Friday, March 18

Friday Guitar Blogging



Ilsa takes advantage of the spring-like weather to sun herself on the potting bench. She's a 47-year-old Hoyer acoustic archtop, European maple, dovetailed violin neck construction, weird 50s Tune-O-Matic™ bridge. All original except for tuners. Little finish damage on the edge near the bottom strap button, but otherwise in fine form for her age and a great player. Original Selmer tweed case with burnt orange velvet lining. A one-owner baby I got from a guy in Australia. I think she'd spent a lot of time under the bed.
Also pictured: cat.

Doghouse Riley uses Thomastik-Infeld "George Benson" strings, for which he gets absolutely bupkes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't use this word often: breathtaking!

James Briggs Stratton "Doghouse" Riley said...

Ah, linkmeister, Brother of the German 'Aiches, welcome! The practical difficulty of getting a picture with a cat and a prop--exponentially harder than cat, solo--deprived me of the time necessary to tilt Ilsa upwards so you could see her pretty little headstock filligree, which is identical to Hofners of the same vintage. They used the same people, apparently. In fact the purchase decision came down to her and a '56 Hofner President, but the exchange rate with Oz was so favorable in those days that even paying the considerable shipping it was a steal. When I took her to the luthier right after I unpacked her he offered me twice what I'd paid on the spot. But nothing can really pay you back for two days of wondering what in hell the shippers are doing to your guitar.