Madeira EG-71BLK

A standard Tele style,lipsick neck pickup,and typical looking bridge pickup, with six barrel type bridge.This one has Black body w/string tru, blk pickguard. Tuners are cheap looking type, but they stay in tune as good as any Grovers or Spercels.The neck is exquisite flame maple, with a 3D look, has that nice ripple looking maple, much like you se on alot of custom built guitars.The neck shape is a soft "V", and very nice and comfortable. The Headstock is Black and shaped somewhat like a strat shape, and has the Madeira name brand logo, which was built by Guild.

This is a Tele that puts most to shame! One guy I know has a made in China Squire, and this just is way beyond compare. A guy I jam with just bought a 600 dollar guitar, with "Duncan Designed " pickups on it, and when he plugged this Tele in, he never picked up his new guitar again all night! I had a G&L Tribute, and I sold it, and kept this one, cause there was no comparison in sound, this one sounded better. It is a very Tele sounding guitar, but when run in the distortion channel, it has balls. The bridge pickup doesn't thin out and lose sustain during pinch harmonics, it sustains very nicely. I use a Randell RT-30, all tube amp, and also a couple of 50 watt SS amps for practice.

The guitar is over 30 years old, and is like new, all I've done is change the strings, the selector is a little scratchy, but not bad, a drop of oil would fix that.

This is a great guitar period,well built, if I did anything to change it, it would be better tuners, but they work fine, but others I've seen that look like them, were not so good. so they look cheap, but work very well. the guitar is like a tank. I play sometimes very heavy handed, and havn't had any problems with this guitar.

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I've played on and off since the late 60's, I've owned a Fender black face Bassman, and a Marshall 212 combo, I own a Legend R'n'R 50 212 combo,a Randall RT-30 212. and an Earcandy 212 cab, a couple of other SS amps, and a homemade 212 cab. I've owed Gibson guitars, and G&L Tele, many very good and rare Japan built vintage guitars, a custom shop Washburn Sammy Hagar, and I tend to modify alot of cheaper axes, and use Fralins, and SD's.

Your standard Tele features. Maple neck. Standard Tele pickup set up and controls. Tuners are the weak point on this guitar but seem to be adequate if you tune up to the note with a good turn. I have looked all over this guitar and can not find any "made in" dates or "origin".
I will assume previous reviewer knew what he was talking about when he said they were made in japan for guild in the early eighties. That would look about right with the amount of wear this guitar has.

It looks like these are the originial pickups, but let me tell you they sound great. I the guitar straight into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe or a Crate VC20 (both tube amps). Once the tubes get hot you get a really good growl with suprising definition. As a previous reviewer said the pots were cheap, i disagree. They are just old dude. This one has some scratch in the tone pot but i think a good shot of cleaner will take care of that. The wiring and pots on this guitar were first class when new. Now i bought this in a pawn shop so i am assuming these are originial pick ups and controls. As far as variety, you a choice of jazzy clean to kick ass growl. Very full sound, but then again i am playing through tube amps.

Guitar was in pretty bad shape as far as set up goes when i got it. It had been sitting in a pawn shop window for about six months. The strings were black from being on so long. I had looked at this guitar for months and was slightly turned off by the Madeira logo on black headstock. I was searching for some parts and finally talked the guy down to $70 bucks. Put on some new strings and set the intonation. The thing plays like a champ. As far as this rating goes, i am taking off points for the goofy headstock design and finish.

This guitar is built like a tank. When i got it, it already had some pretty good road dings. Looks like its been dropped twice really hard. The only thing that will probably fail you is the tuners. Not crappy but definitly look around for some tuners to swap out.

Madeira who?

I have been playing for about ten years and had the opportunity to play some great guitars, but this beat up Madeira tele ranks right up there with the best of them. Plus the headstock is so ugly i don't have to worry about some Fender collector stealing this one. If it were lost or stolen i would only be out $70 bucks, but i would be really sad to lose that tone. Overall its not how expensive or name brand your gear is but what kind of tone can you get out of it. And this beat up Madeira has a kick ass tone.