My name is Bob, and I’m addicted to cheap,
funky electric guitars. Oh sure, I love my Les Pauls
and the rest of my high-quality guitars, but lately
the allure of a good Supro, a cheesy Japanese
Teisco, or one of those tacky, plastic-covered
Italian EKO guitars has been calling me. Even the
“mother-of-toilet-seat” ones are starting to look
good. Why is this happening? Maybe it’s because
many of these cheaply made, once-maligned
pawnshop rejects from the ‘50s and ‘60s are easily obtainable, generally priced right, and after
a proper setup and often-needed repairs, play
pretty darn well, and with a sound, look and vibe
unlike most any high-end guitar. And who wants
to look and sound just like everyone else?
Decades ago, this writer got into the vintage
guitar game with the purchase of a couple
dozen big-name electrics. All are regrettably
gone, and today—as the father of two kids with
a mortgage, car payments, and the usual day-to-day expenses we all share—high-dollar vintage guitars are way beyond my grasp. I made
some serious money on the guitars I sold, and
eventually disavowed vintage guitars, but have
regained a strong desire to re-enter the arena.
The solution was to buy “sleeper” guitars: the
cheap, easily affordable stuff. Of course, if I find
a ’ 59 Sunburst Les Paul under a farmer’s bed out
in the boonies, I’m not going to turn it down.
So, I started in the usual places: eBay, Craigslist,
Vintage Guitar magazine, guitar dealers, various
websites that cater to weird guitars, and to collectors like Mike Robinson, owner of Eastwood
Guitars, a company that specializes in reproductions of bizarre guitars. I found out quickly there
were plenty of choices out there, but as is the
case with well-known vintage guitars, the rarer,
odd stuff is more costly than commonly found
models. Here’s an overview for those of you
interested in collecting weird vintage guitars
from the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Livin’ In The USA
Harmony Guitars of Chicago was by far the
largest maker of budget-priced guitars in the
US for 83 years. In 1965, Harmony shipped a
whopping 350,000 guitars, and sold 10 million
guitars between 1945 and 1978, astounding
numbers, to say the least. The instruments were
sold primarily at Sears and JC Penney, and later
by music distributors. Hollowbody electrics like
the Rocket are now collectible and favored by
blues players, and can normally be had for a
fairly reasonable price, unlike their Gibson counterparts from the late ‘50s and ‘60s. Harmony’s
earliest solidbody, the Stratotone, a rudimentary
instrument also a favorite among blues players,
commands big bucks on the collectible market.
One mint example recently fetched $1500 on
eBay. Harmony, like other American manufacturers of low-end guitars, fell victim to the influx of
cheaply made Asian guitars that began to flood
the US market in the mid-‘60s. Today, a company in Elk Grove, IL owns the name Harmony,
and has begun reissuing some of the company’s
better-known electric models.
Another preeminent manufacturer of cheaply
made American electric guitars was New
Jersey-based Danelectro. Founder Nat Daniel,
whose name is frequently overshadowed by
fellow innovators like Leo Fender, Les Paul,
Ted McCarty, Paul Bigsby and others, was an
extremely forward-thinking, clever and adapt-
able man, who knew how to make a good,
cheap guitar. To quote his son, Howard Daniel,
in Doug Tulloch’s book Neptune Bound: The
Ultimate Danelectro Guitar Guide: “My father’s
most fundamental innovation however, may
well have been the basic idea behind virtually
everything he made—to produce amplifiers and
guitars that were both high quality and affordable to ordinary people, especially the families of
youngsters—beginners who wanted to learn the
guitar but didn’t have a lot of money to spend.”
‘60s Smith (Mosrite) “Mel-O-Bar” with zebra-padded, explor-er-shaped body; ‘60s Silvertone Jupiter with black sparkle
finish and De Armond pickups.
In 1949, Nat started building amplifiers for
Sears and Epiphone, but in 1954 he went into
business making guitars under the Danelectro
name, while he continued to sell to Sears and
later Montgomery Ward under the names
Silvertone and Airline. Nat was an expert at
producing highly playable guitars for very little
money. By the time he sold out to MCA (Music
FEATURE
Corporation of America) in 1966, Nat had produced some of the most playable, interesting,
and innovative low-budget electric guitars ever
made. Hundreds of thousands of kids started
with a Danelectro-built guitar, and today, literally
every vintage “Dano” is collectible. More common models like the Convertible and the Short
Horn are available in their various incarnations,
but are becoming harder to find as collectors
seemingly hoard old Danos. Rarer models, like
the U series guitars in custom colors, the black
Short Horn “Jimmy Page” model, the Guitarlin,
and Long Horn basses, will set you back serious
coin, but you can pick up a vintage Danelectro
Convertible or U- 1 for under $500, and they
make a very good utility guitar.
The National/Valco Company had a long
and checkered history that started with the
Czechoslovakian Dopyera brothers, who
founded the company and invented the Dobro
as well as steel-bodied acoustics favored by
bluesmen. In the 1950s, Valco produced some
of the coolest low-end guitars imaginable.
Their USA map-shaped Res-O-Glas guitars
have a cult following, and fetch high prices on
the vintage market—a fact that frankly baffles
this writer, because the guitars were not well
constructed, often play poorly, and sound
nearly as bad. Fiberglass isn’t exactly conducive to great tone. Valco, however, hit a home
run with their wooden-body Supro guitars,
originally intended as the company’s budget
line. Models such as the Les Paul Junior-like
Belmont, its twin-pickup sibling the Dual-Tone,
and the early and very basic single-pickup
Ozark, have endeared themselves to guitarists worldwide, including Link Wray, Joe Perry,
Rory Gallagher, David Bowie and many others. Supros make excellent slide guitars. Valco
pickups look like humbuckers, but are actually
large single-coil units with a raunchy, distinct
tone all their own. Yours truly just recently won
a nifty white ’ 58 Dual-Tone on eBay for $660.
PREMIER GUITAR MARCH 2010 109
Valco also made Supro-style solidbodies that
carried the names Tosca, Bronson, and Dwight,
specifically for musical instrument retailers or
distributors. These show up on eBay with some
regularity, and are quite rare yet surprisingly
affordable. And finally, there are the Valco-made
Airline guitars, most notably the angular, bright
red Res-O-Glas “Jetsons” model made famous
by White Stripes’ guitarist Jack White. Originals
now sell for high dollars, but you can grab a
faithful repro by Eastwood for much less.
Also in the USA corner, Kay guitars have
attained cult collectability status. Like Harmony,
Kay guitars were specifically aimed at the
