Airline Jetson

made in the late 50's, for the montgomery ward cataloug, 21 frets. 2 humbucker looking things that i dont think are humbuckers, a tone and volume nob for each pickup that dont do shit, a 3 way pickup switch, and a master volume. it has a 0 fret so you cant really change the action, and the bastard wont stay in tune. and it is almost imposible to tune the open to the octave. its a weird body style, red and white, some guy in the wihte stripes uses it. kluson delux tuners, old and need to be replaced.

shitty sound on my amp (audition 30) but i took it to my school and ran it through the auditorium soudn system it was great. i play it acustic all the time because its fiber glass, and really loud for an unpulged eletric.

shitty action. (stupid zero fret)

well, shit its 50 years old, but i opend it up to do some repair. (ok, fine i was bored to tears and wantedt to see it). and it has been home repared before, and i need to re sodder the bridge picup. the nut had to be replaced, and verry custom made by my self, (stupid zero fret). so i guess it is ok ish.

valco dose not exist any more. so the suport sucked

meh

It probably dates from the mid to late 1950's and was made (I think) by Valco for the Montgomery Wards department store chain. I've read somewhere that these were made in Chicago and similar guitars were produced for Supro and National.

Its made out of fibreglass (res-o-glas) and is red with a white pickguard. If you want to know what it looks like go and pick up a copy of De Stijl by the White Stripes as it is the same guitar that Jack White uses. 21 frets though you can't really play high up the neck very well on it as the action isn't brilliant. It has two pick-ups which look like humbuckers but are in fact single coil. It has a three way selector switch and pots for master volume and volume and tone for each of the two pick ups though quite frankly twiddling the pots seems to do feck all. It has Kluson tuners which seem to stay in tune reasonably well though I haven't gigged it yet so the jury's still out.

I tend to play a lot of blues or classic rock. It makes a decent enough sound and with a bit of perseverance you can get good tones from it. I am running it through a Roland Blues Cube which probably doesn't do it a lot of justice in all fairness. Seems a bit pointless running a vintage guitar through a modern amp. With the neck pick-up you can get quite a nice warm jazzy sound that sounds pretty good for funky rhythm. The bridge pick up sounds like a Tele when the tone is cranked up to the maximum. It has a nice biting quality like a Tele. I imagine that it will make a good slide guitar if I choose to use it for that. Variety? Not a lot, jazzy in the neck pick up; biting in the bridge. Feck all seems to happen when you twiddle the tone knob so I think there maybe something wrong with the pots. It may need an overhaul. If the amp was right I imagine you could get similar sounds out of it as Jack White does out of his.

It does have some good sounds I just don't think the amp that I am using is particularly suitable. Perhaps using a vintage tube amp would allow it to reach its true potential.

Set up as bought. Playable but certainly not fast action. It is not too bad on the lower part of the neck, but trying to play higher neck runs can be "interesting" to say the least.

Its was a cheapo guitar when new so the action and finish is not Gibson quality. Pick-ups work fine, pots a little bit dodgy.

Would I be happy to gig with this? Difficult to say. I haven't really subjected it to any serious gigging so I am not sure how well it would stand up to being used live. Still, it is over 40 years old and is still going strong. I think it would hold up o.k. I'd probably use it more of a second guitar with my Gibson Les Paul as my main guitar.

Do the company exist? I doubt it so I imagine customer support would be somewhere around non-existent.

I have been playing off and on for about 5 years. I also own a Gibson Les Paul Classic Premium Plus, and Epiphone Les Paul Standard which is set-up for slide and a Fender Telecaster 72 Custom.

I bought it on the Net which in all fairness probably wasn't the best way of doing it as I did not get the chance to try it. Still the guitar seems to work perfectly adequately.

I bought it after seeing the White Stripes as I loved the look and the sound of it. It took me quite a while to find it and if I ever had it stolen I would happily kneecap the fecker who took it. I love the character of this guitar, its old and it complains occasionally but that is part of the charm about it.