Which vintage guitar shops are associated with the Harrisons?

GuyR

I am an occasional buyer of vintage guitars and basses, Interested to avoid the music ground type of operation, so keen to know which businesses these characters have any involvement in.

IvisonGuitars

I think this is a comprehensive list currently:

 https://www.denmarkstreetonline.co.uk

GuyR

IvisonGuitars said:

I think this is a comprehensive list currently:

 https://www.denmarkstreetonline.co.uk

Thanks, much appreciated.

HarrySeven

IvisonGuitars said:

I think this is a comprehensive list currently:

 https://www.denmarkstreetonline.co.uk

How strange...the “News Archive” section of the website has no spicy details of their exciting (and numerous) court appearances...

SimpleSimon

woah a £500 Epiphone Jack Cassidy Bass for sale @ £3500 odd!!! even if it was Mani for the Stone Roses bass - that's ridiculous!!

ten77guitar

SimpleSimon said:

woah a £500 Epiphone Jack Cassidy Bass for sale @ £3500 odd!!! even if it was Mani for the Stone Roses bass - that's ridiculous!!

That’s the bizarre world they inhabit. Selling overpriced guitars of dubious provenance to  impressionable idiots with more money than sense. There’s clearly a market for it otherwise they wouldn’t still be doing it after all these years despite being convicted criminals.

ICBM

ten77guitar said:

SimpleSimon said:

woah a £500 Epiphone Jack Cassidy Bass for sale @ £3500 odd!!! even if it was Mani for the Stone Roses bass - that's ridiculous!!

That’s the bizarre world they inhabit. Selling overpriced guitars of dubious provenance to  impressionable idiots with more money than sense. There’s clearly a market for it otherwise they wouldn’t still be doing it after all these years despite being convicted criminals.

A friend of mine - who I wouldn't describe as an idiot, but certainly impressionable - used to justify buying from them on the grounds that "they're the ones who can get the good stuff".

Only when I examined and appraised his collection, not a single thing he had bought from them was fully as described, and a couple were outright fakes... "get" means "fabricate".

I wouldn't buy a pick from them, personally.

Strat54

They are not alone. I could name more than handful of well known vintage guitar dealers who have been up to no good. One is in the middle of lawsuits right now in the region of a million Euro's involving some very high profile clients he duped. Obviously if we start naming names then we'll have to go 'Behind Closed Doors' So be careful out there....buyer beware as always.
I help collate a net based vintage guitar registery and we have uncovered a whole lot of duplicates, fakes and partscasters. Some quite horrible stuff going on out there right now.....and not just in London. The good guy list is quite short today.

ten77guitar

I can imagine similar things go on in the art and antiques world. Wherever there are large sums of money involved there will be people prepared to “bend the rules”. 

At the same time, there’s a big difference between a dealer selling a vintage guitar which they in good faith believe is original and later turns out not to be and what the Harrisons did (basically creating outright fakes, among other things).

Bygone_Tones

I've seen them operate under various business ID's so you just need to be very vigilant of all vintage gear. Theres a lot of stuff on the second hand market, not being sold by Justin directly but he was the original seller. It seems quite a few people who own Justins old fakes are in denial about them being fake and will take offense if you point it out to them. Just got to be really careful with anything vintage really. Got to know your onions, or you can easily get your fingers burnt.

Basher

Bygone_Tones said:

Got to know your onions, or you can easily get your fingers burnt.

Fried onions are probably the worst offenders in this respect.

GuyR

Bygone_Tones said:

I've seen them operate under various business ID's so you just need to be very vigilant of all vintage gear. Theres a lot of stuff on the second hand market, not being sold by Justin directly but he was the original seller. It seems quite a few people who own Justins old fakes are in denial about them being fake and will take offense if you point it out to them. Just got to be really careful with anything vintage really. Got to know your onions, or you can easily get your fingers burnt.

Very interested to know any other business IDs they use?

