"love at first sight"

Sometimes I wonder what really makes one single guitar so special. 

What make´s it stand out in a way that cant be compared with its competers. Is it caused by it producer, its brand. Or maybe its more important in wich country its originally produced.

How is it possible to compare different guitars in a wide different price range. Is it even possible in regards of the Electric guitar.

Caused by economic retrictions, custom-rates and other taxes a fairly cheap guitar in its orgin country might end up extremly expensive in Your own country. Even if those extra cost today seam to be minor.

Les Paul & Mary Ford in the early 50-ies

With the use of famous guitarplayers, bands different guitar-makers can make their product more popular. They can even add an air of exclusivity to their brand.

with the Japan revolution we realised that they was not only able to build great motorcycles, cameras, hi-fi equipment and more. They also started to produce electric guitars, often exact copies of guitars made in countries like the US. 

Gibson Les Paul-Playboy edition.

the "LOG" Les Paul´s first electric guitar

Back to the roaring 50-ies n 60-ies.

In USA the late Les Paul in need of more sound from his guitar constructed one of the first electrified guitar using a Gibson Archtop. Later he constructed the famous Gibson Les Paul guitars. 

Fender Telecaster

During the same time Leo Fender started with his guitars, the Telecaster and Stratocaster. Guitars wich all is famous world wide today.

Fender Stratocaster 1960

In Europe and in my country Sweden we was forced by the economy to use European made guitars. Even if we dreamed of a US built guitar. The line of Fender guitars was more expensive then similar guitars made in Europe.

Gibson L5

Its not totaly wrong to say  that noone went out to buy the extremly expensive Gibson L5 just because Elvis Presley´s main guitarplayer Scotty Moore used one. It all changed with bands like the Shadows, the Beach Boys, the Beatles.

The Shadows started with some different Fender guitars but started to use the UK produced Burns guitars. The Burns company even had models named as signature Shadows and Hank B Marvin. The Beatles entered the scene with a US made Rickenbacker, a US made Gretsch and not to forget a German made violin bass from Höfner. Not a Fender or Gibson in sight.

the Beatles 1964

Especially Beatles made every youngster to shop for a Höfner, the two other guitars was a bit to expensive.

Levin Archtop 1964

All over Europe guitarmanufactors pop´d up like springflowers. In Sweden we already had the Levin and Bjärton factories who made high quality acustic guitars. Soon their guitars was fitted with microphones and became electric archtop guitars. The Hagström company started to make electric guitars, and later acustic ones. all of them was top quality instruments with a price range from fairly cheap to extremly expensive.

Hagström-KENT guitar of 1963

Around western europe several guitarmakers made: EKO, VOX, Elite, Dynacord, Klira, Höfner, Hohner, Framus, Burns and many more. The VOX guitars was mainly made in Italy by other makers, then branded VOX. Main part of the other European made guitars was in the low and middle pricerange offering good value for the money spent.

Höfner 1965

While guitars from the US often was priced higher then the European they also did have their fair amount of cheap guitars. the fact is that the Fender company´s guiars was mainly sold at supermarkets in the US. With this in mind many European musicshops didnt want to sell those mass produced guitars. Still Fender is today regarded as a top of the line guitar. 

Harmony 1965

Harmony was yet another company that sold their products with the help of postalorder and supermarkets. Often Harmony guitars had a different brandname, connected to the shop that was about to sell it. 

Among those companies in Europe as far as I know it only two of them made guitars in the top pricerange. Well buildt handcrafted guitars for the serious guitarplayer. Levin and Burns.

Burns replica made in 2010

Even if they was fairly unexpensive guitars in the 60-ies, they can often be compared with much more expensive guitars of today. The quality of those instruments might be low compared to other guitars from the 60-ies. 

EKO 290 2V 1964

Most of the guitars from the 50-ies and 60-ies is today regarded as colelctors items and sold at prices that seam to reach the skye.

With Japan producing eact copies of great guitars, the US suddenly found their selfs in a competition. Ibanez produced copies of every Gibson guitar made and sold em at extremly low prices. the guitars was of similar quality as the originals. This as the now famous and saught after lawsuit models.

Ibanez Barney Kessel lawsuit app 1970

This competition made almost all of the world renown companies to start procution of copies with their own brand names. Countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India was among the contries were guitars now was made. A Fender named Squire, the Ephphone compande bought by Gibson now became the asiatic brand for the company´s procuts made in Asia.

Epiphone ES175-3 Bigsby made in Korea by gibson

The Swedish copanies Levin and Hagström went out of production, but is now produced in Asia.

Levin archtop made in Korea 2005

Guitars if fashion, guitars is love at first sight. With this in mind You could always find your dream guitar. And if you try to test your guitar blindfolded without looking for its brandname, you may end up with the perfect guitar to your collection. 

That wasnt entirely true. Among those guitarplayers that I know, they always have a small or a big collection of different guitars. The reason seam to be that every guitar does have its own very special quality. A quality that can be found in an expensive brandname guitar as well as in a lowcost one. 

Is your love to a guitar similar to the feelings you have for a the woman in your life. Would  you like to take the guitar to bed? I dont think its wrong at all to compare a guitar with a sexy woman. 

To start of you like the way it looks, next step is to touch it and later its playability. The last part can alter but there is also huge possibilities with abit of work to make a not so good guitar become something great.