Teisco ET-200 Del Ray

For starters, the body is kinda pretty, and it has a sunburst paint scheme and a black pickguard with little white flowers on it. As far as age, Im not certain, but I presume its at least 25 to 30 years old. I know it was made in Japan back in the day. There's two harmonica-looking pickups a single vol and tone knobs, and two switches to turn off the two pickups. it has a rosewood fingerboard which plays smoothly altough two frets buzz. It has a bigsby style trem, which is missing the arm (i intend to get one). the body itself is thin and made of cheap plywood or driftwood because its very light. the shape is unique but not far removed from a strat. Oh yeah the tuners are tough to turn and a ugly plastic (maybe i can replace them.)

I play everything: blues, rock, punk, ska, etc etc, and this guitar holds up. The pickups provide a lot of low end, and most of the twang is minimal. This makes a great blues tone for soloing, but also gives a bassy grumbly distorted sound too. Theres not a lot of variety in sounds but you can play it for any kind of music and it should be able to handle it.

The neck is pretty sweet. Except for the few buzzy frets, the action is very smooth and bending is very easy. the switches are kinda noisy for the pickups but hey its a 30 year old cheapo guitar i bought for $40- I can't complain too much.

I would seriously play this guitar live. I haven't yet but this guitar I think will stand up to my abuse. I also have a 1990 mexican tele that i love to play, but in a live situation i would want to beat the hell out of a guitar and I love my tele too much. This guitar will do. I would bring both my guitars and probably play them both,since a guitarist should always have a backup because of string breakage, but mostly the teisco because i might get too rough.

I've been playing for 3 or 4 years now, and besides the teisco i own a tele, i play through a fender princeton 65 amp and use a big muff distortion, hash brown flanger, and a morely pro series wah pedal. If I lost this guitar or some ^%*& took it I'd get real mad and start looking for another cheapo guitar to take my abuse.
FINAL THOUGHT: small on features, huge on value, and a light, sturdy little tank

its made of wood (i think), shaped like a tulip, a whammy system with no bar, 22 frets originally but only 21 now because the 22nd fret came off, it seemed to be glued on or something(???!!!!)... the pickups are huge hyper-microphonic clunkers that look like a harmonica cut in half and doctored in metal shop... little metal bridge, probably 60% tin... its a pretty blue color, and the pickguard is black with cool little white flowers carved into it... the tuners are on a metal strip and near impossible to tune (at least they hold the tune when you have it)... it came with a nasty looking chipboard case (barf)...

ill give it a 5/10 for the fact its unlike any guitar ive ever heard (i dont know if its in a good or bad way)... its pretty clear sounding when acoustically played but as soon as i turn on my BigMuff pedal, the whole setup goes apeshit unless the tone knobs are all the way down. for mine anyways... i think some of the stuff on mine has been altered... it gets a 5... no further comment...

well the action is nice, its functional as far as that goes. Saying that "My Teisco pickups are well adjusted" is unlike saying "i Fight for Peace!" or "Military Intelligence"... oxymorons abound here, having these things functionally adjusted just cant be done. The 13th wire has a sharp edge that i have yet to file down (i have the cuts to show for it). Not to totally voice it down, its a very original eye catching little guitar, in that retarded down-syndrome kind of "original" and "eye catching" way. it gets a 4... im feeling forgiving...

i would play nothing BUT these guitars if they worked better, given their near-indestructibility. aside from the tin bridge its a wooden tank. the finish will last, since there seems to be about 40 coats of it anyway... the strap buttons have yet to give me any shit... i can depend on it, you bet, i can depend on someone finding this thing in a dusty heap in the back of my closet in 60 years when i finally die.

what the hell IS a "teisco", anyways??? what does it mean?? who? what? where?.... umm, yeah.

its an absolute piece of trash, but ive grown attached to it and have decided to keep it in hopes of being able to update it someday, if i have have any money... (yeah, uh huh, sure). if it were stolen, id find the sonofa bitch who stole it from me, take the guitar, and beat them senseless with it, since i know the guitar would be able to take the abuse. well, youve got my 2 cents, so adieu, until next time...

This guitar is a very special find, it was possibly made around the 1960s, in Japan of course! I bought it from my guitar teacher.
It's got two rocker switches for the two pickups, and four other switches for the volume and tone... All the hardware is chrome, this pick guard is chrome with stipes (VERY SWEET) it doesn't look nearly like a Strat or anything like that, it has a really small body, it has a lovely red sunburst, and i believe the body is made up of maple, but the paint job could really use a tink up, a couple nicks and tinks in it. The tuners are a bit stiff but work perfectly, fret board feels perfectly comfortable, the bridge is kinda one of a kind, and it has a chrome piese that you can pull off, it kinda looks like an ash tray when you pull it off... The neck is kinda thick and comfortable!

It is a clean sound with a bit of a hum twangy sound, but i don't like twangy too much, but with distortion it sounds great cause i can control my sound with all the switches. The only pedal i've got right now is a Danelectro Fab-Tone, and i got a Canadian made amp from like the 50's (Solid State or something like that) but it gives me great sound with my guitar, not to brag or anything. There is kinda a hum, buzzy sound but thats just because the pick-ups aren't as balanced as like a humbucker or whatever, but i can adjust the pick-ups if i wanted too.
My guitar has a beautiful balanced sound, but the pick-ups aren't really great at picking up all the sound but they still work great!
My guitar can be really bassy, or really hollow, and if you wanted too, you could make it sound all twangy country style, but lets not go there. There is quite a bit of variety for my small guitar!
I love my guitar's, whammy bar baby! But i don't really like how the rocker switches turn off/on when i strum all the time...
If i could i'd give it a 9,1/2 so i'll give it a 10!

The guitar was really well built, but the body itself is not quite well smoothed, well most of the body but those parts you never see. Well since the guitar came from like a third world country, well then the wood isn't that great. Some of the hardware on the parts you can't see is slightly rusted but nothing to worry about. Over all the guitar is great! So i'll give this a 7!

If you bought this guitar you wouldn't be able to tell that it was an old guitar except for the whammy bar. The whammy bar 50's look kinda gives it away...
But it would withstand like a couple decades boy-o-boy! The finish is really thick and hard to scratch up, but it could use a bit of a new tink up. The strap buttons? They don't move at all... Unless you screwed them out. I would depend on this guitar! Over a Fender, or even a Gibson, i've been playing guitar for almost 4 years and i've had this guitar ever since i've started, i wouldn't pick it over a Gibson because i've had it for so long but because i know its reliable! I would definetly use this for a gig without a backup, i've only broken one string on this guitar since i've had it, ONE FRICKIN' STRING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD) one! But yeah!

The company of Teisco is no longer around, but there is actually a company that is called KAWAI that reisues them, they don't know much about the older Teisco because they only reisued the K-4L, The May Queen and the Spectrum guitars but they might be able to help you out with some stuff!
CHECK THIS SITE FOR TEISCO: http://www.kawai.co.jp/teisco/top.html
I've never actually gone anywhere to get my guitar fixed/checked, because it just didn't need it.

Ummm... mostly all the stuff i like about my guitar i've already shared, but if it ever got stolen i probably wouldn't be able to find one like it again, so i possibly would buy another guitar... I love all the features on it, as my guitar teacher would say, it's fabulous!

-Thank you!