Electra Guitars Serial Numbers

[Claribel Lizama]

ithas the vari-tone 5 way switch on the top, and near the normal volume knobs there is a volume and tone, as well as 2 seperate toggles. all in all with those controls you can get alot of out of phase tones and coil tapping, and it is very responsive. there is a tremendous difference when switching through the controls to tight bass-heavy, loose chunk and i am really digging the clean "jangly" sound in spot 1 on the vari-tone with the toggle down - it is the most jangly 60s sound ive heard other than a legit rick.

im really digging it. thanks for any help. it has that classic LP tone, as well as many, many more that make it a very versatile guitar. switching through the varitone and toggles i went through quacky "bad moon risin" tones, tom petty jangle, to nice extrmely thick crunch

Unless you've misread the first number your guitar is an '81. Most of the Matsumoku made guitars after 1976 used a dating system where the first or first two numbers of the serial number are the year it was made. So a guitar with a 1 as the first number should be an '81.

Sounds like a definite keeper fishfartz. Do you like it as well as the Aria SG? I love those old Matsus and you seem to know where to find em. (Truth is my wife won't let me have anymore so I'm holding firm at ten).

actually man, it sounds so much better than the aria. i really dig the aria and the only thing wrong with it is the frets are worn down very low, and the pups were not wired right - and i couldnt get them wired correctly. so only the bridge bucker is wired on the aria. i tried & tried but failed at getting the SG wired correctly (ive done it plenty in the past, just something not working out here) - but i do like it alot.

now the electra seems to be a much more solid guitar, and it has alot of great sounds. i think the electra is far ahead of it as far as quality and construction, im real happy with it. i noticed the volume knob is "iffy" - i have to wiggle it to get it working, i tried the ol' shot of contact cleaner in the pot but no go, but thats an easy fix (replace pot)

so yeah, im really digging it alot. it has so many sounds i think its going to be very handy when recording, its surprising just how different each spot on the varitone switch sounds, as well as the 2 toggle settings.

i really plan to do some recording soon, and im sure this will come into play heavily. it just blows my mind how many completely different tones are available on this due to the 5-way varitone and 2 toggle switches. the differences are nothing subtle - i literally can go from jangle/spanky tom petty cleans to bass-heavy thump cleans, to bright & snappy.

its funny, i used to have strats all over the place and an LP and/or something with humbuckers for the bucker tones, but after getting the lite ash 2 years ago ive sold my strats, and between the aria SG and this i think im done collecting electrics for now. i need a bass for recording and miss having an acoustic around but as far as the electrics i think im actually good to go

i actually got it through a trade, i have always had extra amps laying around (mostly tube combos but other SS as well) and i traded a marshall MG15 "mini-stack" that i used to run my vocals/processor through at home in the bedroom when writing. i spread the "stack" out with a speaker on each side of the room and ran my mic through it, but i havent used it in over a year so i wasnt missing anything by getting rid of it

take it easy there fretmonster and thanks for the words, its always exciting to pick up something new. i got my wife to flip through the settings on the varitone while i recorded, ill post that later today but in the meantime ill be recording something fun to use some of its different/usable settings as well

I have done some research,and it looks like a company from Japan called Matsumoku built are guitars from 1969-1980.Then imported to the USA from a company called Kaman.Kaman stopped imports,because of a death in the family or it sold the company.Yamaha might have taken over the Memphis name after the 1980's.One question i have is why do i have Gibson serial numbers on my guitar?

Also, the Wikipedia entry here: _Guitars shows no reference to Yamaha and the reference in history to Yahama states that it was removed because the links alleging the connection were invalid (that means they didn't exist).

Look at the history of the article. The first entry "Created page with 'Memphis guitars where in production during the late 1970's and early 1980's. The company started when Yamaha seen an opportunity in the demand for gibson style gui. . . . "

Most of the Memphis guitars that you are likely encounter in places where 1970s Memphis guitars are likely to be at are most likely going to be the lower end models. Most mom and pop music stores back then usually had a line of lower end guitars for parents to buy their kids for Christmas. But there were also some much nicer Memphis guitars, many of which never made it to the United States back then. You can still find them. But you just have to look harder, especially for the clean all original examples that do not have issues that keep them from being playable musical instruments. Thirty or more years is a long time for things to happen to guitars. Odds are that you will most likely encounter the less than stellar examples on the journey that leads to finding the good ones.

