Merle Travis with X500 video clip

Jeff

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Something went wrong, no Merle Travis.

One of the more interesting error msgs I've seen. Something about dispatching trained monkees.

Too bad, I'd like to see Merle Travis, again, some more. anytime.
 

dklsplace

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All that with just thumb & index finger....pretty cool.

Do those look like the mickey mouse era pickups to anyone else?
 

Walter Broes

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Pretty sure those are DeArmonds Don, the rare kind that was on X500's and early Starfires, the ones without the separate adjustment screw for the poles. I've seen those on Premier and Microfrets guitars too.

Also, the tone he gets....I have as much trouble keeping the DeArmonds in my Starfire clean! :lol: Those things just want to distort, they have so much output!
 

Darryl Hattenhauer

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Walter,

Dank U Vell (or however you spell it).

This is not only some great listening, but also historically important. It would be good to know when this ax was made. This guitar must be the same on on page 170 of the bible. (Let's drink a toast to Moust.) According to Hans, the peghead is about '55. So I'd say it could be from as early as '54, but a couple of years after '55 because of Guild's practice of putting new old-stock parts on new guitars. The knobs are pre-59, unless they were new old-stock.

The DeArmonds are very important. Do the non-adjustable kind here sound different from the adjustable ones? According to Hans, these nonadjustable DeArmonds were available as custom order by the late 50s. Does anybody know what year the first custom ones were done?

Also important is the Bigsby bigsby. When did Guild start putting them on custom orders? And when did Bigsby start making them with gold plate?
 
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