by Spud1950 » Sun Feb 28, 2010 6:16 am
Wierd.The bigger pictures are now showing. Anyway,I can tell you that the guitar was made at the Matsumoku factory.They manufactured for many distribution companies,such as Aria, Bruno, Vantage and others.Yours appears to be same as the Aria branded 5000Tmade from 1970-1974, on this page,with some obvious modifications.
The original bridge pickup was re located to the middle position and another make of pickup was put in the bridge position. Can't be sure,but it looks like a DiMarzio. You can undo the screws on the pickup surround,pull the pickup out and see if says anything on the back that may identify it. Also, there's an added switch.I would guess maybe it was added to give additional pickup switching options because of the addition of the third pickup. Value wise,it's hard to say. If it was in really nice original condition, you can find them for around $300. The modifications actually hurt the value,and with neck problems, it isn't worth much much.