I remember many years ago looking at the music ground adverts in print and thinking that they always had a really good selection of vintage custom colour fenders, at a reasonable price. It's no wonder that the current owners are reluctant to recognise their true provenance.

GuyR

Strat54 said:

They are not alone. I could name more than handful of well known vintage guitar dealers who have been up to no good. One is in the middle of lawsuits right now in the region of a million Euro's involving some very high profile clients he duped. Obviously if we start naming names then we'll have to go 'Behind Closed Doors' So be careful out there....buyer beware as always.
I help collate a net based vintage guitar registery and we have uncovered a whole lot of duplicates, fakes and partscasters. Some quite horrible stuff going on out there right now.....and not just in London. The good guy list is quite short today.

I didn't start this thread with the intention of naming businesses, particularly ones subject to court action, but keen to know who would be on your "good guy" list

Seziertisch

GuyR said

I remember many years ago looking at the music ground adverts in print and thinking that they always had a really good selection of vintage custom colour fenders, at a reasonable price. It's no wonder that the current owners are reluctant to recognise their true provenance.

The original partscaster/relic experts. I remember going in to them and basically being told that whatever it was I was after, they could probably somehow source it. 

jeztone2

Bygone_Tones said:

I've seen them operate under various business ID's so you just need to be very vigilant of all vintage gear. Theres a lot of stuff on the second hand market, not being sold by Justin directly but he was the original seller. It seems quite a few people who own Justins old fakes are in denial about them being fake and will take offense if you point it out to them. Just got to be really careful with anything vintage really. Got to know your onions, or you can easily get your fingers burnt.

Exactly I met one of their “Tech” guys at a party in 2001. He spent the 80’s making vintage Strats in Doncaster. Personally I wouldn’t go near a vintage Strat for that exact reason. There must be hundreds of fakes out there, literally hundreds. 

Jalapeno

  I came here looking for a Gretsch or a nice Rosewood Tele !

NelsonP

My favourite part of their website:

Our previous and regular clients include:

Rolling Stones, ZZ Top, Cozy Powell, The Killers, Suzi Quatro, Coldplay, Gary Moore, Franz Ferdinand, Jimmy Page, Buddy Miller, Brian Setzer,  Eric Johnson, Texas, Big Country, Bill Nelson,  The Cardigans, The Hellecasters, Travis, Albert Lee, The Wedding Present, Chumbawamba, Albert King, Primal Scream, Living Colour,  The Hamsters, Canned Heat, Cast, Oasis, The Beatles, Charlatans, U2, Van Halen, Guns 'n' Roses, Bon Jovi, Stone Roses, Eric Clapton, The Seahorses, Emmylou Harris, World Party, Manic Street Preachers, , Supergrass, Blur, The Cure, Inspiral Carpets, The Bluetones, Johnny Marr, The Hollies, Chuck Berry, The La's, Mansun, Johnny Lee Hooker, Chris Rea, The Smiths, The Stranglers, The Shadows, The Amazing Blondell, John Parr, The Soup Dragons, Terrorvision, The Verve, Speedy, Edwin Collins , Ace of Bass, Steeleye Span, Bryan Adams, EMF, Suzanne Vega, The Cranberries, Embrace, Dave Gilmour, The Boomtown Rats, Saxon, Henry Rollins Band, Mike Harding, Hurricane #1*, Stiff Little Fingers, The Long Pigs, The The, Gordon Giltrap, The Supernaturals ...

So, no new customers in the last 20 (nearly 30) years then. Where are Snow Patrol, Franz Ferdinand, The Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines, Kaiser Chiefs, Mumford & Sons, George Ezra, Ed Sheeran etc...

* Bonus point if you can name a single by Hurricane #1 (without cheating)

KKJale

^ Step Into My World... and I've got the promo CD single with '#1' belatedly added via a sticker!

Seziertisch

jeztone2 said:

Bygone_Tones said:

I've seen them operate under various business ID's so you just need to be very vigilant of all vintage gear. Theres a lot of stuff on the second hand market, not being sold by Justin directly but he was the original seller. It seems quite a few people who own Justins old fakes are in denial about them being fake and will take offense if you point it out to them. Just got to be really careful with anything vintage really. Got to know your onions, or you can easily get your fingers burnt.

