Need help on a Raven Acrylic guitar

[Freefromdex]

Hi all!!

Got this really cool guitar a couple of week ago...It looks like a Dan Armstrong... But it says ''raven'' on the head. No serial number, no other inscriptions except for ''H.T.F. BRIDGE'' on the back of the bridge. I'd like to know what year it was issued, and from what country. (And sure, how much it was sold at the moment, or even what is it worth today!!)
Thanks for you're help!!

[Say No To Vorderman]

Looks like the copies that were sold in the UK in the 70s under the name "Shaftesbury"...I used to own the Bass version

[VintAxe]

Hey Freefromdex.

As far as I know all of these early 1970's lucite copies were made in Japan. I am most familiar with the copies produced by Matsumoku, but according to Michael Wright, other Japanese companies produced lucite guitars as well. I've seen the Matsumoku copies branded Univox in the States and obviously they were sold under other brand names worldwide. I'm sure your guitar was built by Matsumoku although yours appears to have a better bridge setup than the guitar described by Michael so it may be one of the later versions or the importer may have specified a different bridge. Here's a quote from Michael's article in VG magazine:

"The Japanese copy juggernaut got off to a fast start, and the second major Univox guitar was the Lucy, a lucite copy of the Ampeg Dan Armstrong, again produced by Arai, introduced in 1970. This guitar had a surprisingly thin bolt-on neck (especially compared to the Ampeg original) and a slightly smaller body. The fingerboard was rosewood with 24 frets and dot inlays. This had a fake rosewood masonite pickguard with volume, tone and three-way select. Like the Ampeg, the Lucy had a Danelectro-style bridge/tailpiece with little rosewood saddle. Unlike the Ampeg - which had Armstrong's groovy slide-in epoxy-potted pickups - this version had a pair of the chrome/black insert pickups jammed together at the bridge. Other Japanese manufacturers also made copies of the Ampeg lucite guitar, notably carrying the Electra (St. Louis Music) and Ibanez (Elger/Hoshino) brand names, with versions of the slide-in pickups. In '71, the Univox Lucy (UHS-1) was $275 including case. Just how long the Lucy remained available is unknown, but it probably did not outlive the original and was gone by '73 or '74."

[Bassassin]

Fujigen made these too - here's one from a '72 Ibanez catalogue:



To compare, here's a Univox, from Matsumoku:



What's interesting is thgat freefromdex's Raven has features from both - it has the Gibson-type headstock of the Matsumoku but had the same pickups, tunomatic bridge & stop-bar as the Fujigen version.

Doubtless there were versions from other Japanese manufacturers too.

Either way it's a lovely & very rare guitar.

Jon.

[Freefromdex]

It play pretty good... except sometimes the volume goes down, but playing with the knob arranges it for a while. This one is going to the ''luthier'' (the guy that repairs guitars, sorry but im french (not the France kind... the Québec kind ) You guys are awesome!!! Thanks to all of you, it was great help!!! If somebody has more info, don't hesitate!!

[VintAxe]

Great work with the direct comparison Jon. This pushed me to check out the Dan Armstrong site which has an excellent section on Japanese copies of the lucite guitar.

I should have read this article before replying. It appears Kasuga produced the Matsumoku/Fujigen hybrids with the characteristics of Freefromdex's copy.

Here's a link to the full four page article with excellent photo comparisons:



An interesting story told by Dan in the article occurred at the 1969 NAMM show. Dan noticed a couple of fellas at his booth taking pictures of his new guitar. Interestingly one fella always held the guitar while the other took the pictures. He then noticed that the guy holding the guitar was wearing a strange suit covered in squares. He grabbed a ruler and walked up to the guy and discovered the pattern on the suit were exactly 1 inch squares. Seems this crew was too cheap to buy a guitar to serve as a model to make their copies from. Wild

[Bassassin]

Just read through that & it's fascinating stuff but riddled with wild inaccuracies & jumped-to conclusions! It really needs to be edited & collaborated on by somebody who has a bit more knowledge of the Japanese manufacturers , and particularly the UK importer brands. "Shaftesbury Ibanez"? Good grief!

