c.1965 Teisco-made Solidbody Electric Guitar




This is a pretty typical mid-60s, Teisco-made (Japan) product that probably sold under dozens of brand names in various stores throughout the US. This one is unmarked but mostly original, and after all the necessary work, has turned into a growly, quick, hot-sounding garage rock guitar.

Repairwork included a new rosewood nut, new (vintage parts) tuner buttons for all the tuner shafts, replacement tone pot and various wiring fixes, new knobs (note that both say tone -- hah -- not enough spares in the workshop I guess!) since the old knobs cracked away when removing them, bridge repositioning (these NEVER came from the factory properly intonated!), lots of cleaning, and of course setup.


Unlike later models, this one has a solid-wood body which means great tone right off the bat. The whammy assembly should work fine once an arm is located, but since it has none right now I've removed the spring for it and stowed it.

This guitar was pretty hilariously grungy when it arrived in a trade and now it's less grungy but still shows its "charm."


Right, I also replaced the cheesy plastic tuner ferrules with metal ones from my parts bin. The neck is some sort of vaguely mahogany-ish species.


The board has actual pearl dots for a change.


Two growly single coils fill out the sound. Slider switches turn the pickups on and off. For whatever reason, Teisco products tend to have lots of these slider switches rather than the 3-way switches typical on US makes.


Here's that bridge. Note the old holes under it from where it was improperly positioned beforehand. The "red" under the whammy assembly just mutes overtones. It's entirely unnecessary but I tend to mute my extra string length since I come from a mandolin background and like fundamentals.


The back of the neck actually shows some flame/curly throughout.



Good sturdy plate.


Tuners are lubed and work fine, now. Without lubing the tuners these old Japanese-made 6-on-a-strip types are always horrible, horrible, horrible -- but work dandy after some WD-40.



Plenty of scuffs and dings to the edges of the body for more of that "charm."

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi, I found one of these under the Cameo brand here in Texas. It has 2 pickups and I'm wondering what happened to yours here on this page. Did you end up selling it? I'm wondering because the one I found is in pretty good shape.
Anonymous said…
Thanks for info on this guitar. I took this Cameo branded guitar and was able to reposition the bridge--it was mounted not only straight across, but off-center--and get it to intonate to an acceptable level.

Really appreciate your info!
Anonymous said…
I have a guitar that looks almost exactly the same, I have tried to shed some light on the history of mine, or even figure out what it is, but here's my email, hopefully I can solve this mystery. Dillypie9912@gmail.com