Exactly I met one of their “Tech” guys at a party in 2001. He spent the 80’s making vintage Strats in Doncaster. Personally I wouldn’t go near a vintage Strat for that exact reason. There must be hundreds of fakes out there, literally hundreds. 

It must have been so much easier back then too, no internet, very little chance of getting caught out. You take a bunch of old Fender serial numbers, ideally from guitars that are either in another part of the world or no longer in existence, find out what they are supposed to be i.e. sunburst body with rosewood board etc. and away you go.

Bygone_Tones

Seziertisch said:

jeztone2 said:

Bygone_Tones said:

I've seen them operate under various business ID's so you just need to be very vigilant of all vintage gear. Theres a lot of stuff on the second hand market, not being sold by Justin directly but he was the original seller. It seems quite a few people who own Justins old fakes are in denial about them being fake and will take offense if you point it out to them. Just got to be really careful with anything vintage really. Got to know your onions, or you can easily get your fingers burnt.

Exactly I met one of their “Tech” guys at a party in 2001. He spent the 80’s making vintage Strats in Doncaster. Personally I wouldn’t go near a vintage Strat for that exact reason. There must be hundreds of fakes out there, literally hundreds. 

It must have been so much easier back then too, no internet, very little chance of getting caught out. You take a bunch of old Fender serial numbers, ideally from guitars that are either in another part of the world or no longer in existence, find out what they are supposed to be i.e. sunburst body with rosewood board etc. and away you go.

@jeztone2 I heard a similar story just a couple of years ago, that he has an employee who's full time job it is to "artificially age stuff". This was only around 2015 or so.

@seziertisch, yes they had it easy pre-internet. The problem is/was the reference books people were using had information in it submitted by the Harrisons. They are credited in several books as contributers. Doyle's History of Marshall book is one of them. eg any Marshall with brown pinstripe grill material are likely to be lash ups rather than extremely rare and original as stated in the book. It is known the Harrisons bought a roll of it. I've yet to see a brown pinstripe Marshall that looks legit, but I have seen a few very dodgy ones.

Ossyrocks

Bygone_Tones said:

Seziertisch said:

jeztone2 said:

Bygone_Tones said:

I've seen them operate under various business ID's so you just need to be very vigilant of all vintage gear. Theres a lot of stuff on the second hand market, not being sold by Justin directly but he was the original seller. It seems quite a few people who own Justins old fakes are in denial about them being fake and will take offense if you point it out to them. Just got to be really careful with anything vintage really. Got to know your onions, or you can easily get your fingers burnt.

Exactly I met one of their “Tech” guys at a party in 2001. He spent the 80’s making vintage Strats in Doncaster. Personally I wouldn’t go near a vintage Strat for that exact reason. There must be hundreds of fakes out there, literally hundreds. 

It must have been so much easier back then too, no internet, very little chance of getting caught out. You take a bunch of old Fender serial numbers, ideally from guitars that are either in another part of the world or no longer in existence, find out what they are supposed to be i.e. sunburst body with rosewood board etc. and away you go.

@jeztone2 I heard a similar story just a couple of years ago, that he has an employee who's full time job it is to "artificially age stuff". This was only around 2015 or so.

@seziertisch, yes they had it easy pre-internet. The problem is/was the reference books people were using had information in it submitted by the Harrisons. They are credited in several books as contributers. Doyle's History of Marshall book is one of them. eg any Marshall with brown pinstripe grill material are likely to be lash ups rather than extremely rare and original as stated in the book. It is known the Harrisons bought a roll of it. I've yet to see a brown pinstripe Marshall that looks legit, but I have seen a few very dodgy ones.

Yes, they had a roll and so did Paul Goodhand-Tate. However, Paul didn't ever claim any amp it was used on was original and when I bought some off him I had to convince him my intentions were honourable too.