Please help me identify this guitar

[Jason Edwards]

I was just wondering if there was anyone out there that knows anything about who built this guitar the neck doesn't have a strut rod inside it but it's the straightest neck I've seen in a long while 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Jason Edwards
So people can see the whole thing in pieces

[BigRedX]

You do know that this is bass forum... 😉

[Steve Browning]

Hi Jason. We have a guy here who knows a lot about Japanese instruments and so he may have some knowledge. There are aspects of that which look familiar, but I can't place it at the moment.

 

Might be worth changing the subject to be something like 'please help identify this' so people know what you're after.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Steve Browning

[BigRedX]

Once again paging @Bassassin

 

Seriously... Looks to me a bit like a modified "Woolies Special" so may have been branded Zenta or Audition. IIRC most of these were sunburst so it's probably been painted black at some point. Also the pick guard is unlikely to be original.

 

Some more photos would help - close-ups of both sides of the headstock and the neck plate. You may find that there is a truss rod at the body end of the neck.

[Nicko]

Can't help with the ID but that is one fugly looking guitar.

[Crusoe]

That's a strange one. It's as if Fender were making a left handed offset body guitar, but someone forgot and carved the bottom of the body, for the arm, rather than the top. The bridge, trem arm, and pickguard all look homemade.

[BigRedX]

22 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

That's a strange one. It's as if Fender were making a left handed offset body guitar, but someone forgot and carved the bottom of the body, for the arm, rather than the top. The bridge, trem arm, and pickguard all look homemade.

 

The shape is based on the Mosrite as surf music was massively popular in Japan in the 60s.

 

Apart form the black finish and the metal pick guard it looks mostly original. Here's what it probably should have looked like:

 

 

Edit: One of my classmates at school in the late 70s had the bass version of this. It was a nasty, almost unplayable piece of crap.

 

2nd Edit: IIRC these were £19.99 new in Woolworths in the mid 70s. The 2 pickup version was an extra fiver.

Edited November 23, 2022 by BigRedX

[ambient]

I often wonder how many budding guitarists and bassists were put off playing after being given one of these by well-meaning parents at Christmas. 

[chris_b]

12 hours ago, Jason Edwards said:

I was just wondering if there was anyone out there that knows anything about who built this guitar the neck doesn't have a strut rod inside it but it's the straightest neck I've seen in a long while 

 

I'm not surprised. It doesn't have any strings on it!!

[Maude]

10 minutes ago, ambient said:

I often wonder how many budding guitarists and bassists were put off playing after being given one of these by well-meaning parents at Christmas. 

Robert Smith of The Cure liked the pickup in his Woollies Top 20 (similar or same as above) enough to have it transplanted into his Fender Jazzmaster. 

[Jason Edwards]

7 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

I'm not surprised. It doesn't have any strings on it!!

I've took the strings off as I want to restore it

[Steve Browning]

If you position the cursor over the heart symbol, you are presented with some emoji choices. You may want to select the thank you one for BigRedX to acknowledge that he answered your question for you.

[Jason Edwards]



9 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

 

I'm not surprised. It doesn't have any strings on it!!

 

I've took the strings off as I want to restore it



 

 

 

 

 

 

[BigRedX]

Thanks for posting the additional photos. There may still be some reinforcement in the neck but it's just not adjustable. Quite a few other budget brands in the 60s had necks built this way. If it's straight I wouldn't worry about it, but when you put it all back together again you might want to string this with strings from the lighter end of the gauge selection to keep it that way.

 

These photos confirm that it most probably had an Audition logo on the headstock when it was new (there appears to be a hole for fixing the logo badge between the E and A tuner posts), so the photo I posted previously shows how it should look like (apart from the missing vibrato arm, which yours still has). They were sold through Woolworths in the 70s and AFAIK they were the cheapest new electric guitars you could buy in the UK at the time - this particular model would have been under £20 in the shop. None of the examples I came across back then were up to much especially when you consider that at the time you could have bought a much better instrument with Columbus, Grant or Kimbara on the headstock for about the same price second hand.

 

Good luck with the restoration, but I wouldn't spent too much money on it.

Edited November 24, 2022 by BigRedX

[2pods]

Could also be "Top 20" or "Zenta".

Also Woolies specials

[cybertect]

It hasn't been said out loud yet, but everything about that guitar screams that it was made by Teisco

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, cybertect said:

It hasn't been said out loud yet, but everything about that guitar screams that it was made by Teisco

 

Paging @Bassassin

[cybertect]

This might be of interest 

 

 

[Bassassin]

22 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Paging @Bassassin

 

On 28/11/2022 at 18:45, cybertect said:

It hasn't been said out loud yet, but everything about that guitar screams that it was made by Teisco

 

I don't know much about 60s stuff (or the many holdover 60s designs that were sold as beginner guitars in the 70s & early 80s) but I doubt this is Teisco. There were literally hundreds of little manufacturers knocking out this sort of stuff in the 60s and it could have come from any of them. That said, I've seen this type of pickup on Kawai guitars. So it might be a Kawai. Maybe.

 

 

[tauzero]

I've got a feeling that I had one of those knocking about in the garage a while ago, and I chucked it. Looks like something from the Audition range - I had the semiacoustic one a very long time ago.