Gigna Guitar

[jp_nyc]

Today I bought an old Gigna (not Sigma!) brand Japanese electric guitar for $75. The neck is a baseball bat and I LOVE it. It says the neck is steel reinforced but it doesn’t seem to be adjustable. It’s damned straight, tho. It has one pickup that sounds great—it just nails raucous blues and surf tones. The tone and volume pots are both shot—volume barely works at full on, tone does nothing. Frets are crappy tiny little things cut a little short so they didn’t have to fix the ends. The tuners are literally dying for grease—they barely do anything. Two tuner bushings are missing, so I’ll have to find replacements.

I can’t find anything about a “Gigna” brand. I found an Audition with a similar pickup on Reverb. So maybe it’s a Teisco or a Guyatone.

I was planning to clean this and flip it, but it sounds so good that I might just keep it. For now it will be a restoration project. If anybody recognizes the tailpiece I’d love to know what kind of cover I need to look for.

Here’s a pic:

[VintAxe]

Hi jp_nyc.

Your guitar is a mid 1960's Fuji. Here is a sister guitar for comparison:



Good find, Fuji was a smaller Japanese producer and I doubt many of them were imported into the US. I have no idea who the Gigna distributor was.

Your pots likely just need some contact cleaner, I use DeOxit which you can get on Amazon.

Unlikely you will ever find that tailpiece cover but the tuner bushing come up on eBay from time to time. If you get it in good working order $225-$275 isn't unreasonable. The main thing that holds the price down is one pup. Anyway, you are due a pretty good return on $75.

enjoy

[VintAxe]

Without a closeup of your headstock I can't be sure but these might be the tuner bushings you need: