Ever seen one of these??

I think that is really cool. I have always wanted a regular guitar that has the wood of a bass.
I would buy it. Did you play it?

Played it- hard to make up my mind. It looks cool as hell, and I think it could be. Really nice clean tones, full, off the neck pickup. Bridge pickup edgier, more bite and attack...

THe two things that make it hard to judge are the fact that the shop didn't have a grounded outlet, so it buzzed like hell. So did every other guitar, though- just to do with the plug in, and I have no idea if the guitar buzzes bad or not. Also, I'm used to a fixed bridge or strat style trem. The guitar kept going out sharp, but this seems to be because my hand was resting on the bridge. I wonder if I can stop doing that.

It's a smallish guitar (don't know the scale length but it feels short) and a small body. 24 frets and you can reach them all, plus the floyd rose licensed trem makes it seem a little bit of a shredder's guitar. And I turned the amp overdrive a bit, and you can sure shred on it. But it also had nice bluesy tones, and could do some classic rock sounds. Not really high output anywhere, so I'm not sure about the pups, but they could be changed...

the tuners feel...old. As a matter of fact, the whole guitar feels pretty old. That's one of the things that makes me hesitate. It's really cool- but how much work will it need? Hard to say. And I'm looking for a "main guitar" to play most everything that I play on; hard to be sure if this fits the bill until I get it home...

THanks,
Ande

I found this article that said Marvels were made by Harmony.

http://harmony.demont.net/brands.php?id_brand=22

don't know the scale length but it feels short Short necks bother me, I don't really like their feel. Hard to adapt from always playing a "standard" length neck. Aside from that, it does look very nice, & that neck thru design will make for some great sustain!

Thanks for that, guys. I wondered if a "second tier" brand like Harmony was behind it somewhere, and it looks like that's a definite maybe. Only maybe becuase I can't find this actual instrument anywhere in their stuff, and the logo looks different than any of the Harmony Marvels. Still, I haven't got a better theory.

Someone else sent me a link indicating that it might be one of the marvels that came out of various factories in the seventies that were distributed as the low-end of the Sorkin line. But you can only see that catalogue by buying it...And Sorkin went out of the biz shortly thereafter, so no website for them.

Any thoughts on how to guess the age of a guitar? (BAsed on physical aging. I haven't found anywhere to check the serial number...) The tuning heads are lightly "aged"; the rest of the metal hardware doesn't show much age. Gold tone hardware, with mother of pearl "buttons" on each of the three nobs, which sort of does feel like 70s kitch to me, but mostly the guitar just doesn't feel like it could be that old. Fret wear comparable to my other 5 to 10 year old guitar. (Admittedly heavily played.) Five way selector switch with a black plastic "switch," doesn't feel original, as it doesn't match anything else. (May have to get a mother of pearl one...) All in all, if it's 30 years old, it's live quite a few of them in the case.

I'm betting it was made in or near Korea, as I'm getting the feeling that there aren't many of these around, and I can't see why it would have wound up here from too far away.But that's just a guess.

Thanks again for all the help guys- I'm gonna go play it again on my lunch break...

Best,
Ande

Pretty cool looking guitar. The angles and lines sort of make it look more like a bass guitar to me. Neat.

Any thoughts on how to guess the age of a guitar? (BAsed on physical aging. I haven't found anywhere to check the serial number...)

How about the backs of the pickups? There might be markings there. What does the inside of the control cavity look like? The pots may have markings and the type and brands of the caps will help.

Have you tried asking on the Japanaxe board? They might be able to help. http://forum.japanaxe.com/phpBB3/

Thanks everybody!

While I was busily trying to figure out what this guitar is, I bought it. What the hell, after all. I don't know much about, but it plays, sounds, feels and looks good to me. What else is there?

Could someone direct me to the thread that tells how to post pictures and sound clips? I figure that after all the help I got here, I should post some interesting details. So here's the description, and as soon as I learn how, sound clips to follow.

It's a funny combo of features. Several have said it's kind of bass looking; also vaguely stratshaped, but the through-neck is a bit of a wild card.

It sounds like...sort of a dark strat on the single coils. A bit SRVish, maybe? Stratlike, but fuller, and less treble; I'm thinking this is down to the wood. I don't know what the wood is, but it's dark and heavy. Maybe walnut (the dark parts) and maple (the light). Or I don't really know, but it's freaking heavy for such a small guitar. 24 inch scale, and the body rattles in a regular strat case, it' s so small. But it weights around 9 pounds, or so it seems.

Another effect of the wood and weight, as well as the neckthru design, I imagine, is the sustain. We all talk about sustain as a good thing, and I'm sure it will be. But in the beginning, it's hard for me to play- for practical purposes, if you want an open string note to stop, you have to stop it. Otherwise they hang around forever and clash with the following chords. This is going to require me to be a much cleaner played than I was. But for lead lines, it works! I was trying to play sweet child o mine last night, and it's getting as much sustain as Slash. (Not nearly as much talent, but...)

The pickups are covered and metal-shredder looking, like EMGs or something. But they aren't. The two single coils sound as mentioned before, and have a traditional strat feature- that incessant hum. They don't hum if you use the two together, and the bucker doesn't hum. Middle and bridge together hum.

It's got one volume, two tone. The tone controls have a decent range of "expression," I'm betting pots are 500s. Which would sort of explain why there's no tone control on the humbucker. Front tone is neck, back tone nob is middle. No tone control for the humbucker. :( (Probably doesn't need one. I played it for a long time last night, and didn't really miss it. But it sort of seems like something's missing, nonetheless.)

Another surprise, to me: this thing stays in tune. I'd heard that floyd rose licensed trems were terrible for this- It took me FOREVER to tune it, but once I did, and locked the bridge, it stayed. And, having never had one before, I was using the floyd a lot!

Other quirks. Some total idiot, probably in the shop, has waxed the fretboard. I could figure out what was sticking or why, for a while...but it seems to come off on a cloth with a light rub of mineral oil. So no harm done.

Projects: I want a couple of months to get used to it, but then will be thinking about changing a couple of things. Maybe the pups. Is a coil tap hard to do?

And now, I'm off to look for a thread that tells me how to change the strings with that newfangled bridge...

:)

Ande