Forgotten/Obscure guitars from 1982

rpr

Continuing my loft clearance, I came across an old book- 'The Complete Guitar Guide' by David Lawreson, from 1982. Probably bought at a charity shop several decades later. Basically a bunch of reviews of acoustics/electrics/bass's from that period. It's a pity the pics are B+W, but I thought i'd share a few of the more obscure ones.

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Anyway

Chris Eccleshall Falcon

Manson Flying V (stripey yew,holly,ash,mahogany,paduak)

Similar spec Manson Merlin

Another Manson (kestrel)

Hamer Prototype -with triple coils

Guild 

S 60 D- my mate had the bass version of this

Moonstone Eclipse Active

Peter Cook Axis

Explorer meets Strat in the Washburn Stage A 15

Westone Paduak with active boost (cost £123)

Yamaha SC 1200

thumpingrug

Love the stripy ones.  Shame you have no colour pics.

EricTheWeary

I seem to recall Manson using a fairly horrid green on a lot of their guitars.
Great pictures though and I wonder where all those guitars are now.

p90fool

I had that book! I only bought it because it had a favourable review of my Fender Bullet in it.

Isn't there a a bit of a write up near the back in the players' section about an up and coming youngster called The Edge?

[Deleted User]

Love that Hamer. That became the Phantom when it went into production. Andy Summers had a red one that he used on TOTPs a lot. I wanted one badly at the time....

Travisthedog

They're all 'orrible!!

timhulio

Agreed!

The bass version of the Guild S60 does seem to be more commonplace, and the design and proportions work much better on a bass guitar.

Jetfire

Theres nothing there I would play... 

octatonic

The Washburn A15 was the budget version of the A20v, which was my first guitar.

Bucket

That Hamer is cool as fuck.

dogload

The first electric 12 I ever played was a 12-string Washburn Stage in vivid banana yellow (six tuners at the base of the body, a la BC RIch).

It looked horrible but played beautifully. I've never seen one since (this must have been around 1982 actually). I don't think I'd ever buy one coz of how it looked which is a shame as it was a lovely player.

I'd like to say that the Paduak is not forgotten- it was a minor object of lust of mine for a while. I'm over it now though!

ICBM

dogload said:

I'd like to say that the Paduak is not forgotten- it was a minor object of lust of mine for a while. I'm over it now though!

Better to be! A friend of mine had one. It was surprisingly poor for a Matsumoku-made guitar - although I felt that most Westones were. If I remember rightly the height of the neck and the bridge were wrong relative to each other, and the neck wasn't very straight so even with shims and adjustments I could never get it to play very well. The active booster was a waste of time too - it was unsubtle (I don't mean just too loud, it sounded far too strident tonally) and hissy. And it felt like a floorboard.

Most of the pictures make it completely clear why guitarists are generally so conservative and keep coming back to the 'classics', if these attempts at 'originality' are anything to go by...

ESBlonde

And that Ladies and Gentlemen is why we have a plethora of revamped Teles, Strats, 3X5s, SGs and Les Pauls in the market. There are people that have improved on aspects of those classic designs but Guitarists are a conservative lot by and large and don't go for fancy changes. Now pedals of course are a different thing.

p90fool

I remember trying out a couple of those multi-layer Mansons in a shop in '82. They were well-made but very heavy.
I'd imagine they were pretty dead-sounding too (as was the fashion), but I can't tell you what anything sounded like on that day because I tried them all through a Burman amp, whose triple cascading gain stages made even the '58 LP they had in stock sound like someone next door was Hoovering up spilled blancmange.

OilCityPickups

OOooooooooooo that Manson Merlin is exactly what I had .... though my memory playing tricks said it was an 'Eagle' ... rocket ship bridge and hand wound Kent Armstrongs and all. God I loved that guitar ... though it was well too heavy and had far too many switches/