1960s Kent (Guyatone) Model 533 Videocaster Electric Guitar

The back of the headstock reads "Model 533 Videocaster." How's that? The tailpiece cover reads "Kent."

It's actually a Guyatone-made guitar, though, and a hip one at that. It has a very '60s voice -- a bit clean and spanky but also a bit snarly. The neck is a full-C shape but has a 24 3/4" Gibson scale length which makes it feel a bit more "normal" compared to how so many import Japanese guitars from the time seem to be extra-short-scale.

It's got four single-coil pickups arranged in two banks of controls. Each bank has two on/off slider switches for the pair of pickups and a third slider switch which is a bypass-or-on switch for a tone control for the bank of two pickups. After that  there's a couple of volume controls -- one for each bank of two pickups. It seems like the idea was to adjust your desired tone between the pairs of pickups and then control their mix with the volume controls.

In the real world, it seems to be best to just leave all the controls wide-open and then just cycle through the pickups on/off. The traditional voices are best, of course -- neck or bridge on their own or the two together -- but the two mid-pickups are also neat as well.

Because it's a '60s guitar, the bridge is compensated for a wound-G setup and so I've strung it like that, though in gauges 46w-10. Most of these old Japanese guitars were intended for wound-G and they always sound best/more-balanced with it. The pickups don't sound "weird" when setup for wound-G. That said, if you want to play plain-G, it'll need a different bridge that's compensated for it.

Post-repairs it plays smooth and quick and it's ready to go.

Repairs included: fret level/dress, cleaning, reattach the ground wire, reseat a pickup, mod to tailpiece to make it "locked" (it's a whammy tailpiece, but they don't work well at all, so it's best to block them so they don't move), side dots install, setup.

Body wood: solid mahogany

Bridge: plastic adjustable (wound-G compensated)

Fretboard: rosewood

Neck wood: mahogany

Pickups: 4x Guyatone adjustable-poles single coils

Action height at 12th fret: 1/16" overall (fast)
String gauges: 46w, 36w, 26w, 20w, 13, 10

Neck shape: medium-fuller C

Board radius: ~12-14"

Truss rod: adjustable (no more adjustment room)

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium-low

Scale length: 24 3/4"

Nut width: 1 5/8"

Body width: 12 1/2"

Body depth: 1 3/8"

Condition notes: it's pretty dang clean and all-original throughout. It does have minor usewear here and there and light nicks and dings but the look is good. The truss rod does not turn at the moment but the neck is straight in service tuned-to-pitch so I'm not worried about it -- overall deflection is under 1/64" at pitch.

It comes with: a gigbag.