Silvertone 1457 Guitar

This is a 1963 all-original Silvertone 1457 guitar. It's got 2 vintage danelectro lipstick pickups,and the guitar is made out of masonite in a sparkly "red burst". It's a really cool 60's looking guitar, has an odd body shape but looks damn cool! The tuner's have a bad reputation but i like them and they work fine on mine even if they are backwords. The body is sooo light (because it's hollow) and nice to play with probably my favourite guitar neck of all time. Plays so fast and fits nicely in my hands. The tone and volume knobs are stacked on top of eachother for each pickup which is pretty clever and they both work nicely. Awesome looking headstock!!

The sound is so damn awesome! Probably one of the best sounding guitars I've ever played but then again the guitar isn't for everyone (metalheads...not for you.). The guitar suits a lot of different styles tho; rock and roll, country, garage rock, rockabilly,funk, old school r&b, reggae. I play it through a vox Ac15 and have played it through a Fender Deville, and it sounds killer on both amps. It sounds awesome with a ts808, reverb, and also great with some vintage fuzz tones (you could get anything from yardbirds to hendrix)...but it doesn't need effects to sound good, all by itself it sounds incredible. The bridge pickup is bright but isn't as powerful as the middle position or neck position. However, it sounds really good and almost exactly like a VERY good telecaster (as many have said). The middle position boosts the volume a bit and gives you that awesome "token Dano tone"...very much like on "White Summer - Led Zeppelin". The middle position cancels the hum totally (but mind you it's not a noisey guitar) also sounds grittier than the bridge but it all depends on how you pick it...it could sound very soft and pretty but also very dirty and like a typical rock and roll lead tone. The neck position is, to me, brighter than the middle position. It's great for some old school rock and roll/blues licks and nicely fattens up the tone from the bridge position. Also, this thing is THE guitar for slide. It gives you everything from really nice clean slide tones to dirty slide stuff. This guitar is simply killer, if you see one ... BUY IT, YOU WON'T REGRET IT.

Everything on the guitar is stable and works excellent. It's pretty awesome quality for what was supposed to be a beginners guitar from the 60's. The bridge looks pretty cheap but it works well so no complaints.

This guitar is a player, packed with cool tones. Don't buy it just because it looks cool. Take it to gigs, to practices, or just to jam with your friends. Sure you'd want to take care of it like anyone would but don't be afraid to play it, it's not built like a tank but it could definetly keep up with gigging. Just don't be an idiot with it and throw it around on stage and stuff....do that with your Les Pauls.

Never needed it.

I love how these things were made so cheap but sound awesome, probably one of the best sounding guitars i've ever heard. They're so versatile and they honk like on old tele! I feel so lucky to own one, I can't recommend this guitar enough for vintage tone lovers. If it was stolen I would definetly buy another. The prices on these have gotten higher so if you want one act fast! The amp-in-case is awesome too!!! Overall an outstanding guitar.

1964 Made for the Sears catalogue i think. Best rosewood neck i've ever played, it really is a gem! Masonite hollow body with 2 lipstick pups. More on those in a bit..... 2 concentric pots, volume and tone for each pup. kind of a cherry sunburst with silver fleck finish and amazing curvy-strat kinda shape with white binding round the side. Beatiful

This is where it really shines. JANGLEY is the best way to describe! I play it through various Vox amps (ac15 ac30 etc) but my favourite has to be through a Vox Escort BASS amp!! not really a metal guitar (have an iceman for that) although it can sound amazing overdriven. Unique

I bought mine second hand off a guy who bought it brand new in '64 and never really played. Set up myself and plays and looks fantastic. Pickup selector is a bit crappy but a quick squirt of contact cleaner and its good as new. This is the only problem i've ever had in 15 years! even the pots don't crackle

Considering this guitar is over 40 years old it still looks brand new. Wouldn't withstand a real thrasher for very long i don't think but i've played it live for about 7 years now and never needed to use a backup. (although i always have a couple with me, you never know!) Incredibly light as well, no bad back from a les paul here.

Ha ha you must be joking!! this is virtually an antique self repair is the way to go

I've played guitar for about 15 years. I also have '78 Ibanez Iceman, DiPinto Mach 4, Fender Jagstang and a (yawn) Gibbo Les Paul. This is my favourite by a mile because it sounds so different to everything else. All my amps are Vox cos i love em! If ya want something completely different try and find one of these or if you are lucky the earlier single pup (very nice but much rarer) you won't regret it!

