Today's garage sale find.

[Mattochan]

Hey All,

I had originally posted this in the Vintage Japanese forum.

Does anyone know anything about this guitar. I found it today at a garage sale and for $20 I couldn't not buy it. It's obviously a Strat clone. The only marking, inside or out, are Austin on the Headstock and made in Japan on the neck brace plate. The body is made of plywood but you wouldn't know it without taking off the front. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Matt

[VintAxe]

Hi Matt.

I do not have a positive ID on your guitar but I do have a couple of thoughts. The overall vibe of the guitar seems late 1970's to me. It has several distinctive features that will probably enable you to get a positive ID if you are willing to put in the work. To me, the most distinguishing features are the bullet trussrod nut, lack of a skunk strip on the back of the neck and the tuners.

Bullet trussrod nuts were used by several late 70's Japanese guitar builders and appear on brands like Fresher, Camel etc. Given the combined features of your Strat, my best guess at the moment is that it was built by Chushin Gakki. They built guitars under a variety of brand names and your guitar was distributed by someone that asked them to put Austin on the headstock. Your Austin is a much better guitar than the Chinese guitars currently selling under the Austin brand.

Here are some photos of an El Maya guitar built by Chushin that shares several similarities with your guitar including the bullet trussrod nut, no skunk stripe and tuners. Notice it also has the 2 piece headstock and cream colored pickup covers and knobs with the white selector switch tip. The El Maya logo is also vaguely in the style of your Austin logo.



You did very well for $20, I want to go garage sale shopping with you

[Mattochan]

Thanks for the info. Definitely looks like the same mfg. I got it cleaned up and fixed the neck pickup and it's a hoot to play.

M

[Mattochan]

I have named her Ruth Buzzy

[Daytona123]

Hello. Newbie here. I found this gem and cleaned off the 4 inches of dust and crud. I know it's a vox super Lynx but I'd really like to narrow the date down. Can someone help me? I'll just say this was an old topic but the links used to answer a lot of the questions have expired. So I need your expert help. Not sure what I want to do with it yet. It sounds nice. The previous owner painted the pick guard but it appears to be mostly original. Please help with date and aprox 2015 value. Thanks

[Phizix]

My Guess for a date for the Vox Super Lynx would be 1966 , asking prices seem to be in the $800-$1500 range. There are a couple on reverb.com now https://reverb.com/marketplace?query=vox+lynx

Our collection of Vox catalogs -> http://www.vintaxe.com/catalogs_main/ca ... an_vox.php