1960s Aria Diamond (Matsumoku) Offset Electric Guitar

My friend Kevin brought this in for consignment and as soon as Jose finished working on it this past Saturday, it sold and left right out the shop door. Can you blame it? This thing is disgustingly-cool and, post-repairs, it became a spot-on player with a clean, almost sparkly tone.

Work included a level/dress of the frets, side dots install, some refitting of the bridge adjuster wheels (soldered the holes in them and rethreaded them to get them to work well), cleaning, a replacement neck plate and neck bolts (we used an antiqued, Gotoh-made, Fender-style one as the original plate and bolts were damaged), and setup work.

Interestingly, the pickup has adjustable poles so string-to-string balance is easy to achieve. The guitar itself is very lightweight and it's also extremely clean. It lived with its original chip case this whole time and that's the reason it's been kept so well. My guy Ancel was trying to tell me it "has to be a refinish!" Uh-huh...

It has a 24 3/4" scale (as I recall) and a Gibson-feeling neck which makes it very pleasant to play. The outrageous body shape doesn't hurt, too, and it's lightweight to boot.