One of the best-playing necks ever made, period! I love the flat body profile and the strings being so close to the body. Plus it weighs almost nothing! Great for old guys with bad backs (like me).

Somehow, the worst possible guitar building materials combine to make one of the best sounding guitars ever made. It sounds similar to a Telecaster, but with that yummy hollow honk that is only achieved from the combination of lipstick pickups and masonite. Those pickups???there is nothing else like them in the world. Not a sound for everyone, but I love them so much. My current signal chain at gigs is the Silvertone, Boss tu-1 tuner, Boss graphic EQ, Line 6 AM4 amp modeler (GREAT pedal ??? converted this old tube snob), Digitech Bad Monkey, silver Fender Super Reverb.

TUNING - Tuning gears are the worst ever made. But fear not ??? there is hope! I just bought a set of Kluson left-handed 6 on a strip tuners on eBay for $45. To make them fit, I had to remove the original ferrules (tap them out from the back). The Klusons just barely made it through the holes, and there???s no room for a ferrule on the front. But they fit perfectly, and the top of the strip just barely peeks over the back of the headstock. Now the guitar stays in tune for 3 songs instead of just one! If you decide to put Kluson strip tuners on your Silvertone, make sure that you buy LEFT-HANDED TUNERS for your right handed guitar, or the strip will stick up about an inch above the headstock.

INTONATION - The rosewood bridge saddle on these guitars does not give accurate intonation. I got around this by buying an aftermarket saddle, and then carefully filing back the treble side about a sixteenth of an inch. I got the idea from my Jerry Jones Guitarlin ??? it was filed like this and it intonates perfectly. If you look at a Paul Reed Smith wraparound bridge, you???ll get an idea of how far back to file it.

Call Sears, but be sure to set the way back machine for 1965 first.

The best! I rotate between this, a 1960 Les Paul Jr. and a 1954 Les Paul Goldtop reissue. The Silvertone has been my main guitar for the last 3 months.

Please see other reviews

I own two of these guitars (one is model 1449 in black and the other a sunburst 1457). Both dual pickup models and are essentially identical except for color and pickguard.

The reason I am adding my review is because both these guitars sound wonderful, but definately different from one another. With same strings and set up the 1457 is more acoustically resonant and when electrified has more articulated highs and lows with scouped mids. The 1449 is acoustically sligtly less resonant and when electrified has meatier mids and less exagerated highs.

This means that you will encounter slight variences from one Silvertone dual lipstic pickup model to the other. That being said, both of mine are hands down winners. I use the 1457 for a lot of rhythm work and turn to the black 1449 for lead stuff.

These guitars are relatively easy to set-up. They will come very close to perfect intonation with a bit of work - but I have yet to own a guitar that really can perfectly intonate all the way up and down the neck.

It should be noted that a crucial element in this guitars set-up is the neck tilt adgustment worked by an allen wrench from the back of the guitar (quite like the neck-tilt adjustment on '70's Strats). Leo, I thought that was your idea!

Probably the best feature is the rosewood fingerboards on these guitars. Really wonderful.

The tuning pegs are not great, but they do hold tune. I've got both original plastic pegs on my 1449 and skate key type on my 1457. The plastic are harder to work, but hold tune slightly better than the skate keys. To keep my guitars in original condition, I have opted not to replace them.

I am a full time composer and use mine solely in the studio. For live playing, I would replace the tuning pegs and have a guitar tech go over the wiring and and clean pots.

These guitars have lasted for over 40 years, so I have to give a relatively high mark for durability.

I think these guitars are a vintage sleeper. My two simply sound awesome. The pickups give a really full single coil tone without a lot of the noise I get from my Fenders.

I own a '64 Strat, '65 tele, '73 Strat, '64 Jaguar, Epiphone reissue Casino, and a Les Paul Custom.

Hey, I liked mine so much that a bought another!

