josie Posted August 14, 2018 Share Posted August 14, 2018 Apologies if someone else has beaten me to this: https://www.guitarworld.com/gear/world-oldest-electric-bass-guitar-sells-on-ebay-for-23000 It does bring home the difference in price between guitars and basses. What do you reckon the equivalent "normal guitar" would cost? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xgsjx Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 $7.5m http://www.delmarvalife.com/delmarvalife/lewes-man-sells-guitar-7-5-million-dollars/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teebs Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 I suppose the real question is, is it any good for metal? 🤘 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 In all fairness, what he sold was 'the world's oldest bass guitar that is not a Fender or a Rickenbacker or anything that most people would recognise'. I'll bet the world's oldest Fender would sell for a bit more than the price of a family car ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftybassman392 Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 2 hours ago, xgsjx said: $7.5m http://www.delmarvalife.com/delmarvalife/lewes-man-sells-guitar-7-5-million-dollars/ At the risk of being unnecessarily picky... Frying pan Predates the model shown by around 5 years. I've done a bit of admittedly superficial digging but haven't been able to come up with a value, although I rather suspect it might be a bit more than the $7.5m paid for the one shown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twincam Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 9 hours ago, josie said: Apologies if someone else has beaten me to this: https://www.guitarworld.com/gear/world-oldest-electric-bass-guitar-sells-on-ebay-for-23000 It does bring home the difference in price between guitars and basses. What do you reckon the equivalent "normal guitar" would cost? What gets me wound up, is people doing a no finger style demo. Its all slapbass (See bottom of link). The thing is ancient too (1936), it's just wrong, him sat there slapping the stinky poo out of it. Then he breaks out a pick from nowhere and really goes to town with that too. I stopped watching when he started tapping. I want to hear its normal finger style tone. Haha only joking. There isn't any slap bass or pick playing in the demo , I wish there had been. I'm parodying demo comments. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hellzero Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 If you understand French, I wrote a mémoire some 15 to 20 years ago about the origins of electric basses and guitars up to 1965. It was an event day around lutherie and I also made a presentation of the main usual basses and their respective sound, and also explained how to have the real sound of your instrument with any amp. I can create a topic and put a link to the pdf. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 46 minutes ago, Hellzero said: ...I can create a topic and put a link to the pdf. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 L'audace, et toujours l'audace, mon brave! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacDaddy Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 2 hours ago, Happy Jack said: L'audace, et toujours l'audace, mon brave! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyquipment Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 Cue Chinese’s knock offs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hellzero Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 There it is : 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodinblack Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 7 hours ago, leftybassman392 said: At the risk of being unnecessarily picky... Frying pan Predates the model shown by around 5 years. I've done a bit of admittedly superficial digging but haven't been able to come up with a value, although I rather suspect it might be a bit more than the $7.5m paid for the one shown. I suspect the real name was 'Worlds oldest solid body bass guitar', as I assume someone stuck a pickup on a double bass way before the 30s Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skankdelvar Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 (edited) 11 hours ago, leftybassman392 said: At the risk of being unnecessarily picky... Frying pan Predates the model shown by around 5 years. I've done a bit of admittedly superficial digging but haven't been able to come up with a value, although I rather suspect it might be a bit more than the $7.5m paid for the one shown. Stromberg catalogue 1929 At the risk of being even pickier - in 1929 the Stromberg Voisinet Company was selling flat tops with an integral pick-up and a companion amplifier which looks remarkably like something Phil Jones might have put together. So that's six years before the Rickenbacker / Electro-string Ken Roberts archtop in the article about the guy in Lewes and three years before the frying pan. Vivitone Electric Guitar circa 1933 Now let's get really picky... Gibson's Lloyd Loar was working on pick-ups and amps from 1919 onwards and in 1924 designed an electrically amplified upright bass. Though Loar was their mainstay guitar designer Gibson's management scoffed at his ideas about electrics. Outcome? Loar got the ar$e and had it on his toes to set up his own operation. By 1933 Loar's Vivitone company was chopping out arch-tops with a pick-up and a companion battery powered amp (busking, anyone?) that pre-dates the Pignose. There wasn't much demand so Loar turned his mind to the idea of electric pianos. Gibson would eventually catch up in 1936 when the company released the ES-150. Vivitone electrics / dope cubbyhole The eagle-eyed observer will have spotted that Lloyd Loar's hollow-body Vivitone has no f-holes through which to insert the electrics (early attempt to reduce feedback?). Loar's elegant solution was to put everything in a little sliding drawer on the bout which presumably also provided stash-space for jazz cigarettes. All this was 85 years ago and two years before Rickenbacker. Jazz Great Perry Botkin with Doc Kauffman's Vibrola guitar / amp combo My favourite early guitar is the Vibrola designed by Doc Kauffman which debuted in July 1936 and was taken up by Electro-String. The guitar was mounted on a pole which was attached to the amplifier. Inside the solid guitar body was a system of electrically driven pulleys which provided a mechanical vibrato effect. Doc Kauffman not only invented the first guitar whammy bar in 1928 (Les Paul bought one) but went on to found K&F with Leo Fender in 1945, leaving around the time that Leo started working on the Telecaster. In another wang-bar coincidence, around this time Leo was allegedly picking Paul Bigsby's brains for solid body guitars and nicking the design for the Strat headstock. Fender's distribution company was owned by Francis Hall who in 1951 bought Rickenbacker from Adolph Rickenbacker, he who had first produced the frying pan, drawing on his experience manufacturing steel guitar bodies for Dobro back in the 1920's. (Francis Hall's son John now runs Rickenbacker; his hobbies include firing off menacing threats at UK bass forums). Thing is, all these guys knew each other or were aware of each other's work. Fascinating times. Edited August 15, 2018 by skankdelvar 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jus Lukin Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 (edited) - Edited February 27, 2022 by Jus Lukin 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hellzero Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 Faites chier la vache ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 (edited) Well, if we're going to get that picky... This fellow was using electrics on solid bodies in the very late 17xx's, according to Ms Shelley. The experiments were not popular with the neighbours, though, and the technique was abandoned for a couple of centuries. Edited August 15, 2018 by Dad3353 1 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skankdelvar Posted August 15, 2018 Share Posted August 15, 2018 44 minutes ago, Dad3353 said: This fellow was using electrics on solid bodies in the very late 17xx's, according to Ms Shelley. Quite so, though posterity would have to wait. The Frankenstein guitar was first successfully animated by Dr Edward Lodewijk Van Halen in the mid-late 20th century. Ita fiebat. Funnily enough, Mary Shelley is the aunt of Pete Shelley out of The Buzzcocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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