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[dlloyd]

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Edited January 12, 2009 by dlloyd

[BigRedX]

That's far too classy to be a Woolies guitar.

The ones I remember from the mid 70s were all branded K (letter K in a circle) and were uniformly cr@p

[Musky]

You might want to look at the Teisco Twangers website. Some of these guitars were rebadged as Kay and Top Twenty for sale in the UK.

What I remember of Top Twentys from the late seventies, was that they were extremely shoddy instruments, and were about the cheapest things you could buy that looked vaguely like an instrument. Unless anyone remembers differently, they were at that time only sold in Woolworths - just a guitar and bass version, which were clearly the bottom of the line being produced. I really can't imagine any cheaper being available, anywhere.

The picture of the A 200 you've posted looks like a dream machine compared to the top twentys I remember.

[Bassassin]

- These things really are the arse-end of Japcrap (and even KoreaCrap & TaiwanCrap) but seemed to be produced consistently throughout the 60s & 70s - plainly there was a market for them!

Top Twenty would have been some importer's brand that Woolies sold, and I wouldn't be surprised if dlloyd's bass appeared with that name as well as Aria. I think a lot of the Teisco/Kay/Top 20/Sakai/Zenta/Jedson cheapies were made by Kawai - who later went on to much nicer things, but with much less success.

Kay's an interesting brand, they started out as US-built student level instruments & these are now very sought-after. However, 99% of what turns up on the Bay is from the Far-Eastern trash years - most of which isn't even worth the effort of burning! These will be the Woolies guitars with a "K" in a circle, btw.

Some Kays are middling to good - I recently picked up a Kay P Bass copy - it has all the hallmarks of early JapCrap - "sandwich" body, strip-laminate neck, and it also has a MusicMan style 6-bolt neckplate, which is associated with a factory called Moridaira. This thing actually plays pretty nicely, and has a great, authentic Precision sound, and is loud as f***. The only problem is, it's so ridiculously heavy that when you get it out, the room goes dark as light is dragged into its gravity well. I've never gigged with it, as I don't think my back would stand it - so it's gotta go!

Anyway - I digress. Later Korean - made Kays are worth a look too - these are identifiable by the Matsumoku-type through neck build, and often lots of fancy brass bits & inlays, as was fashionable at the time. Here's one:

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RARE-70s-Kay-Bass-Guitar-NEck-Thru-Construction_W0QQitemZ120134739638QQihZ002QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RARE-70s-Kay-Bass-Gu...1QQcmdZViewItem[/url]

These were made by Cort, who are broadly regarded as the best Korean factory, & more or less picked up where the Japanese left off after the 70s. It's suggested these designs might've been licensed through Japanese builder Kasuga - many were very similar to Kasuga's original designs.

Cort/Kay were also responsible for those rather nice neck-through Precision copies that come up on the Bay occasionally.

J.

[Musky]

Teisco have quite a following, as you might have guessed from the website, but I think their appeal lies in their cheesiness rather than any inherent quality.

The pictures from the ebay auction are exactly how I remember the late seventies things sold in Woolies, and they were absolutely dire. It's entirely possible that Woolies were sourcing their instruments from elsewhere by that point, and by that time had no connection with Teisco.

[Musky]

Bassassin - It sounds like the Precision copy you've got is pretty similar to the Kay I learnt on. Natural finish, body made from 6 pieces of wood (3 pieces top and bottom), six bolt neck (although it appeared to be one piece) and weighed a ton. The pickups had no top end whatsoever though, and as the neck was glued as well there was nothing I could do to improve the fairly dire action at the dusty end.

Oh, happy memories.

[Bassassin]

Musky - sounds like the very thing! The neck on mine was glued as well as screwed too - although the ageing adhesive responded to violence (no damage done!) and I was able to shim it to make the action more acceptable. Filing the nut slots down by about 4mm also helped! Mine's not actually branded "Kay" - the little black trc where the logo would be is blank on mine, so it might have been sold unbranded - or, more likely, someone removed it. The body sounds the same, but the neck is made from about 30 strips of what looks like mahogany. I'll take a pic later, if anyone's interested.

dlloyd - I'd be willing to bet these old Aria & similar basses like yours were nothing to do with Matsumoku - the catalogue scans on Matsumoku.org are far from comprehensive, and that model of bass was likely in the range for a lot of years before it appeared in the catalogue on the site. Styling-wise it's '60s, and production probably began then.

Aria are known to have sourced instruments from Matsumoku from 1975 - before then, there's no information on which suppliers they used, and in fact many enthusiasts assert that Aria's parent company, Shiro Arai Co, had their own factory. It's likely that like many other brands, they just bought stock in from a variety of factories.

J.

[2pods]

What about Zenta ?

They were about at the same time but were a slightly better brand of [hiss and mitt]

[BOD2]

"Winfield" was the Woolworths own brand label.

I can't recall if they ever sold guitars under that brand name but they certainly sold everything else.

[beerdragon]

I remember buying crap records from woolies, they were not by the origianal artistes, but copies of top twenty records. here's an early pic of a woolies music shop. (at the bottom)

[url="http://museum.woolworths.co.uk/1960s-newmusic.htm"]http://museum.woolworths.co.uk/1960s-newmusic.htm[/url]

[silverfoxnik]

My first bass was a Xmas present from my folks when I was 14 - it was a Woolworths special with one pick up and cost £22.00 which seemed like a lot of money back in 1975!

[MB1]

MB1.

First bass i ever had was a kay, it was a tree with pickups not very nice at all really.However the first guitar Robert Smith owned apparently was a woolies special and can be heard on early cure recordings.