This guitar has a cheap 3 toggle switch for the pick ups.
Stacked tone knobs that stick.
Undress frets and an inregular set fret cut down the neck.
The Nut openings are way over sized with allows for the strings to glide back and forth it is aluminum screwed in place. Most of these guitars have cheap quality fret wire and are in dire need of refretting in the country chord area. Neck adjustment is simple if you have a lot of time for trial and error. The 1 set screw in the rose wood flat bridge which deadens the tone also reduces the chance for any serious intonation correction it takes a lot of time an you will still not achieve good intonation. The tuners are a joke for you state of the art type players. Replacements that are suitable don't exist. It is at best a wall hanger for someone to look at and old piece of a guitar from a by gone era. The paint is cheap, with glitter and it looks cheap. Most of the side bindings are vinyl and peel loose and have to be glued back and are not cleanable. I give it a 5 because at the time it was made it had no substantial materials in it and it has held up in 1 piece.

Pick up and sound system is better than any Fender strat ever made.
PERIOD. FENDER SUCKS and DANELECTRO out did the electronics on them 1 million to 1 too bad Leo could do it on this.
The pick ups are A 1.
THe shielded is perfect
NO NOISE NO MATTER WHAT
TO bad Fender can't find an engineer to figure out simple 60's technology to make some good sounding Stratocasters with this sound.
I am chunking all of my stats.. tired of hum..........it sucks......!

OK thats it.

10 Tuff from something make of junk material

Danelectro made for Sears. Dont exist.

Player of 42 years. Pro and Semi pro.
I liked the guitar
I would buy another
I love the sound
I hate I dont' have a strat with the same guts in it.
I wish it had a strat body.
I wisht I have strat with the 1457 mojo sound.

believe it was made in 1964, 21 frets amp-in case model 2- pick-up Long scale guitar made by Danelectro for Sears. Fine nortern American Masonite. Mine is actually kind of rare being a two pick-up model and black sparkle.it has the concentric vol.&tone controls, along with a 3-way switch. Pick-ups are of course, Dano lipsticks, which sound unique and great ! BRAZILLIAN rosewood fret board ! It has the dreaded "skate key" tuners which where shot when I recieved the guitar (bought it off EBay $295 ), In thje interst of keeping the guitar original, I scored a replacement set on Ebay, and they work fine.
Amp in-case (can you say 50s Fender Jr ?) sounds amazing, and the tremelo is way cool!

I play blues , classic rock, and surf and this baby suits them fine. Just for farting around the house ,I put a ts -808 and a reverb pedal in front and i'm good to go ! Otherwise I play tru a Traynor custom valve 40 This guitar has a great sound I especially enjoy the middle position ,With tremelo (Think "Oh Donna" )My only critisism is that I wish the frets where seated better.

I had to replace the tuners and 3-way, (found originals on Ebay)

Will this guitar withstand gigging ? ask the many pros who use them Jimmy Page , Eric Clapton.
the hardware has lasted 40 years now, and i beleve with care this guitar-amp will outlast me.

none available

I watched Elvis and the Beatles live on Ed Sullivan , This was actually my 1st guitar reacquired. Iv'e been playing since then. This was considered a cheap or "student" guitar back in the day, I'd like to see anything cheap made today last 40+ years !

1964 two-pickup amp-in-case Danelectro with all the standard features. Cool concentric knobs.
Made from the finest select luthier-grade Masonite.
Neck appears to be poplar?
Really beautifully figured Brazilian rosewood fingerboard - the piece of wood is probably worth more than I paid for the guitar. The tuners are the notorious "skate keys" which were an optimistic design, to put it politely. Same can be said for the wooden bridge saddle, which actually DOES intonate if you spend enough effort turning it and sliding it around.
The two lipstick pickups are what this guitar is all about.

The sound is on the bright side with a hollow resonance, neck pickup sounds janglier and brighter than the bridge pickups on some guitars. The bridge pickup sounds similar to a Telecaster pickup, only not as metallic.Combined pickup setting is the fattest and loudest. Tone controls have an extremely nice sweep with no "useless"settings. Tone rolled off on either pickup does not reduce the sound to mud. Very articulate guitar both clean or overdriven. Not very high output but very toneful and suitable for almost any genre of music. Night and day difference between this and a reissue Danelectro. Had the reissue (DC59) and it always got "lost in the mix" in a band setting. This guitar jumps right out without having to be loud.

With neck angle adjustment it is possible to set this guitar up to play with very low action and no buzzes. No trussrod, some kind of metal reinforcement keeps the neck straight as an arrow.

Probably easy to break this thing if you try, but with proper care it will last forever.

Take it to Sears and find out!

