Capri by Guyatone? Guess not! Fujigen! Or is it teisco?

[Roadgypsy]

Howdy, picked up a cheap hollow body on ebay so have some different sound options if I ever actually start practicing, and wondering if anyone can help me ID. All I've been able to find on capri is they were produced under guyatone, my sister says she can't spot any kind of identifying marks or numbers, be a couple days till I can get home. Anyone have any ideas what I've got in the meantime? [/url]

[BluesHawk]

Not very familiar with Guyatones. But it looks like it's in good condition and that binding suggests it was a high-end model and perhaps better crafted.

First thing, have the guitar set up by a highly experienced guitar tech...not the kid at GC.

Love the tort!

[Roadgypsy]

I was thinking the binding and bridge looked like something more than off the shelf, but I'm a total noob. The seller mentioned the pickups were interesting in that they were the only true single coil with adjustable pole pieces he'd ever seen, if that means anything to anyone else=P

[BluesHawk]

There's gotta be more than a few resources where you can learn about your axe.

There may be a Guyatone Forum...or some Forum along those lines... www.guyatoneguitars.com/ ...If you scan the right Forum, you might PM some of the members who will steer you to a Guyatone specialist.

Then get back to us and let us know what you learned. So we all learn, yeah?

[Roadgypsy]

Ah, thx I've been searching a couple days and think this was the top site coming up with the capri tag everytime from the mfg list stickied at top of this section. Did a few guyatone image searches while waiting for hits here but didn't think of seeing if another forum, thx.

Edit: well shoot, I was gonna kick myself for looking at some images there and not noticing forums, but they're still under construction apparently, will try sending a pic under the contatct link tho.

[Roadgypsy]

Well, that was fast for a e-mail sent on a whim before bed!

"Hello Nathan and thank you for the message!

I apologize, we had to abandon the forum because of rampant spam :/ which is unfortunate. I'm currently working on getting a large photo catalog ready for the page.

This actually appears to be made by fujigen gakki. The body almost for sure, and perhaps the neck were made by Matsumoku who contracted with fujigen at the time, as they were located in the same town of Matsumoto.
Those pickups are some of the very first Maxon pickups, which later became famous on the Ibanez guitars in the 70's.

It's not a Guyatone, but I hope this helps!" From Nate DeMont, DeMont Guitars

So I guess it's kinda an uncle mat's ibanez?

[VintAxe]

Hey Roadgypsy.

I think Nate's insight is essentially correct but you came to an erroneous conclusion. The guitar appears to be a Fujigen Gakki build rather than a Matsumoku build. The tailpiece and pups appear on 1968 Grecos which were built by Fujigen; not Matt.

[Roadgypsy]

[Roadgypsy]

[VintAxe]

[Roadgypsy]

[Roadgypsy]

Got to hold her today, no markings inside. A bit of rust starting on the plate under controls, knobs are loose and flange missing on front of top tuner, but seems to be pretty good all around. Sounds good and clean as far as I can tell (again, I can only play about 3 notes) and feels great. Should be a good partner to my RG-120 if I finally start practicing. Thanks for all the advice and hopefully I'll be back as I collect more and expand my own knowledge of some great guitars. Had hangers waiting for me and put together my Wall O'sound-Hopefully I'll start putting some money into the walls before start in too hard on more guitars lol.

[Roadgypsy]

Any chance this is actually a teisco? Noticed a neck on a kawaii on ebay had the same headstock, and then I found this right after, seller seems to think it's a teisco ep-7 or ep-8, quick search came up with several close matches, main difference still being most have a 3x3 headstock.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-1960s- ... 337ebb3293

[BluesHawk]

You have some nice guitars on that wall. You'd said you're new to guitars but you seem to be really into them, so I hope you'll welcome a piece of friendly advice.

Players (as opposed to unplayables) need to be kept in cases when not being played. Changes in humidity & temperature (especially a household HVAC system) will stress both the wood and the glues. Eventually the necks will warp under the pressure of the strings. Or the bodies will warp under the bridge, again due to the tension of the strings. Or joints & seams will begin to come apart.

They do look great up there. But it's torture and can be fatal. Especially for vintage instruments.

[Roadgypsy]

Unfortunately gonna be a problem in my house especially, will have to look into a tree or something later but they're safer from dogs at least and no floor space for proper stands since I added a drumset to the mix last week=/ All my gigbags are so thin and temp extremes so varied in my dump, the only real benefit they provide is to hang the bag instead of the neck. Will have to do that when I get home, for the acoustics at least, the ibanez joined me in semi and no bag for the bass that took it's hanger or the hollowbody in question. Quick solution I spose would be some coated T shaped supports that screw in below and adjust so the neck hangers just stabilize.