EKO J 54/1 Ranger VI Elec

It was made in the late seventies. Build in recarnatie and signed on the inside by the builder. It has 21 frets, a solid top an a pick up unit mounted at the base of the neck. Two controls sound and volume. I have no idear what the make is of the p.u.. but they were factory mounted. The finisch is transparant gloss, nice ring around the hole and "striking plate" and the guitar has a beautyfull brown woodtan. There are inlay's (dots) the materiaal is bone or plastic. The neck has a massive feel and is screwed to the body. The tuners look very cheap but they do the job extremely well and thats is keeping the guitar in tune. (I've used Grover's and Shallers that didn't live up to this standaard.

This guitar is an ideaal instument for various styles. You can easy fingerpick on it and sound as good as any new Martin or Taylor guitar. Strumming is another great feature of this guitar. It make's you sound like you were a better player and it doesn't take much effort. She play's delightfull and delicate. I use her toghether with a Kitty Hawk 45 amp. And the sounds you get are rich and wonderfull. For fingerpicking I use an mic set-up to get the full richness of the sound to the people. In addition I use a Zoom 504 effect unit.

Sorry but my guitar was and is still in pristeen condition. (Still faktory setup) Use 11/52 SIT strings and she hums like a bee. The electronincs are of course dated to the seventies, a Fishman pick-up would perform better I guess. But I refuse to customise this beauty.

Nothing will break this guitar. It feels like a rock and it weights far more than you would expect. But the neck is still deadstraight and she sounds like an vintage guitar should sound.

Didn't need to the guitar stayed in one peace.

I play for 26 years now. For years music was my only way of living. This guitar is wonderfull as it is. i love the sound and the ease you play it. I'm from Holland and this is a rear guitar to own.

This was my first electrified guitar. I bought it 21 years ago, in 1981: I wanted to play jazz & I didn't have enough money to afford a real electic-acoustic jazz axe. It was (and still is!) a big dreadnought, bolt-on neck C&W guitar made in Recanati (Italy, my Country), with a neck pu. Don't know anything about the wood. Cheap tuning machines (its only weakest point).

As I told before, I play jazz. Believe me, I mounted a D'Addario .11/.52 set, and it sounds incredibly jazz, even though this guitar wasn't born for it. Obviously I play with clean sounds only, and it fits perfectly my style. I think it's good also for blues (slide too).
Sound is good when played acoustic (moreover, I remember I played a 12-string Ranger, and it was the most incredible 12-s axe I ever listen to: if you can, try to find one!). The stock pu sounds incredible with good strings, and allows a rather varied sound spectrum.

Sice I play jazz with no pick (I play with the thumb) I removed the pickguard (its C&W style didn't fit my style...), and nowadays it's got a beautiful, warm honey-blonde color. I love this guitar: having played it since I was 17, it became part of me.

No defects, good varnish (I repeat, I owned it for more than 20 years, and nothing happened to this incredible axe), action can be easily reguled as you want, neck never twisted (in 22 years I had to use the truss rod only once a few days after I bought it), despite the rather thick strings I use to play with. The only complain (apart from the cheap tuners, but you can esaily replace them with a few bucks) is the string tension, which is VERY strong and in recent years made me switch to a "softer" guitar, more suitable to my small hands. But I think this is normal for a guitar like this: maybe you'd do better to use lighter strings to fix this problem.

ROCK SOLID, my dears, this is an incredible guitar you can use as a table, a kayak paddle, a drum...after 21 years NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING bad happened. It's solid like a solid body, you can with no doubts depend on it. I think I'm able to say it with no doubts after so many years!

Never needed to contact them : the guitar is still brand new as I bought it last week.

I've been playing for 25 years, a large part using this axe. If stolen, I'd cry because this guitar it's part of me, and even if today I use to play a solid body (a Strat) because of a car crash that created problems to my back (I can't play hollow bodies for more than 20 min.), if you're looking to a country electric-acoustic, a big bang for the bucks, something to depend on for a whole like, do not hesitate. I dunno how much it can cost today :I payed it 140,000 Italian liras, but it was 21 year ago: at today's change they'd be about 70 dollars or Euros, but I think that today it may be around 200 $, worthin - I think - at least DOUBLE! BUY THIS GUITAR, YOU'LL BE GLAD FOR YOUR WHOLE LIFE!

- Recenati, Italy, Year Unknown
- 21 Frets
- Solid Top
- Original Factory Volume and Tone Controls
- Original Factory Bar Pickup mounted at base of Neck
- Wood unknown
- Typical heavy EKO varnish with numerous cracks. Cracks do not extend to wood.
-- Dreadnought Body
- Factory Bridge
- Original Factory Tuner Pegs stripped, replaced with Grover Tuners by Elderly Instruments
- Dot Inlay (probably plastic dots!)

I've been playing this as an acoustic, primarily in open tunings, both with and without a slide for the last ten years. Its projection is a little bit light as an acoustic in standard tuning.

But it also served me as a good electric rhythm guitar for a year or two. I found that with a tube amp, a phase shifter and an echoplex, it's capable of some very sweet nasty sounds; with the effects stripped down and the speaker overdriven right, an effectively dirty sound for Chicago style blues. It's actually about to live with an amp for the first time in a while, so we will see....

The original tuning heads were fine on the gear side, but the buttons were white plastic faux ivory and the plastic had stripped off a couple of the pegs when I had Elderly replace them with Grovers.

But with both sets of heads, the guitar has been stable once it is tuned. I've played Martins that were harder to keep tuned. The controls are still quiet when the unit is amplified.

This is an unbelievably solid guitar. I saw a quote from an Englishman who called its acoustic counterpart: "the Italian fighting guitar." It was a Mexican who swung this particular guitar at my particular head, and that's another story, but I do note that I didn't fall, the guitar didn't break, and the Mexican just handed me back my guitar and walked away cursing.

This guitar is also called "the busker's friend" and I can see why. If you need one electric-acoustic instrument this is it.

I got this guitar about one year after I started playing and I've had it for 18 years now, I got it because I had played my friend Niko's EKO acoustic-electric and liked it a lot; we were playing a lot of basic blues and rock and roll....but one day he traded it in on a Strat (btw Niko -- I would have given you more than you got on the trade-in) and I was in a state. The next week I saw this one in the window of the pawn shop and had to have it. There was just no question.

It's a solid guitar that plays well...I don't have to baby it and it can perform servicably in just about any format. The only other one of these I've seen since I bought mine was listed at $400 (US).