Product: Kay Rhinestone Cowboy
Price Paid: US $75 Whatta steal! It really buzzed at the time, however. used
Submitted
09/19/1998
at
07:37pm
by
Emery Barter
Email: cartoonman5 at yahoo<dot>com
Features
:
10
I'm not sur what year it was made, but it's probably late '50s or early early 60s. It's bridge, tailpeice, knobs, checkered binding, and headstock shape with script logo bear a strong resemblance to the "Swingmaster" model, but it's about an inch and a half thick, hollow with no f-holes, slightly longer than a Les Paul and has the pickups of a 592 and K300, narrower than their "Barney Kessel" and other Kelvinator models', with no visible polepeices and a ridge in the middle. Each of these 3 pickups has 6 red rhinestones (3 on either side of the ridge) as do the knobs and the tuner pegs, capped with red rhinestones. The tailpiece is also covered with them, as is the entire guitar. It's definately a professional job done by the factory, though, with holes drilled for each one. They are placed very interestingly, in neat patterns and different colors and sizes. A number of them have this neat rainbow coating that changes as the light hits at a diffent angle, very bright, so it lookes as though the guitar had hundreds of little colored lights in it. (I counted the stones once, there are over 400.) They look like stars in the black finish. The pickup selector has a huge chrome star around it like you might see on a 50s car. This is definately a custom made model. I could never describe how incredibly cool this is, so contact me if you're interested and if you know what this might be.
Sound
:
10
It sounds GREAT! I know most Kays are cheap beginnners instruments, but they used to make some nice professional instruments also. It has the greatest tone for surf and old rock and roll, rockabilly and jazz, blues, whatever. Nice and full, bright, lots of bass.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
10
When I got it it buzzed, but a quick adjustment of the bridge fixed that. Who knows how it was set up 40 years ago.
Reliability/Durability
:
6
Everything's great except that because of the age of the glue, the rhinestones have a tendency to fall off, so you have to be careful. It's never broken a string however, because of that wooden bridge.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Ha! I think they've benn gone since the late 60's or something.
Overall Rating
:
10
Please tell me if you know anything about what this guitar might be, and e-mail if you'd like a photo.