Some fantastic photos & I'll have to go back for another read when I have a bit more time.

J.

[Freefromdex]

Thanks again to everyboby!!! If more info is available... Please let me know!!

[Bassassin]

Dunno about info but we can always speculate! Personally I think yours is a Matsumoku - while it's superficially similar to the Kasuga, Matsumoku guitars from this era generally display some traits which yours shares.

Specifically, the 3-screw pickup adjustment & arrowhead-shaped trc are very common Mat traits, which appear on many of their guitars. In addition to this yours has the same wood insets on the control knobs & large position dots, like the Univox. I'm inclined to think yours is a variation produced by the factory - detail changes in particular Japanese copies were very common.

The version yours most closely resembles is the Shaftesbury - despite what the article says, Shaftesbury guitars don't seem to have been sourced from Fujigen, but many do identify as Matsumoku. Apart from the pickups, yours appears identical to the Shafty.

I'd strongly disagree with the article's contention that the single-pickup Ventura is a Matsumoku - it bears no detail similarities to the confirmed Mats, and is in many ways much closer to the Fujigen version. I think the writer assumes that because some Ventura-brand guitars were Matsumoku, therefore they all were.

The Aria branded versions were made by Matsumoku - as were probably all of their "lawsuit era" guitars - the writer has his facts back-to-front here. Arai Co are believed to have moved production from their own facility to Matsumoku in order to cope with demand in the late 60s.

The single-pickup Greco version is particularly interesting, to me the general nature of construction & components make it plain that this is not a vintage copy. The C-prefix serial isn't consistent with the M/YY lettered format so I'm inclined to think this guitar's 90s or later. It was possibly made to tie-in with the recent Armstrong reissues.

I think on the whole the writer's too eager to ascribe all 70s MIJ production to the three factories he's aware of, whereas the reality is that there were likely ten times that or more, building copies at that time, with components, necks & bodies all coming from different sources.

J.

[fred roberts]

Ive got a RAVEN that doesn't look like the original image. The font is "different", however it has the same wood bridge and pickups as the
last group of three acyrlics.

I bought mine used around 1973. Intonation bugs me a bit, WAY TOO HEAVY, pickups are noisy and don't sound very good at all.

Fred

[VintAxe]

Hi Fred, thanks for joining. Can you send me a few pictures of your Raven to add to this thread? Just email to steve@vintaxe.com and I'll add the images to your post. A headstock, body and full image would be much appreciated. thanks

[Freefromdex]

I Finally sent my Raven to the Luthier to find out that the pick-up switch was not working well (I had a lot of ''crackel''). To have this change, I'ts gonna cost around 80$. I said OK. I asked him how much the guitar was worth... He says I could get around 450$ for it... At that price I'll be keeping it!! I'll get a second opinion later on.
Rock on!!

[adamjosey]

I used to have this exact same guitar. I bought it in a pawn shop in Orangeville Ontario around 1999/2000 for $250 as my first guitar, at the time another patron in the store subjected that I buy the fender for $199 but I liked the look of this at the time so I bought it. Later on not know anything about guitars and not able to find out anything about “Raven” on the internet I went out and paid $900 on a Epiphone les paul custom which didn’t sound anywhere near as good nor have as good low action but I lent my Raven to a friend and unfortunately lost it in when his house burnt down unfortunately with our friend Marvin, who had woken up to the house on fire and ran upstairs to get everybody out and got caught up there, god rest his soul. But the guitar was great and I always wondered what type of pickups it had. But I would defiantly buy one of these again if I ever saw it, let me know if you ever want to sell yours. From what I’ve read recently these guitars were only sold in Canada in the 60’s and 70’s.
i was going to upload some pics of it but can't seem to get that working
http://www.guitar-resource-center.com/r ... uitar.html