be just what every well-heeled young “Beat” guitarist and singer in Britain needed in the early 1960s –…


The Duane Allman “Layla” Guitar?

A ’57 Gibson Les Paul Emerges To Tell a Story

Taken in trade by a music store in Florida, it was sold to a local recording studio in 1977. Shortly afterward, its new owner started to wonder if maybe it…

Dallas Rangemaster and Scala Combos

Texas Two Step

Fascinating also-rans, C-list classics, or both, the amps manufactured by London-based Dallas Music Ltd beginning in 1959 tie directly to legendary British gear. All but unheard of stateside, they were…

The Birth of Newman Guitars

  Newman Guitars was established in Austin, TX in 1977 by Ted Newman Jones. Ted was a pioneer of design and began working for Keith Richards exclusively in late 1971.…

The Komet Constellation

Amid the general run of vintage amps we have explored in this space, the occasional “modern classic” has proved itself worthy through sheer quality of design, uniqueness of tone and/or…

Gibson Kalamazoo Award

Designer's Dream Come True

In 1978, Gibson craftsman Wilbur Fuller produced the company’s first hand-carved, tuned-by-ear custom guitar. The instrument, which in a blind sound-off with some of the best instruments of its era,…

Paul Benjaman: Tulsa twanger

Funky solo from “Undercover of Night” On his new album, “My Bad Side Wants a Good Time,” Paul Benjaman serves up funky stew with bayou bite. Here, he plays the…

  • “Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Howie Statland

    “Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Howie Statland

    “Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Howie Statland Season 01 Episode 10 In Episode 10 of VG’s “Buy That Guitar” podcast, host Ram Tuli is joined by Howie Statland of Rivington Guitars, New York City. They discuss famous players and the effect they have on the value of collectible instruments. Guitarists are often influenced…

  • Hangin’ with Kid and Lisa “Little Baby” Andersen

    Hangin’ with Kid and Lisa “Little Baby” Andersen

    Smooth, Funky Blues With Soul Kid Andersen worked with Charlie Musselwhite and Elvin Bishop before scoring his current gig with Rick Estrin & the Nightcats. One of the best blues guitarists around, here, he’s joined by his wife, Lisa, and bandmate Endre Tarczy to play “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” from his latest album, “Spirits.” Kid…

’53 Gibson Les Paul Junior

May 2, 2018 · George Gruhn

Gibson records say the Les Paul Junior was introduced in 1954. But this instrument has tone and volume pot codes…

Eastwood EEB-1 and EUB-1 Basses

Horizontal Vibe

July 1, 2020 · Phil Feser

Eastwood’s EEB-1 and the EUB-1 take their design inspiration from Ampeg’s quirky mid-’60s Horizontal Bass series, the brainchild of Dennis…

St. Moritz Stereo

December 9, 2021 · Michael Wright

The notion of a stereo guitar became almost implicit when guitars started having two pickups. But it didn’t become a…

Gibson ES-300 Prototype

Les Paul and the First Gibson ES-300

April 20, 2010 · Lynn Wheelwright

When a guitar junkie hears the words “soapbar” and “P-90,” the mental image is usually that of a cream-colored rectangle…