Cool guitars

Sambostar

I'II take the Gretsch, the rest is ass puke to be honest, kept by the sorts of people who keep nameless tins of things from the old Soviet Union, behind the Berlin Wall for sentimental purposes.  An extremely shyte period of guitar design personified.

'Some' Teiscos' are rubbish.

( )

Bloody cereal bar lovees.

tabbycat

Sambostar said:

I'II take the Gretsch, the rest is ass puke to be honest, kept by the sorts of people who keep nameless tins of things from the old Soviet Union, behind the Berlin Wall for sentimental purposes.  An extremely shyte period of guitar design personified.

'Some' Teiscos' are rubbish.

( )

Bloody cereal bar lovees.

admit it samb, you play hard to get but i know you're secretly wet for prime commie stompage...

Bridgehouse

Oh my goodness me.. there are soviet blok stomp boxes?

I have to have one. Really. 

I now hate you all for revealing this information to me. My internet history is going to be shot to pieces.

And, I just found this, which beats all your so called cool guitars.

Sambostar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xCvx-i4gOM

I think I spot one..

cacophony

"You could get a Fender Coronado for around £300-ish"

 yeah but... wait, there`s a guitar in that picture?!!...

:-??

JD50

Eastwood make reissues of a bunch of 60's oddball guitars.

But aren't all guitars cool?

stimpsonslostson

JD50 said:

Eastwood make reissues of a bunch of 60's oddball guitars.

But aren't all guitars cool?

Cough*PRS*Cough

timhulio

tabbycat said:

timhulio said:

Agreed about the ubiquity of Jags and Jazzers. This offset guitar is from East Germany and is pretty much the same as a both a Jaguar and Jazzmaster, which are both the same as each other. Musima Elgitas, they cost me a hundred pounds each.

The coolest guitar I own is a Hagstrom III. Maybe a tad over the £250 budget.

i've seen a few of those musimas on ebay recently. they look good but i have always suspected they were in the teisco bracket. interesting freaky-kooky looks but egg-slicers re playability. i've got a half-finished (no pickups or electrics) project teisco et200 and that needed a shim in the neck and a tunomatic bridge and stop bar just to be remotely playable. fretting is also a little out high up but it is basically just a toy for bumping around with so not worried. but the musimas are £200 which is a lot of money if they don't play.

re the hags, have always loved the look of those. the guitarist in swedish band 'love is all' plays one which is fitting. i play a brit built hayman through a brit built laney for the same reason. not profoundly nationalistic in any way, i just think it's nice to go native as a kind of gesture.
the necks are supposed to be a dream. superskinny and fast. the hayman (became shergold) necks are famous for the same thing, which is why i think i might get on with a hag. can't do gibbo shovel handles. are the pickups useful or do you have to work around them to avoid modding vintage?

Yep, I'll not pretend the Musimas are the easiest guitars to play. The 70s model (with the metal Simeto pickups) had such a fat neck I asked a luthier friend to make a replacement neck with the profile of my AVRI Jazzmaster. That's the neck it has in the photo. A curiosity of the wiring scheme was that the neck pickup wasn't available on its own, unfiltered. So I de-soldered the offending capacitor and stored it for later. Stock, the version with cream pickups was pretty playable. The neck is slightly chunky, and the pickups rather low output, and it now needs a refret... but y'know. The trems on these are quite usable too, because the bridges are intonateable and have roller saddles. Worse guitars to play are those Russian Urals etc, and the Jedson/Top Twenty things.

Hagstroms - an absolutely different league in terms of quality. I love these things. The necks are perhaps slightly too skinny - try one! BTW this only applies to vintage Hags, the modern ones have standard profile necks. The pickups on the HIII up there are cunningly disguised blade or bar-magnet pickups (the poles are small metal discs just for show). This trick must have saved Hagstrom money in production. The output is pretty hot and they sound excellent with fuzz.

Nerine

If I had to buy a guitar that was "cool" and we weren't allowed the high end offerings from Fender and Gibson and all the regular makers etc, I would get a Fano. No question.

TTBZ

Not much cooler than a nice plain top/burst Les Paul slung low imo. Or an Explorer. Or any type of guitar that's been battered and worn to shit by years of playing and gigs (not a paid - for relic).

Neil

It seems to me that a lot of the old stuff today's kids think is cool is the sort of gear we chucked out when we got our first Fender etc.

"Look at me! Mile high action and it won't stay in tune, but I'm cool"

nickb_boy

I just brought one of these so my eldest boy has something more his size to learn on (he's only 5). For what it is I think it seems a pretty cool guitar!

impmann

Shergolds are getting a little dear for this crowd - likewise Hayman. The pickups are great, btw, if they are in good condition - Ash rewound the bridge pickup on my Masquerader to original spec and it sounds epic.

jonnyburgo

My 3, all available S/H for £250 or less, even the Tele if you are lucky

Italia Torino, 50s classic Tele ( reliced) and Dan 63.

HAL9000

nickb_boy said:

I just brought one of these so my eldest boy has something more his size to learn on (he's only 5). For what it is I think it seems a pretty cool guitar!

Interesting - what is it if you don't mind me asking?

Nerine

I think that's the thing with "cool" guitars, that aren't the typical old Fender or Gibson or whatever; I've never actually played one that was actually a good guitar in terms of playability or action or tuning stability or intonation or tone. But hey... Who cares as long as it looks cool, right?! :-?

nickb_boy

@HAL9000;1051632" said:

nickb_boy said:

Interesting - what is it if you don't mind me asking?

It's a Loog 3 string electric. You can see a bit of info on this video:

underdog

I'm loving that Loog

timhulio

Neil said:

It seems to me that a lot of the old stuff today's kids think is cool is the sort of gear we chucked out when we got our first Fender etc.

"Look at me! Mile high action and it won't stay in tune, but I'm cool"

Meet my new Framus! Honestly I think we're living in a golden age. Pretty much every guitar you can buy from a music store at any price point will be playable. Compared to the Marlin/Encore etc junk of the 80s and early 90s. You can buy a Fender (Squier) Strat that'll sound like a Strat for £150. I bought an Ibanez RG (officially the world's least cool guitar) which plays like a dream, easily as well if not better than an AV Jazzmaster, for £113 on the 'Bay. Low action, great fretwork, rock solid tuning (it's a hardtail), solid wood. But I think in a way we're spoilt by this weath of riches, and go looking for quirks, oddity, strangeness. Guitars that fight back ;-)

Sambostar

Reminds me of a '59 Danelectro, which, for a hipster/weirdo type guitar is still reasonably cool. I totally agree with @Neil though.  I had some '60's hand made communist junk thing with a 10cm action before I managed to get my first Strat copy and chucked it in the bin or put it on the fire, I can't remember.