One of the most underrated guitars out there. At current going rates everyone should own one of these. Unique sound that can only be obtained from a Danelectro with a Masonite body and lipstick pickups. You can still get one of these for the same price as a reissue or you can pay 5 times as much for a Jerry Jones copy. Light, very comfortable to play, and with a sound that stands out from the Strats and Les Pauls.

Same features as reviews below.

This guitar sounds amazing. Southern Culture on the Skids, Link Wray, 60s surf, twangy country, blues, rock'n'roll, you name it.

Straight neck, no trussrod. "Tape" binding is some kind of fabric, not thin vinyl like the reissues. Stays in tune just fine too. Set up with .11s and a plain G. Sounds great with flatwounds or roundwounds.

It's a 40 year old guitar and it's still kicking.

Company's long gone.

This is a truly amazing guitar. It sounds fantastic, looks cool and plays easy.It's also very light, hollow masonite body weighs nothing. I bought it because I am a big fan of the sounds Rick Miller got on the first few Southern Culture On The Skids records with his Danelectro. And of course LINK WRAY the King of rock'n'roll guitar. I play it through a '61 Fender Tremolux, a home made tweed Deluxe clone, one of my Silvertone amps (1472, 1482) or a Harmony H305. I sometimes use a Fender reverb tank reissue or a 60s Airline reverb tank. My other guitars are a '66 Telecaster, a '62 Harmony Stratotone and a '64 Gibson ES-330.

Typical 60s Danelectro features, 2 lipstick pickups that sound GREAT, crappy tuning pegs that need to be replaced, standard hard-to-intonate Danelectro wood bridge saddle thingy that works fine once you figure out you can slant it AND move it forward and backward for intonation as well as adjust the height. You see people complain about these bridges but they are fine (even though they are primitive) and probably add to the great sound of these guitars. Neck is nice and wide (wider than reissue danelectros that's for sure) and feels very comfortable. Pretty flat radius brazilian rosewood fingerboard - what a luxury!

The only reason this doesn't get a 10 is the cheap tuning pegs (even though they look cool as hell).

Ok here's what this guitar is all about: sound.
I am just amazed. I thought this guitar would sound cheap and trashy in a fun way kind of like the reissue danelectros when i bought it sight unseen on ebay but I am just astounded at the wide range of tones it produces. The combined pickup setting is really incredible. I could use that sound all night long.

For a "cheap" guitar this plays remarkably well. Every bit as good as my epiphone goldtop les paul.

Looks flimsy, and masonite must be pretty easy to break, but it has been around for 40 years and it has been played (lots of paint missing from the back of the neck + other signs of use but not abuse) so I feel confident about it.

haha from Sears? Or danelectro??

I like it so much I sold my mexican reissue strat and I am buying another one of these from ebay. These are amazing guitars and I am just shocked that they aren't expensive like anything else "vintage" that is worthwhile.
This guitar sounds amazing through my silverface VibroChamp without any effects at all. Sometimes I use a boss OD-2 overdrive with it and it sings and sustains like a gibson. Unreal.

Made in the USA, one from 1965 and one from 1966 - I liked the first one so much I bought a second one a few months later.
Standard danelectro features - masonite & two lipsticks, concentric knobs, oddball tuners, real brazilian rosewood fingerboard (probably cost you more than the whole guitar these days), usual weird danelctro bridge. Neck tilt adjustment like 70's fender.

The review at the bottom says this guitar sounds like a great telecaster. That's exactly how I would describe it, like a tele but with less output at the bridge pickup and more at the neck, but clear and twangy like a really good tele only with a bit of that hollowbody sound. Both pickups combined really boosts the output, almost a P-90 (but with less mids) kind of sound in this setting.
Tone controls are actually useful, you can get a really wide range of sounds with these guitars, including some sounds they are really not known for.

Can't comment on the factory setup. These guitars don't have adjustable trussrods, just 2 aluminum bars through the neck. Surprisingly the necks are straight and play great. hey appear to both have original frets with very little wear on them even though both guitars appear to have been played a whole lot! They made frets out of harder alloy those days I think?

I use these guitars live with my two bands. The only thing that isn't completely trustworthy about these guitars is the stock tuning pegs. I probably should replace them but I have been putting it off because the originals look really cool. They feel kind of loose and sloppy though, the ratio must be pretty low because they are pretty hard to get into tune, once you get it there it actually stays in tune pretty good.

