Unknown Guitar Make & Value

[monagha2]

Hi,

I was given a guitar by by uncle about 10 years ago and it is a very nice guitar with a unique wooden carving on the guitar head. I am not really a guitar player or enthuiast so know little about them.

There is a logo on the guitar that has the letters "W S" with a star in between them. THere is no other writing on the guitar or hint as to what make it may be.

Just wondered if anybody knew what this was or if it was actually worth anything?

Regards,

Martin

[VintAxe]

Hey Martin.

I haven't done any research on your instrument but I do have a couple of initial impressions. Carving of this type was done in the mid 1970's, anywhere from 1973-77. The carving I am most familiar with was sold by Kasuga, a Japanese builder that is still in business today. My recollection is that they cut out the bodies in Japan and sent them to Taiwan to be carved. The most common example is the "Tree of Life" guitar built by Kasuga and sold in the US by Saint Louis Music under the Electra brand name.

I have never seen a human figure carved into a brand name guitar from this period. But, the build of your guitar looks like mid 1970's to me. Is there a possibility that your uncle purchased this guitar somewhere in Asia? The guitar itself is pretty plain given it has no binding or fancy inlay, but carving is an Asian strong suit so they might play to their strengths to create a product that would possibly appeal to a western tourist.

Value will likely not be great. The western world under appreciates all the tedious labor that goes into creating a carving like this. The value will be in the uniqueness of the instrument. A collector of carved guitars might find this very interesting and want to add it to his collection. With Tree of Life guitars selling for around $850, I think you might be around $500 tops to the right guy. Tree of Life guitars have a labor intensive inlay in the neck in addition to the carving on the body so you can probably start approximating value from that standard.

I have never heard of the WS logo which again makes me think it is a local Asian product.

I'll get back to you if I discover anything new