by Michael Ambrose » Tue Aug 10, 2010 7:11 am 
			
			I think you'd have better luck finding more information on this piece from a toy collector, actually.
In my search for... well... whatever "sound" has been rattling around inside my head, I started to nab up old, weird toy guitars... ones that you can actually get to stay straight and in tune... pop a piezo on them and see what happens.  I've been trying to find the right sound for this one song I've written for months... it falls somewhere between a Baritone Ukulele and a Classical Guitar... but I couldn't quite find it until I started modding toy guitars haha!
(In addition to one of these "Deluxe" tin-bodies, I've also nabbed an Emenee Tiger, an Emenee Hootenanny, and a Maccaferri plastic "jazzbox.")
This thing was made in Japan and was sold through Sears (amongst other places, I assume).  The pickups and f-holes are painted onto the tin (or whatever cheap alloy it is) body.
I strung mine with some cheap-o Darco classical strings and slipped one of those cheap-o Radio Shack piezo transducers under the bridge.  Not great... but kinda neat.
I'm kicking myself for passing on this one... not long ago I found a Bontempi-branded plastic toy guitar with a working vibrato!  Now THAT would have been cool to have around hahaha...