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Old 60's/70's Teisco guitars


turnip

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They are cool looking but that's about it. I've had a couple and they are not worth it.

 

The only way of making them playable is by replacing almost everything on it, including the neck. if you can get a cool looking body for dirt cheap, and manage to fit a custom neck, that another story :thu:

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The higher-end ones could be very decent. But most of them were unplayable junk right out of the box. Warped, unreinforced necks made of mystery wood, horrible fretwork, unusable intonation, pickups that actually sounded great but were essentially microphones that fed back uncontrollably.

 

The Japanese were not always synonymous with quality workmanship. With a few exceptions (like cameras and Sony products) most Japanese goods imported here in the 60s were on the level of the crappiest Chinese and Indonesian products today. Think "Harbor Freight" quality at best and Soviet Union quality in general. That didn't start to change until the mid 70s.

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Yeah, I had a Kawai variant. Nice sounding pickups but the build quality was awful. The body was probably plywood and the metal parts were terrible. I wouldn't waste your time or money. Old USA Peaveys are the way I'd go...

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  • 3 years later...
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They were among the first guitars I had along with Vox and Kay. You bought these things as Sears, JC Penny, JM Fields and the like. I have a soft spot for them, but you really have to like them, I don't think anyone of the US shipped ones will ever be valuable, unless you wait a long time, like Planet of the Apes long time.

  Two biggest problems I have had is that most did not have a compensating bridge, though a very few did, but that is no biggie to replace. The other problem could take a higher tech skil. Some of there necks had no truss bar so if those are badly warped neck is pretty much toast. Mine had a truss but necks were utterly round in the back, like a baseball bat.Necks like that will cramp and exhaust your hand, but if you are okay will pulling the necks off flattening the back down some and re finishing the wood it will help alot.I build both complete modern instruments as well as medieval ones, so its soemting I have done, but like I said you have to like them. Still if you get any guitar for like 20 bucks there is a way to turn it enough to get more than you put in, at least material wise. Just what I think though.

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I'd love one.

 

They can't be any worse than the Korean Eastwoods.

 

 

Yes, they can.

At least they had the cool quirky sounding pickups. That was their only high point.

From a build standpoint, the Eastwoods are all over the originals, but unfortunately, the Eastwoods use generic pickups that don't sound like the originals at all.

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Elias Graves wrote:

 

I'd love one.

 

 

 

They can't be any worse than the Korean Eastwoods.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, they can.

 

At least they had the cool quirky sounding pickups. That was their only high point.

 

From a build standpoint, the Eastwoods are all over the originals, but unfortunately, the Eastwoods use generic pickups that don't sound like the originals at all.

 

I owned a Saturn 63 for several years. It felt like a toy. I was fourteen and could have spent over 600 dollars on a better guitar. Do you know how hard it is to get that money when you're fourteen? It didn't help that the owner of Eastwood was a dick to me.

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I have owned and played some Teiscos that had no issues that needed to be addressed.  The one I owned, a mid-1960s WG-2L, was a decent player with a twangy sound.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a playable older guitar for around $100.  All I had to do to it was to change the strings to the kind I liked.  The fact that I was able to locate a Teisco in decent playable condition is a good indication that you could too.  But it is also very possible that you may come across several old Teiscos that have plenty of issues that you may not want to bother with until you find one that doesn't need a lot of work or possibly doesn't need any work at all.  Though if you are persistent and actually serious about locating playable old Teiscos you can find them.  

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 I am old enough to remember seeing those at the local discount department stores. Even though I was new to guitar, I also curled my lip at those POS. I pitied the poor kids that spent their money on an item almost guaranteed to make them give up guitar playing.

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  • 3 years later...
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So..... I drive like 100 miles (7 mi. of it on a rocky dirt road) to buy what I was told was a guitar made in 1971 woodshop from a kit that the students could pick for a graded project. The guy obviously lived in the boonies and had no working utilities. (Hence no pics to go by) So, I get there and at first I believe it. Then I pick up the covered in dirt guitar wipe it off a little and realize it's an old Japanese guitar. It looked in really bad shape. I could barely see the tobacco burst paint under the thick layer of dust. I am not exaggerating. It was very disappointing at the time. Something told me that I didn't drive all that way for nothing and maybe the parts might be worth something, who knows. I payed $30 that I was pissed at myself for paying at the time after the Hellish drive and all. I carefully took the entire guitar apart, and thoroughly detailed everything and put it back together. Beautiful. I research it the next day and find out it is a Teisco ET 300 with the RY Cooder Gold Foil Pickups. Everything worked on the guitar perfectly!!! The pickups sell all day long for $100 each and there is the complete set of 3 on it all working and sounding great. So should you buy one of these guitars??? People eat these parts up for big bucks - trems body, bridge, tuners, necks, etc. So... It's kind of a novelty thing for the most part, but those Ry Cooder pup's do sound sweet as Hell. No denying that.

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