Silvertone 1960s

I think this has to take the prize for one of the strangest electric guitars of all time -- and surely the weirdest Silvertone I've ever seen. From (I believe) the late 1960s, it has an amplifier and speaker built into the guitar body; sort of a DanElectro "amp-in-the-case", but without the case. From the absence of any statement of origin, and considering that the electronics are Japanese, I can only assume it was made in Japan. Despite the novel design, it's not a toy -- this thing is solid, heavy and surprisingly good-sounding.

The body seems to be one solid hunk o' some reddish tropical wood, although it's very difficult to tell since the body and neck were dunked in dark brown paint with gold metalflakes (!) at the factory. It has one humbucking-type pick-up feeding a 9-volt powered transistorized amp and 4" speaker, all behind a giant pickguard made of plate aluminum. (Please see link at bottom for photos.) I've only had the guitar for a week, and after some exploratory surgery, I noticed that it needs a new speaker, new battery lead and some re-soldering of wires. A previous owner replaced one wire with a grocery store twist-tie, carefully soldered in place!

The tone and volume knobs are located ABOVE the strings, and are guaranteed to get in the way of any vigorous playing. The tailpiece/bridge is laughably inept. It is hinged at the bottom, allowing height adjustment via two setscrews. The strings anchor in the front of the floating "bridge bar" and wrap around the back and over the top. Consequently, the strings run flat until they reach the nut rather than following the curvature of the fretboard. There are no grooves or saddles to keep the strings in place on the bar, so intonation is nonexistent. It has 22 frets.

I would describe the body style as a Tele-disaster. To make room for the speaker, the body is gruesomely asymmetrical. That the huge pickguard/instrument panel inexplicably doesn't follow the body's shape only adds to the weirdness. The neck isn't bad, being fully bound, with an easily adjusted trussrod and a rosewood fretboard. It's a fairly shallow semi-circle in section, and it fits my hand pretty well. It bolts to the body. The tuners are cheesy stamped ones, but strangely are not all sharing one plate.

The controls consist of the tone and volume pots, and a switch that selects between battery operation and output to external amp.

I'm running this thing pretty much straight into a 7-watt Harmony tube amp from the late '60s -- the very sort of amp that might've been owned by the sort of guy who would've bought this guitar new. I'd like to get a feel for its own tone before subjecting it to effects. As-is, it fits my style surprisingly well (other than not staying in tune for more than a few minutes). I play sort of lo-fi freakbeat/psyche-loungia. This guitar produces a chunky over-driven tone, except for the treble string, which is twangy and sitar-like. I'll probably feed it through a compressor, but the sustain is already pretty good. I doubt that it could be convinced to produce any other sounds. It would be hopeless for jazz.

As mentioned, the bridge/tailpiece situation is dire, and intonation will be a challenge. I may end up machining a tapered and groved bridge-bar; it depends upon how motivated I get. Since the guitar is more than 30 years old and hasn't exactly been treated like a d'Aquisto over the years, it's pretty difficult to tell how well it was (or wasn't) set up at the factory. Given the naivite of the Japanese guitar industry at the time, it was probably pretty crude.

OK, at least this thing is solid. Once I get the electronics sorted out and fix the intonation nightmare, yeah -- I'll probably gig with it. Back-up? Where could I ever find another?

Haa ha ha ha ha ah oh ohh! Hee he he heh heh heh. Heh heh heh. Hmmm.

I got my first guitar (a Harmony Stratotone) in about 1978 (at age 15) when I was a geeky Pablo Cruise/Doobie Brothers/Boston fan. I became a hardcore punk in the early '80s and abused the Stratotone and a borrowed Fender P-bass for a while, then pretty much gave up on the guitar. A year or so I got a Harmony H-14 "Silhouette" (Fender Jag-Stang wannabe solid-body electric from the mid '60s), a Danelectro/Silvertone 1457, a mystery bass from the same era, and a couple of old Harmony tube amps. Rounding out the sound are numerous old analogue and mechanical effects boxes. The Harmony is totally clean-sounding; the Dano-Tone has the characteristic rich but crisp twin-lipstick sound. This Silvertone has fuzzy twang, which rounds out the collection pretty well. I bought this guitar mostly because of its weirdness (and because my wife thought it was "neat") and because I like the idea of doing a song or two using the built-in amp and mic-ing the speaker.

If something ever happened to it, would I get another? Sure -- but where?

If you're morbidly curious, you can see a photomontage of this guitar at http://hedonia.net/ebay/weirdo-tone.jpg

If you have any information about it, PLEASE E-MAIL ME!