1950s Teisco EP-3 Japan Vintage Guitar w/ Original Case and Video Demo


1950s Teisco EP-3 Japan Vintage Guitar w/ Original Case and Video Demo

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1950s Teisco EP-3 Japan Vintage Guitar w/ Original Case and Video Demo:
$799.00


The video up there is of this very guitar for sale. For those who don\'t know me, I just finished up a book about the history of Japanese electric guitars. I\'ve been playing, collecting, and restoring these guitars for quite a long time now and now that my book is completed I\'m going to be selling off the last of my collection from now until the end of the summer. Some of these guitars seriously belong in a museum! Especially this one here which is probably the rarest of all Teisco guitars ever made. There was a great book written in Japanese about 20 years ago called \"Bizarre Guitars of the 1960s\" and as I researched my own book I became friends with the author. He helped me in plenty of ways, but one of the ways he helped was to supply me with old images of catalogs and advertisements. Once he passed along the oldest Teisco advertisement in his collection, coming from a Japanese music publication and dating to 1954. And that\'s when I saw this guitar… and I thought \"Hey! I have one of those!!\" I had planned on keeping this guitar forever, but I just can\'t keep them all and with a little bit of a heavy heart I\'m going to pass this one along.

I wrote an article about this particular guitar and I\'ll do a lot of copy and pasting here for this listing. I will say that when I visited Japan recently I was able to show the pictures and video of this guitar to one of the original Teisco employees and he was amazed that one of these EP-3 guitars still existed! It was really awesome hearing his stories about how they attached electronics in the old days and how they made all these parts by hand, even guitar strings!! The old metal logo was hand engraved by one of his sons! Anyway, let\'s talk about this guitar.

I bought this guitar from a fine repairman and good friend, Scott Frielich. He owned Top Shelf Music in Buffalo NY for many years. One of his good friends was Jim Fisch (author and guitar collector) and this Teisco was one of the last of Jim’s big collection of vintage hollowbody guitars. This EP-3 was sitting in Scott’s shop when we decided to fix it up and get it playable again. The guitar was in good condition overall and was structurally sound in many ways. What it did develop over the years were several stable cracks in the top and bottom. Scott’s been fixing old Martin guitars for years and is pretty much a master guitar tech/luthier. He was able to close up the cracks with a humidity bag and add cleats to stabilize the areas. The single pickup was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Thankfully it was still working, but the internal wiring had slowly disintegrated over the years, so this old gal needed a complete rewire. Check out that pickup!! It reads out at 4.56k and the thing is punchy as all heck. See those adjusting screws? Scott got this guitar playing very well by adding some heat and clamps to the neck (which is a wonderful 50s style profile). So what we have here is a true relic from the earliest days of the most popular Japanese guitar maker of the 50s and 60s. These guitars bodies were made by a very old Japanese guitar company called Maruha Gakki, and at that time these guitars were never meant for export or to survive North American climates. These guitars just didn\'t stand the test of time. Well, I\'ve never seen another one of these guitars, either here or in Japan. Never. I have friends all over Japan looking for old and interesting guitars for me and I know some serious collectors in Japan who have all come to a consensus that this is simply a rare guitar that\'s not seen anymore. Not many were made and even less have survived.

Please check out the pics for the condition. It\'s not mint, and it has plenty of wear… but it does exist and it does play. Even crazier is I have the original case! Not pictured, but it\'s a light brown tolex and it\'s missing the handle. If it really matters to you I\'ll take a pic. Just ask.

By the way, ! I always have some interesting guitars for you fellow vintage nuts!

Please read before offerding-I\'m real easy to deal with, but communication is the key. I don\'t really like to deal with 0 response, or real low response buyers. I\'d rather you build up your response and then come to me. But if you really want to offer, and you have low response, e-mail first as a courtesy. I only accept Paypal because it\'s quick, but you should have a confirmed address. This is also important! Should it sell, I\'ll pack it nicely and ship it insured as quick as I can. Ask all the questions you want before or during offerding! Lastly, there will be no returns, but that being said, this guitar works fine so there shouldn\'t be any worries! I really pride myself on being honest, and I pack really well! I\'m charging a flat $40 for shipping. Check my response, especially from buyers. Cheers!

International buyers- I use the international shipping program, and sets the shipping costs for you. On my end, I ship the guitar to the central USA shipping hub, and then will ship the guitar to you.


1950s Teisco EP-3 Japan Vintage Guitar w/ Original Case and Video Demo:
$799.00

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