by VintAxe » Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:28 am
Hi Ron,
I haven't had time to actually research this guitar, but I do have some immediate impressions that might help stimulate a discussion concerning your friend's purchase.
Let me start by saying it is going to require an in-hand inspection of this instrument to figure out what is going on for sure. Having acknowledged that, here are my observations.
My immediate reaction is that it is a Kay. Of course, the pickups and headstock are inconsistant with Kay construction.
Here's my story:
The seller says the headstock has a repair to the "back of the head". I'm guessing the headstock suffered a clean break and has been repaired. I bet after the headstock was broken, the guitar was put away for years. During this time, the top of the headstock was lost as well as the truss rod cover. Later, when someone decided to have the guitar repaired, the luthier recut a replacement for the lost top piece of the headstock in the basic shape of a Gibson headstock. Since this was a budget repair, there was no effort to buy and install a "Gibson" headstock veneer. In fact, they didn't even bother to install a replacement truss rod cover.
As far as the pickups go, I don't recognize them either. It is very strange that 2 pickups are being controlled by one set of knobs. This setup leads me to more conjecture. First, I'm guessing the guitar was originally a one pick up model and the current pickups are replacements. The seller describes the pups as noisy, probably because the attempt to wire 2 pups using one set of knobs isn't done correctly.
So, there is my fanciful story based on virtually no evidence. I think it will require opening this puppy up when it arrives to figure out exactly what is happening here. Of course, I hope I'm wrong and your friend actually acquired a Gibson model that I am not aware of, but for now, I'm sticking with Kay.
This is an intriguing purchase, please keep us updated. sb