1970's Univox Gimme Les Paul Copy

I acquired this guitar in April 2008 and it has a market value of $112. I was told it was a Univox with natural finish that had been painted because of the "ugly" color that the finish had yellowed to over time. I was also told that the pickups had been replaced and were thought to be Seymour Duncan pickups now. I replaced the missing knobs with generic speed knobs in black to match the pickups. It really sounds good now and you might even be able to remove the paint to get back to the original finish.






Univox is a defunct American musical instrument and amplifier manufacturer. In the early 1960s the Unicord Corporation, a manufacturer of electronic transformers purchased the Amplifier Corporation of America of Westbury, New York. They began marketing a line of amplifiers under the name of Univox. The company was purchased by Gulf + Western in 1967.




Guitar making operations moved to Japan in 1975 where they continued making guitars until 1982. Production under the Univox name was halted after a fire at the Matsumoku factory. After this time instruments were made in Korea under the name Westbury. The Unicord Corporation was purchased by Korg in 1985, effectively ending the line for good.




Univox was best known for making copies of instruments from better known companies such as Mosrite, Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, Ampeg/Dan Armstrong, Epiphone and others. These copies are often referred to as lawsuit copies among collectors. The Univox Hi-Flier was largely based on the Mosrite "Ventures" guitar; it was popularized in the early 1990s by Kurt Cobain, almost two decades after original production had stopped.

1980's Memphis Strat - SG Copy

this is a Memphis copy of the Fender Stratocaster with a little Gibson SG thrown in probably from the late 1980's. It is a very accurate Japanese copy and has a great sound from the vintage pickups.

I found some conflicting information on Memphis guitars in my research. One place mentionted that Memphis Guitars is a defunct subsidiary of Yamaha that produced guitars during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It said the company started when Yamaha saw an opportunity in the demand for Gibson style guitars. Yamaha formed Memphis Guitars to be a cheap affordable, guitar that had an in-demand style (much the same way Fender guitars make a cheaper version known as Squire and Gibson does with Epiphone). In the mid 1980's Gibson noticed that Memphis guitars where using their designs and sued. Memphis guitars then ceased production. Many people suggest that Yamaha foresaw the lawsuit and started Memphis Guitars as a way of avoiding a lawsuit against Yamaha while selling poorly-made guitars for a quick profit.

Other sources indicate that Memphis guitars were imported by the Kaman Music Corportation of Bloomfield CT which was sold to Fender in 2007. You can find information on warranty on the Kaman website so this does make some sense to me. Kaman owns Ovation Guitars, Hamer Guitars, Genz Benz Amplification, Gibraltar Hardware, LP Percussion and Toca Percussion. The company is also the exclusive U.S. sales representative for Sabian Cymbals and the exclusive worldwide distributor of Takamine Guitars and Gretsch Drums. Maybe the earlier Gibson copies were made by Yamaha and later sold the name to Kaman? If you know the entire history of this model, email me so I can make corrections.

This guitar will be sold on ebay soon. Check my about me page for the ebay listing.

How to become a Guitar Hunter

I've been asked by a lot of people where I find all these guitars. Just think of the obvious places you can buy used guitars and that's where you'll find me. I get my guitars at pawn shops and garage sales most of the time. It does take hard work, dedication, and a great deal of luck to find the better ones at a decent price.

After finding a promising guitar, I like to do research to find out as much as I can about it. Along the way, I'm learning a lot of the history of early guitar manufacturers. I hope my research will help the guitar hunters to come.

You do have to watch out for traps when you're guitar hunting. I'm not talking about the one below -



but the ones like buying a guitar that might have some hidden damage. Cracks, hidden repairs, and electronics that don't work. I'm not sure why people that have no idea how a guitar works go and take the backs off their guitars and even unsolding the connections.

Another big thing you do have to watch out for specially with higher end guitars is a counterfeit. I'm not talking about copies like the strat copies that several companies make, but the ones that try to fool you into thinking they are orignials. These are getting so good that even some experts are being fooled. If you're buying an early Fender or Gibson be very careful.

The chinese fakers are getting really good at this and not only counterfeiting early guitars, but new ones as well. Just last year there were at least 3 websites (such as paylessguitars, samin, musoland) set up to sell the guitars which are offline now. There have also been many ebay sellers offering these chinese guitars. Be careful in what you buy because lots of these guitars are now on the secondary market. I did a quick search and I found a site still operating with counterfeit Les Pauls going for around $200.

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with tributes to iconic guitars made by companies other than Fender, Gibson or Ibanez - as long as they don't slap Fender, Gibson, or Ibanez logos on them and try to pass them off as the real thing.

Here's a great article on how to spot Counterfeit Guitars.

Here's a nice article on how to spot fake Gibsons.

Here's a article on how to spot fake Fenders.

And the third most counterfeited guitar is the Mosrite.

There is even a coalition of four of the best known guitar manufacturers in the world to fight counterfeiters.

Now that you know the basics of guitar hunting, I hope you have a lot of fun. Some people will even say you've developed GAS (guitar aquisition sydrome) but there's nothing wrong with that. If you'd like to share your experiences and finds with the rest of the readers of this blog, send them to me and I'll get them posted.

1970's Electra Gibson ES-335 Copy

I picked up this guitar in August of 2008 and it has a market value of $111.50. It's a 1960's or 1970's vintage Gibson ES-335 style hollowbody Electra guitar. Could be a Kawai, Tokai or Matsumoku built guitar for either SLM or PCM (not sure since it has features that are similar to both but I do believe it to be the PCM Electra). Nice red sunburst color and as far as I can tell, this guitar is all original and complete except for the missing bridge. I didn't have a bridge for an archtop and didn't want to buy one to restore the guitar. I did plug it into an amp and didn't hear anything "strange" out of the pickups.

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.

1960's Gibson ES-175 Copy Aria? Ibanez? Tokia?

I picked this up in August of 2008 and it has a $205.50 market value. It's a 1960's or 1970's vintage ES-175 Gibson style archtop guitar that was made in Japan. Looks similar to some Aria, Ibanez, and Tokia models from the era with the lawsuit style headstock. Rare solid red color with all gold plated hardware. It included an original case although it did have one detached hinge and wasn't in great condition. I was never find information on a similar model and nobody that saw it had seen one like it before either.

1960's Norma Hollowbody Gibson ES-330 Copy

This is the guitar that got it all started. I found this guitar back in June 2008 and it has a $183.50 market value. Model: Could be the EG 671-2-HT, the ES-330 style knockoff. There's not a lot of information on Norma guitars that I can find as to the models they made and when each was made. I've seen several models and still own a few of them.

NORMA HISTORY: Normas were built in Japan between 1965 to 1970 by the Tombo Company and distributed in the U.S. by Strum´N Drum, Inc. of Chicago, Illinois. The company specialized in copying Italian guitars like EKO and Goya and sold them in the U.S.A as NORMA's. The most blatant EKO copy is the SDEG 490-4, a guitar that confused the heck out of MANY. The Tombo Company is still in business, but these days they specialize in harmonica production.