60s Teisco? Need ID help, please

[thimitar]

Hello! I'm a new member here.

My regular guitar is this 60s Japanese something:


I've been told it's some kind of Del Ray, but I'm not sure I believe it. I was wondering if you fine folks could help me identify it. I bought the guitar a couple years ago on eBay, had it set up, and it's been my everyday player ever since. I love the thing, but I've always wondered what it is exactly.

I'm pretty sure the pickguard is not original to the guitar, as it doesn't follow the lines of the body very well, and the access hole for the trussrod is roughly cut:


There is no maker mark/stamp/badge anywhere on the guitar, and it's got this wacky elf-shoe headstock that I've never seen before. Best I can tell, the bolt-on neck IS original to the guitar, but I can't be sure:




And a couple more pics for reference:

[wietse]

more like a early 70's kawai, but no teisco, wrong pickups and headstock.
but this pickups were quite common on kawai's, same goes for the tuners with white plastic rings, the knobs, and that wire like stringguide.
but it looks to me someone made a guitar out of a bunch of spare parts, that pickguard doesn't seem to belong on it, ever took it off to check for extra screwholes under it ?
that's the best way to discover i'f it's original or not.
but everything is possible the quality control at kawai was not that good so he still can be original , except that bridge, tha's not original but a later improvement.
kawai made guitars in almost ever shape imaginable under a unknown variety of names always difficult to pin it down.

[thimitar]

I did take it off once, but I don't remember seeing any extra screw holes and at time I was merely replacing the jack.

[thimitar]

It's possible. The intonation isn't quite right. It's close (close enough for my band anyway......), but still definitely off. The pups provide loads of cool and unique tone, though. I can pick my guitar out of a really thick mix every time (of course some of that's due to the swirly flowery-ness of high harmonics from the bridge location being slightly off).


Anyway, thanks!

[thimitar]

I went and dug up some of the pictures I'd seen of "Japanese" guitars that reminded me of mine...

Here's a guitar that has the wire-guide like mine (though angled), as well as pups and pickguard material. Guessing at the English translation of the description of the guitar, it appears to say that it's typical of a Japanese guitar made for American markets.


(scroll down to the guitar called "Prestige" in the third column)


And here's another one on the same page, Labeled "Heit deLuxe", second column and higher up. This one appears to have the same tremolo, pickguard material, switches, pickups, and even body as mine. And again, seems to be labeled a Japanese guitar.






Although if your theory about making a guitar from spare parts is correct, then it could be basically a Korean guitar with a pile of Japanese parts.