Roy Smeck’s Gibson L-5
Player endorsements are part of the tradition of guitarmaking going back to its earliest use for public performance. LeRoy G.A. Schmeck, a.k.a. Roy Smeck,...
Martin Style 000-28K
During the 1920s and '30s, Martin made a considerable number of guitars with bodies constructed of Hawaiian Koa wood. The Hawaiian music craze was...
National Style 3 Hawaiian
Metal-bodied guitars built by the National String Instrument Company before World War II represent a giant leap in guitar design and technology. When they...
1982 Gibson Victory Custom
When you consider their status as a last-gasp instrument made by Gibson in its waning days as a property of Norlin Industries, the ironically...
Gibson Humbucker
Gibson and Fender may be the longstanding heavyweight rivals of the electric guitar game, but they have one very important thing in common: they...
Ro-Pat-In’s First Electric Spanish
The story of George Beauchamp's invention of what would become the first commercially successful electric guitar is shrouded in the mist of murky memory....
Rick Vito’s Tale Of Two Grails
Whether it was by watching “Bandstand” on TV or learning the licks of Duane Eddy, Chuck Berry, or the Ventures, Philadelphia native Rick Vito’s...
1965 Epiphone Emperor
The Epiphone Emperor has a long, convoluted history. It first appeared in Epiphone's catalog in late 1935 as a response to Gibson's Super 400,...
Epiphone Riviera
The Epiphone Riviera helped reinvent Epiphone in the 1960s as a modern guitar company whose instruments sported such contemporary features as thinline, semi-hollow, double-cutaway...
Rickenbacker 325
Details
In 1962, the Ac’cent Vibrato replaced the original Rick’s standard Kauffman unit, which was derived from a nearly 30-year-old design – and notorious...