Conrad 40080?

[rich2k4]

has anyone played this guitar? if so, what are your thoughts on it? is it well built and high quality?

[VintAxe]

Hi rich2k4,

Your guitar is basically an Aria 5002T from around 1971. I'm sure David Wexler imported this instrument from the Matsumoku factory that was producing Arias at the time and just slapped on his Conrad brand name.

Here's a little thumbnail history:


As far as personal experience with the guitar, it's probably been a couple of years since I've played any of my late 1960's Aria hollowbodies but this is what I remember.

I like the neck

The tuners are ok but you can knock the guitar out of tune with spirited strumming

The pickups are good but not great. We used one of my Arias for the first 4 chords of the "Hey Ma Outro". It's also used on all the solo guitar bits. You can hear the tone if you go to my band myspace page and scroll to the bottom of our demo list:


I think I remember you can make the sucker feedback if you crank the volume to LOUD. I've always used these as recording instruments.

In general, I think they are well regarded for instruments that fall in the $200-$400 price range.

Hopefully the Harmony Central link I sent can give you more insight into the guitar. sb

[rich2k4]

thanks for the info. looks like it's a barney kessel copy then

[VintAxe]

Yeah, it is an attempt to copy a Gibson Barney Kessel model from the 1960's. It's interesting that this guitar was made about the same time Gibson was discontinuing the Barney Kessel.

I guess Matsumoku didn't get the memo.

[joebwhite]

I think I recently acquired one of these 5002T Kessel clones. No name on the headstock, but what looks like an Ibanez logo on the Bigsby.
Here's a Photo. Any thoughts?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13079288@N ... /lightbox/
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/13079288@N03/6837349615/lightbox/]
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[auriemma]

[joebwhite]

[VintAxe]

[FeMcB]

Hi, first time posting here. I've got a couple of older guitars one was my Dad's electric. I'm guessing he got somewhere around 1968. My son (9years old) is going to be starting lessons soon and I just wanted to see if I could get any info on the guitar. I'm posting a couple of pictures hoping that will help in better identifying it. According to the sticker inside it's a model number 40080. It looks to be in decent shape. It's pretty similar to the one posted previously in this thread but it doesn't have what I'm guessing is a whammy bar in the other poster's pictures. It has a serial number on the back and reads made in Japan.


Thanks for taking a look at my post, any help it deeply appreciated
Fe

[idtandy]

Very simular to the Silvertone I picked up recently.

http://www.vintaxe.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=3370