1980's Westone XA1630 Genesis II

I acquired this guitar in the fall of 2008 and it has a market value of $91. It's a Westone Genesis II XA1630 from the 1980's. This model was produced in the Matsumoku Factory for the 65th anniversary of St. Louis Music. This thing plays well and sounds great and everything seems to work. As far as I can tell, this guitar is all original except I did replace a bad output jack. This guitar does have some nicks and dings in the finish as shown in the pictures. Note: Back cover plate, stringlock washers and bolts, whammy bar and Allen key holder from the headstock are all missing

Body is solid Poplar, Canadian Hard Rock Maple neck, Rosewood 350mm radius fingerboard (25.5 inch scale, 22 frets, 18% Nickel Silver), and graphite nut.

H/S/S pickups (All are Magnaflux V, 2 in the bridge position), 5 way switch, master volume and master tone controls, Mid/Shape control. Bendmaster Deluxe tremelo with fine tuners and locking nut.

Available in White Burgundy, Burgundy Pearl or Platinum Blue Burst

(Info from the 1987 'Limited Editions' catalogue) Appears in the april 1987 US pricelist at $499 and in the Sept 1987 and Jan 1988 US pricelists at $449

Electra guitars were imported from Japan by St. Louis Music from 1971-1984. Most of the instruments were made by Matsumoku in Matsumoto Japan. The Electra line replaces SLM's Japanese made Apollo and US made Custom Kraft lines. The first guitar, simply called The Electra, was a copy of the Ampeg Dan Armstrong lucite guitar and issued in 1971, followed quickly by a variety of bolt-neck copies of other brands. In 1975 the Tree-of-Life guitars debut with a leaf pattern carved into the top, and the Electra line expanded to 25 models. Open-book headstocks changed to wave or fan shape by 1978. By around 1981 ties with Matsumoku further solidified and decision eventually made to merge SLM's Electra brand with Matsumoku's Westone brand. Some Korean production began in the early 80's. In the fall of 1983, the Electra Brand becomes Electra Phoenix. By the beginning of 1984, the brand became Electra-Westone and by the end of 1984 just Westone. By 1987 or 1988 Singer Sewing Machines had bought Matsumoku and killed guitar production. SLM changed the brand to Alvarez (it's acoustic brand) and switched production to other plants, including Korea.

SLM was even competing with itself. Bernard Kornblum's Saint Louis Music (SLM) Electra brand competed with his own brother David Kornblum's California based Pacific Coast Music (PCM) Electra brand yet the two were not connected. Pacific Coast Music's Electra logo was nearly identical to the SLM Electra logo from 1972 to 1975 except instead of the SLM gold text, a black text on a white background was used. Both companies often imported from the same source. Pacific Coast often have an X on the headstock or the pickguard. In general, most favour the SLM versions to the PCM ones and the documentation and models are better represented by the SLM versions.