Great to see this one in use.

[mrblanche]

I just got off a cruise on the Voyager of the Seas. A guy in the Pig and Whistle Pub aboard hosted singalongs using this beauty:



Tried to catch up with him, but I never succeeded.

[VintAxe]

Hey mrblanche, glad to hear you got a chance to get away and do some crusin'

Amazing this guy's willing to travel with an original National map guitar. When I first opened your post my first thought was that the guitar was one of Eastwood's reproductions. I then recalled that Eastwood puts a Bigsby on their instruments suggesting this one must be an original. After making an actual comparison of the two guitars there are many obvious differences.

The pickup in the original Nationals has a rich bassy-midrange tone which is why Jack White was probably attracted to Valco made Airlines in the first place. It fills a lot of frequency space making it a good choice for a solo instrument.

Here's a pix of the Eastwood version for comparison. I think they are pretty cool for $800, but not as cool as an original.

[simonm]

I think it might be a Japanese '90s JayRo 'Metropolitan' National copy rather than an original... or if it's an original he's done the unthinkable and changed the pickups for humbuckers!
National/Supro/Valco gtrs never had Gibson-stlye pickup rings with screws at the corners like this one. Cool gtr though - like the fretboard inlays - impressive detail if it's a copy.

[sneakypete]

yeah I saw those Jayros on line a couple of years ago, made through a Japanese company called Bacchus...I have several of those from their vintage series of a decade or so ago and they are great guitars...but I think the Jayros are MIK.

[VintAxe]

Good eye on the pickup rings simonm, I didn't notice. I also wasn't aware the the National map guitars were reproduced in Japan/Korea in the 90's. Good info. Thanks

[Michael Ambrose]

[simonm]

[Spud1950]

Metropolitan Tanglewood Custom.

[VintAxe]

I can't believe I completely forgot about the Metropolitan map guitars.

Thanks for being awake at the switch Michael.

[simonm]

ay yi yi! $3.5K - that's why the inlays are correct. I never looked into these before - I just assumed the Metropolitan was the top o the line Jayro. Thanks for clarifying.

[sneakypete]

Deviser the parent company to Jayro had another MIK line called Brian, and they had the BNG-450 lookalike model to the one pictured above as well, this was 10 years ago, I saw them in shops but never played one. The -45 part means it retailed for 45,ooo yen, not high end, so if they were having them built in Korea in 1999...my pamphlet with the Brian model pictured is dated to that year...was easy to just change the name on the headstock to Jayro, and those still show up on line here in the used market. Deviser also makes the Headway acoustic line, they also have/had the Riverhead brand, Momose, as I said Bachus and have a Deviser custom shop. I was getting the Bacchus for almost nothing 10 years ago, now they`ve been discovered and prices are gettin` up there on the vintage series particularly.