1954 Silvertone (Danelectro) 1375 Solidbody Electric Guitar

Overview: This beastie is on the rarer side! While there's no date stamp, the features point to this being a first-year Silvertone 1375 model (thus, '54). It's basically a Silvertone-livery version of the original Danelectro U1-style "peanut" model, featuring a single pickup, solidbody (vs. semihollow) construction, and a neck with a giant aluminum bar running through it and most of the way through the body. It's a wild, very functional, and creative design style -- brutalist and effective. This one came into the shop in a bit of a state, but after repairs it's now playing spot-on. If you can get used to the big old neck, you can make some pretty dang good music on it!

Interesting features: The pickup is built (and sounds) along the same lines as the more-famous lipstick pickups, as it's just a coil surrounding a bar magnet. It's wound firmer, though, and has more output. The sound is very similar in its clean, balanced sound but it's just a bit fatter and more aggressive. The 3-way switch allows a "muted" and "strangled" tone alteration when it's out of middle ("straight through") position. As noted, the neck is mostly a giant aluminum U-shaped bar with wood attached to it to form structure. The headstock is grafted to the neck and the center-back of the neck is actually the bottom of the aluminum bar. Said bar runs straight through under the bridge and one can adjust neck angle with shims in the body-trench for this bar (as seen in the photos of the guitar taken apart). I took the interior pictures before work was done to it, so they don't show an added ground wire from the bridge studs to the jack.

Repairs included: It got a fret level/dress (heavy-handed, as it arrived with mucked-up, partially-leveled frets), ground wire added to the bridge studs, a bunch of cleaning, and a good setup. We also compensated the rosewood saddle to keep 3-wound, 3-plain (modern) string packs in tune at the 12th fret. The jackplate was broken in two pieces (it was just thin plastic) so I found a cool bit of metal scrap to turn into a new one that fits the look. It's playing bang-on and ready to go.

• Weight: 5 lbs 8 oz
• Scale length: 25 1/8"
• Nut width: 1 11/16"
• Neck shape: medium-big flattened V
• Board radius: 20"
• Depth at first fret: 63/64"
• Depth at seventh fret: 63/64"
• Body width: 11 1/2"
• Body depth: 1 1/4"
• Body wood: poplar, I think
• Bridge: moderately adjustable
• Fretboard: rosewood
• Neck wood: poplar
• Pickups: 1x original bar single coil
• Action height at 12th fret: 1/16” overall (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 46w-10
• Truss rod: non-adjustable
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: wider/lower

Condition notes: As noted, the jackplate is unoriginal. Compensation has been added to the saddle. There's wear and tear to the faux-leather covering all over the body. There are nicks, scratches, and dings here and there throughout. The pickguard/pickup cover has some warping to its shape. The endpin is damaged (I can replace as desired). The headstock veneer has a chip out of one corner. We added side dots. Aside from the changes, it is otherwise original.

It comes with: Sorry, no proper case, though it does have a lightweight gigbag.

Consignor tag: RTRO