1960's Vintage Guitars | MyRareGuitars.com

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage 1960’s Conrad Guitars

By Mike Robinson

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August 1, 2013

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Guitar History, Guitar Talk

As much as I would like to, I can’t really shed a lot of light on this brand. What we do know, is they were from Japan, mid 60’s to early 70’s. All the typical copy-era models that you would see from Teisco and a handful of other brands. Slightly better than average quality, similar to the Domino guitars. So, likely an American importer that found a niche and filled it for as long as he/she could. Rather than ramble on about it, I’ll simply offer up a bunch of photos so you can let your imagination run wild!

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage 1960’s Domino California Rebel CE82 Electric Guitar

By Mike Robinson

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May 1, 2013

| 8 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Guitar History, Vintage Guitars

In the 1960’s Maurice Lipsky Music Co., a prominent importer and distributor in New York City, developed the Domino brand of guitars. One of my favorites from them was the Californian Rebel. Lipsky was also the company that offered the Orpheum brand of guitars from the 1950s on. Many Orpheum’s were made by United Guitars of Jersey City, NJ, the successor to the Oscar Schmidt Company. There is some evidence that Lipsky’s Orpheum name was used on some Italian Wandré guitars, as well.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Airline “Jetsons” 2P Red Res-O-Glas Guitar

By Mike Robinson

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May 1, 2013

| 2 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Guitar History, Vintage Guitars

Airline guitars were being made in USA from 1958-1968 by Valco Manufacturing Company and sold primarily through the Montgomery Ward catalog company. Valco also made other popular brands like Supro and National. Today they are being made through Canadian company Eastwood Guitars. By the early 1960’s Airline were producing many different models – most in those early days were solid wood designs like the Town and Country, but the more valuable vintage models were made of res-o-glas. This model is often referred to as the Jetsons model.

Catalog of Dreams (Vintage 1965 Silvertone Teisco 1437 Electric Guitar)

By Michael Wright

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May 1, 2013

| 12 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Guitar History, Vintage Guitars

One of the highlights of life back when I was a youngster was the arrival of the latest Sears or Montgomery Ward catalog. Anything you desired could be delivered right to your door. A lot of my early knowledge about guitars (and lingerie) came out of those “wish books.” One piece of that knowledge, however, wasn’t about this Sears Silvertone because when it was made in 1965, Sears only sold Japanese-made guitars through its retail store outlets, not through its catalogs!

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Airline Barney Kessel Swingmaster Guitar

By Mike Robinson

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April 2, 2013

| 8 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Guitar History, Vintage Guitars

Here are a pair of Airline Barney Kessel models from the 1960’s. It was also known as the Swingmaster, and could be found under the Kay brand and the Old Kraftsmen brand.

All Amped Up (Vintage 1967 Standel Custom Model 202 Electric Guitar)

By Michael Wright

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April 2, 2013

| 5 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Vintage Guitars, Vintage Guitars & Gear

Back in the late 1960s, amplifiers were big. No, I don’t mean as in “popular.” I mean as in big! I had a giant 350-watt solid-state Mosrite that ran a whole band. It was so big, I had to buy a VW Bus to schlep it around. Back then, probably no big amp brand was bigger—as in more popular—than Standel out of California. Those were the amps to have (I suspect my Mosrite was really made by them). Standel got so big, the company introduced its own guitar lines. And, just as Mosrite probably didn’t make any amps, Standel didn’t make any of its guitars.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Contessa Guitar & Bass

By Mike Robinson

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March 4, 2013

| 3 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Guitar Talk, Vintage Guitars

Castelfidardo is a town in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region of central-eastern Italy. During the early 1960’s this area was a hot bed for small but talented guitar builders, but also had links back to USA. From this area in Italy builders like Zerosette were branded with names like JG, Goya, Contessa, Atlas and Sano. Sano? Weren’t they an AMP builder in USA? That’s the connection!

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Coral Hornet Guitar

By Mike Robinson

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March 4, 2013

| 10 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Guitar Talk, Vintage Guitars

There is not much information available out there on these fabulous late 60’s guitars. The Coral Hornet is certainly in my top ten all time favorite guitars. Why? The body was ultra thin. So thin in fact that the control cavity was mounted on a raised metal enclosure because the body was too thin to hold the pots and switches. The pickguard was completely unique, I’ll try to explain…

Back Catalog Memories: Airline 3P Res-O-Glas Guitar (White Finish)

By Mike Robinson

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March 4, 2013

| 3 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Guitar History, Vintage Guitars

Originally, Airline branded electric and acoustic guitars were made in the United States from 1958-68 by the VALCO Manufacturing Company, and sold through Montgomery Ward catalogs. VALCO also used the brand names of National and Supro. Today, old Valco guitars are played by a wide array of bands and artists including David Bowie (Supro Dual Tone), The Cure (National MAP), Jack White (Airline 2P), Calexico and P.J. Harvey using this original Airline 3P Res-O-Glas, the top-of-the-line for Airline at the time.

Nectar of the Gods (Vintage 1967 Apollo Deluxe 2235 Electric Guitar)

By Michael Wright

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March 4, 2013

| 7 Comments

| 1960's Vintage Guitars, Vintage Guitars, Vintage Guitars & Gear

One cool thing about liking oddball old guitars is they always contain hope…and a challenge. By which I mean, no matter how obscure or exotic, you always live with hope that you’ll someday figure out what the heck they are and thrive on the challenge of trying to do so. At least that’s been my repeated experience over the last quarter century or so of playing guitar detective. That being said, this 1967 Apollo Deluxe was kind of the exception that proved the rule, in that it followed a reverse pattern, sort of backing into discovery.