Vox was a massive name in 1960s Britain, with Vox guitars and even more Vox amplifiers widely used by the very biggest names in British music: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Hollies, The Dave Clark Five and the Yardbirds, to name but a few. Soon American acts would join the roster, most notably Paul Revere & the Raiders and James Brown, but also countless less well known bands. For a few short years in the mid 1960s, the Vox name was everywhere. Today, vintage Vintage Vox guitars are highly collectable, especially the teardrop and phantom styed guitars, and the more unusual models: early JMI guitars and those with complicated inbuilt effects circuitry.

But the story of the 1960s Vox guitars is complicated, with many different guitars made in different plants worldwide, often quite different from each other. But it started in England; JMI were making Vox guitars at a factory in Dartford, Kent (See pic), primarily for Shadows fans in the UK. After Beatlemania, Brian Jones' teardrop Mark VI and the British Invasion of 1964, they could not keep up with worldwide demand, especially in the US. JMI outsourced some production to two Italian factories, EKO in Recanati, and Crucianelli, primarily for the American market, and at it's peak had a huge number of models available. Eventually the UK factory ceased guitar production, and the last few Vox guitars available for several years, were the Vox Giant range guitars, made in Japan.

Today, many of these rare guitars are highly collectable, with vintage Vox guitar values on the rise. They are loved for their crazy shapes and for the exciting sounds from the built-in guitar effects. Have a listen to some vintage Vox soundclips.

Vox guitars have been produced by various manufacturers in the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan; for convenience, you can split 1960s Vox guitars into four main categories. Each had different components, and it is not too difficult to place a guitar in one of these groups, just by looking at controls, pickups etc.

The earliest UK Vox's were solid-body guitars, assembled in the JMI 'Unity Works' plant in Dartford, Kent, with components coming from numerous British suppliers. Later necks were imported from Italy, but even with an Italian neck, these are regarded as the British Voxs. Unable to cope with worldwide demand, a second plant 'West Street' was opened nearby in 1965, but was badly damaged by fire in January 1966. Numerous JMI guitars were produced in the UK, from the Fender-style solid bodies Shadow, Ace, Stroller and Consort, to more original designs, such as the Phantom, Mark and Marauder. These were primarily for the British market, though many were exported to the United States in the early/mid 1960s.

At the same time, there was significant demand for hollow-body instruments, something not easily produced in any numbers at the Dartford plant. So Vox imported a range of guitars from Italian manufacturer Crucianelli. These models include the Vox Lynx, Vox Cougar bass, Vox Challenger, and Escort bass. Furthermore, demand for solid body UK models was so high that certain guitars were produced simultaneously in Britain and Italy (primarily by Eko of Recanati). Italian Phantoms from this period have some differing components and construction from their British-built counterparts.

The third main phase of Vox production is possibly the best known worldwide. These were the Italian built Vox's from the EME factory in Recanati; a joint Venture between Vox UK, Eko in Italy, and Vox's US distributor Thomas Organ. Most of these instruments were bound for the United States, where they were distributed by the Thomas Organ Company.

Although they have distinctive components, and often built-in electronic effects, most were versions of existing Vox models: primarily the phantom and teardrop shaped guitars (eg Delta, Starstream), Gibson/Gretsch-style single and double cutaway hollow bodies, (Ultrasonic, Viper, Cheetah, Apollo, Bossman) - plus the Invader and Thunderjet solid bodies.

From 1966 things started going wrong for Vox, ultimately resulting in the company briefly going out of business, and Vox guitar manufacture ending in the UK. By mid 1968, JMI were in the hands of the receiver. Leftover Vox guitars were distributed unbranded (though potentially still with some Vox markings) by Dallas Arbiter.

The last Vox's produced in the 1960s, (and into the early 70s) were the Japanese-made Vox Giant guitars. Aimed at the UK/European market, and first shown at the August 1968 Frankfurt trade fair. These guitars were mainly copies of American designs - Les Paul (and later SG) styled solid bodies and Gretsch Country Gent styled semi acoustics - quite nice guitars, but without the uniqueness of earlier models. These did not sell particularly well, and importation quickly stopped, leaving Vox to concentrate on Amplifiers for the rest of the 1970s.

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