Forget it.

Like I said before I liked the first one I bought so much that i got a second one so that I could have a backup onstage. I actually never broke a string so I never actually needed a backup. These guitars play really nicely and sound even better. They weigh nothing so you can play for hours without fatigue and they offer a range of tones from fender telecaster or jaguar trebly twangy thin to fat smooth bassy es-335 tones. And that's without effects! Seriously, I play mine through a '68 fender deluxe reverb or a '70 fender vibrolux sometimes with a mxr distortion+ and a ross compressor. I play a wide range of styles and I used to have to carry a strat, a tele, and a gibson sg to get all the sounds i needed for my material, now I just bring two Silvertones and I get all the same sounds. Keep one guitar in open G for slide sometimes. It makes an amazing slide guitar!

This setup eith the guitar case opperating as an amp is a very cool little invention. It has a little stock Jensen speaker and volume, tone and tremelo controls. The two Danelectro pickups are worth their weight-they sound fantistic. The small footswitch for the tremelo is pretty cool too. The sound covers the range pretty well. The red burst sparkle finish is mod. The shape of the double cutaway reminds me of a wasp. With the three way switch and the two volume and tone controls, its a fun guitar to play. Not a Jaguar, but still a gas.

Being an intermediate player, this is a great setup. The fact you can get the amp and the guitar for about 300-400 dollars in good condition makes it very viable. It has a good range of sounds but I like the bridge pickup turned way up to get that punchy sound.

The pickups are adjustable from the back of the guitar very easily. The bridge is very cheap though.

Having had two of these things, and the fact both worked very well after 40 years says alot for a product that came from Sears. The new stuff doesnt hold a candle to these things-but I am very partial to an old guitar. They just seem to have a life of their own.

These things get a solid 9 out of 10 just because of the unique setup. I'm sure I'll get another one if I sell this one, which I've done twice before.

This is a 1964 Silvertone "Amp-in-Case" guitar, the long scale 2-pickup version. It was made by Danelectro and has the typical Danelectro features: masonite-over-pine hollow body, single coil lipstick pickups, aluminum nut, concentric knobs, etc. 21 fret neck, three-way pickup switch, one-piece poplar neck, ugly black-to-red "sunburst" finish with little silver sparkles, weird double-cutaway shape, "paddle" headstock, primitive bridge with wooden saddle (adjusts for height and overall intonation), and primitive "skate key" tuners.
Great wide/flat neck that feels extremely comfortable to play.

This guitar sounds fantastic. Like a great Telecaster. Bright and twangy, but with a little bit of growl in the low end. The neck pickup sounds really crisp and punchy, the bridge pickup is thinner and very twangy. The middle setting is the loudest and thickest sound available. The tone controls are very useable, lots of subtlety available if you play around with them. Impossible to get a bad sound out of this guitar. Would work great for any non-modern playing style, blues, surf, rockabilly, 60s garage...this guitar is excellent for all of the above.

This was a cheap guitar when it was manufactured, pretty much a beginner's instrument. In light of this, it is an incredibly well put together piece of 60s cheapness. Needed some cleaning and a setup when I got it, but once I spent a little time setting it up it played as well as any of my other guitars.
The neck has no truss rod, just a pair of parallel aluminum bars to keep it straight. It is straight as can be, good thing since you can not adjust it.
Can't give a rating for this category because I set it up myself.

This guitar has lasted almost 40 years. There is no doubt in my mind that it will last another 40.

Silvertone wasn't a company, it was a brand name used by Sears to market instruments made by Danelectro, Harmony, Kay, and some others.
I really doubt that anyone at Sears would know what to do with this!

This is a fantastic guitar if you consider that you can buy one for less than a cheap korean Fender copy.
E-bay is crawling with these things. Grab one now! Vintage Danelectros aren't all that cheap, but a Silvertone with exactly the same features can be had for much less than $300. I guess there is not that much demand for them, there are hundreds of them out there and they don't sell for very much.
The short-scale single-pickup 1448s are even cheaper, but they feel more like a toy - this is a solid guitar with a fantastic feeling neck and excellent tone.
I guess most people would think this was an ugly looking guitar, but the sound is truly beautiful. I have no qualms about using it on stage alongside my expensive guitars.
Those reissue Danelectros don't sound like this at all. I am glad I bought it and if it was stolen I would certainly buy another one.