The Guitar Players Club

The Beginnings of the Vintage Electric Guitar
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Lowry_Gibson]Lowry Gibson

That beat up old Fender vintage guitar has had a lot of history associated with it since it was first made nearly sixty years ago. The true beginnings of the electric guitar started with Gibson Guitars as early as 1920, but the design was not successful and was shelved. Rickenbacker made the first successful pick-up in 1931 and installed them on their "Flying Pan" Hawaiian steel guitar. Dobro placed electronic pick-ups on a few of their steel guitars in 1932.

The real success of the electric guitar was with the ES-150 Gibson (which stood for Electric Spanish guitar) in the late 1930's and made popular as part of the Benny Goodman Orchestra. World War II intervened and progress and development of electric guitars all but stopped.

The famous Les Paul experimented in 1929 with his own design of electronic pick-ups but wanted to resolve problems of excess vibration affecting the sound the pick-ups gathered. As a result, Paul started working on a more solid body electric guitar which allowed the sound of the strings to be the only thing picked up by the electronics. Les Paul, Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby worked together to make a solid body guitar to eliminate unwanted vibrations on the guitar's top wooden plate. Epiphone Guitars, at the same time experimented with solid wood bodies that resembled a railroad tie with a neck and pick-up.

Leo Fender started the Fender Electric Instrument Company in 1949 and made the Broadcaster, soon to be renamed the Telecaster in 1950. In 1951 Fender invented and made the first electric bass guitar and began marketing it. Gibson introduced the Les Paul model of electric guitars in 1952. That same year was the introduction of the three pick-up Stratocaster by Fender.

Since 1952, electric guitars are almost the same with the exception of some modifications to the pick-ups to take advantage of the ability to make them smaller such as use of piezoelectric pick-ups, "humbuckers" or the use of transistorized pre-amps embedded in the guitars themselves. Because of little changes over the years, the values of vintage electric guitars increase. And by studying production numbers of some vintage electric guitars, some instruments are very rare.

George Harrison played a Rickenbacker 360 12 string guitar in the early 1960's to obtain a fully rounded sound during recordings. His guitar may have been one of the total of 36 ever made! Because of the low numbers of this model of guitar (360/12 OS), finding the other one made during that year would make this vintage electric guitar extremely valuable.

Harrison was also given one of two Fender Telecaster electric guitars hand-made by Fender in Rosewood. Fender serial number 235594 was the only prototype of the Rosewood Telecaster outside of the one held by the Fender company itself. A similar Rosewood Stratocaster was given to Jimi Hendrix. The current owner of the Harrison Telecaster is Delaney Bramlett of Delaney and Bonnie. Bramlett received the guitar as a gift from George Harrison for bringing him back on stage after several years retirement to play along side long-time musician friends including Eric Clapton.

Inside the fraternity of guitar players, specific vintage guitars are passed to others because of a unique sound it provides. For example, Jeff Beck gave a 1959 Fender Stratocaster to Jimmy Page during one of their recording sessions because of a particular sound that guitar produced in the hands of Page. Joe Walsh gave Page an 1959 vintage Gibson Les Paul. In fact, almost all of the guitars used by Page are 35 - 60 years old! Vintage Gibson guitars, vintage Fender Telecasters and Stratocasters as well as Vox and Rickenbacker vintage 12 string guitars make up most of his collection. [http://www.vintageelectricguitars.net/Fender.html]Vintage Electric Guitars are not only an interesting topic of conversation but also a unique investment opportunity.  But before you embark on that get some basic information first.

For a wide selection of electric and vintage electric guitars visit [http://www.electricandvintageelectricguitars.com]Vintage Electric Guitars dot com today for the best prices anywhere

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