This guitar is in a solid Excellent 99% condition;
It is almost Near Mint condition that some sellers would rate it at and not be far off the mark.
Please note that in keeping with vintage guitars industry standard, I do not disturb a guitar in this fine of a condition unless a Customer requests I do, ....not even to professionally clean it beyond wiping it down good and then wiping on a specific light oil that prevents corrosion and replenishes oils in the finish. However, I can do expert cleaning or any other work a Customer might desire and request. See my Homepage Guestbook for plenty of Customer reports. Examples of my work can also be seen HERE.
The frets are excellent. One has to look very close to see any wear on them at all.
The body top is very nice; Very minimal / minor marks. On this special model, the Goldentone pickups foil is a red reflective prismatic plastic material, in excellent condition. The metal hardware is in exceptionally nice condition; The camera sees much more swirl than the eye does. I've noted the volume and tone knobs for each pickup:
One bridge height adjusting screw is missing. It is standard hardware (probably metric) available at just about any reasonably stocked hardware store (take one in for comparison / fit to a nut and the nut fit to a replacement screw); I recommend stainless steel. Notice the splined saddle roller barrels that allow for adjusting different string spacings !
The bridge is fully adjustable; A BIG improvement over the vast majority of Bobkats set compensation rosewood bridges.
As said on this guitar's description page, 2 of the volume / tone knobs are missing. Very similar replacement knobs (shown below) are available at Allparts, HERE and HERE. Notice that Bobkats & Silhouettes always had the small shaft potentiometers, which requires making rubber (or plastic) tube inserts when using standard shaft knobs. The rubber or plastic tubing to cut the inserts from can be gotten at reasonably stocked car parts stores; They have racks of spools of different size hoses. Also available at well-stocked hardware and marine stores. Make and write down micrometer measurements of the shaft and take the knob to get proper fit tubing. Use a toothpick to measure and mark the depth of the knob holes thus length to cut the inserts. Also notice that this guitar's knobs are numbered to 9, while the replacements are numbered to 10; They both work the same, .... Potentiometers have an international standard for degrees of rotation from full off to full on; It's only the spacing of the numbers that are different between a #9 or #10 or any other numbered knob; Full off or on is the very same positions regardless of what high-number / spacing is printed on the knob; Some Marshall amps go to #11, while their pot rotation is the very same as any other pot ......#11 just a sales / promo gimick.
The body back is also very clean with very minimal / very minor marks.
The back of the neck is nice too, with only a very little more marks than the body top and back.
Two small dings:
Reading a guitar is interesting to me. These marks are commonly made by a player that wears a ring on his / her right hand, which marrs the guitar over time as they pull on the body at this location to adjust the guitar in a lap or adjusts how it hangs on a strap. Large jewelry was popular back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
