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More diamonds in the rough ! The rust color on the headstock is from condensation reacting with ferrous metals and slowly migrating (weeping) down the slope of the headstock stored flat over a very long period of time. I like to think of it as a guitar weeping from sitting stone-still in the dark for a long time and wanting to make music again. There's interesting history behind string posts and ferrules missing like this guitars'. Back during this guitar's early life, light gauge string sets had just come into existance and not become popular and widespread until about 1970. In the meantime the most common sets and sources were .012 - .058 Black Diamond "barbed wire" sold at drug stores, department stores and at general music stores if a town even had a music store. The heavy gauge strings common back then would put allot of tension on the tuners gears and ferrule barrels making the tuners feel tight to turn, especially if they weren't lubricated; And a lot of low-end market guitars were sold to people who didin't know allot about proper maintenance; So many people trying to reduce the tight tuner turning friction would loosen the screw on the gears thinking that would help (and it would, slightly), at the cost of the screws falling out, then the string shafts falling out when a string broke, then the ferrules. But a GOOD thing resulted: Folks would store the guitar away which, like this guitar, kept them in pretty darn good refurbishable condition. As most guitar techs do, ...I have quite a batch of vintage tuner parts I've salvaged & saved for quite awhile. |
The frets and fretboard are in excellent period condition. Reading the fretboard tells me that this guitar was put away while the owner was still in the learning chords stage, as evidenced by where the small amount of fretboard finge marks exist. |
All is well on the top side. AHhhhh...... Here is the coveted "Cheese Grater" pickup; Raw tone to the bone ! Guitar Manufacturers knew very well how to find the sweet spot to place a particular make of pickup on single pickup guitars. It's no accident that most single pickup solid body guitars had their one pickup mounted in pretty near the same place this guitar has; Tone to the bone ! ....And amazingly versatile for any genre / style of music from jazz to the raunchiest of raunch ! Most people think that a front strap button being metal and the rear button plastic means that one is not original. This is not correct. Both Kay and Harmony (and others) commonly put a screw-on metal strap button up front and a glued-in plastic strap button on the butt end. |
CLOSEUPS OF FRETBOARD: Note that marks on the frets are little more than metal coloration where strings touched the frets. There is hardly any wear at all, and the owner of this guitar played almost entirely open chords below the 4th fret. |
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Seen well in this picture, ....the frets need nothing nore than a slight dressing to be like new, ....and the streaks on the fretboard are just differences in body oils deposits where strings didn't keep it from happening ....as evidenced by the fretboard's original planer chatter still remaining undisturbed. |
