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The only Tubaphone rings made for Martin were done through Frank Neat and were of the traditional design after the Waverly rings were gone.
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For example, all of the significance that he places on the Tubaphone variant rings ignores the fact that all of them were made by Waverly in the 1960s for Vega before either company went out of business. The owner is willing to answer questions about Martin/Vega banjos.Ī lot of 'armchair experting' on that site, some of it wrong. Not even a pic of one or someone playing one.An excellent resource for Martin made Vega banjos is Banjo Rehabilitation Center.
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Whether they were allowed to because the factory didn’t want to waste the wood, or whether the workers did it on the sneak was always something I wondered but either way another crazy aspect to the storyĪgain this is just some story, no idea if it’s true or not but the only double cutaways I have ever seen are mine and the one you used to own. Nmiller - the same guy that said that those guitars were destroyed, also said that the double cutaway guitars were not made by Vega, that they were taken home by employees of the factory. If anyone has a lead on one, let me know thanks! There’s plenty of banjo catalogs around though it seems. I have been looking for a 1959 Vega guitar catalog with no luck. I would love to see some catalog pics for these guitars! Mine has trapeze tailpiece but they both have the same floating wooden bridge. I have an advertisement from 1959 magazine for the SG-99 and it is a single cutaway single pickup like mine but has stop tailpiece. It would help slightly with aligning the strings above the pole pieces on the neck pickup too. It’s not a huge issue for me but I could see where it would def be an issue for some players. One had painted dots instead of inlaid dots, and the other has unfinished spots where dots should be, it’s the only spot on both guitars that is not up to snuff with the rest of the build. My only beef is with the fret markers on the top edge of the fingerboard. Not sure what happened there but every Vega I have played (not that i’ve Played a million) was 25” scale length.
#Vega guitars history tv
I saw a tv yellow Vega solidbody on EBay a while back that someone had installed a modern bridge and listed it as 24.75 scale length. The Franz P90s in my guitars don’t sound like other P90s but the guitars def have a Junior quality to them.Īlso scale length is 25” which I also like it’s a good compromise. Yes I do remember reading that Vega was one of the first to electrify guitars, very nice pedigree for them. Nmiller, any credence to the story about Gibson VS Vega and solidbody guitars being destroyed? It kinda sounds like BS to me but was just wondering if you had heard that? I think my Vega collection is prob complete at this point, I may try to pick up an amp and I’m always interested in their Vintage solidbodies but for what I do guitar wise i’m Pretty much set. Nmiller, sometimes I think I have a decent Vega collection and then I see yours lol Story goes, Gibson won, Vega lost, and hundreds of guitars were destroyed.Īgain not sure how true this is but it might explain why there are so few around. Vega thought they would be ok because the Vegas were flat tops and the Gibsons were carved tops. Not sure how true this is, but I read on the internet from some guy who worked at the Vega factory back in the day, that Gibson was busting Vega’s balls because their solid body electric designs were too close. The pickups have such a great tone, volume and tone controls very responsive, neck is straight as an arrow, I really can’t complain too much. 1has stock Jensen other has no name replacement but sounds killer regardless. The small tube amps sound amazing as well. Obviously they were copying Gibson at the time and even earlier with the gold top westerner, these are kinda like that except not as fancy. I can honestly say that I have not found this to be the case with these late ‘50s solid bodies they are very well made. Reading about the history, available info talks about the declining quality of the instruments and eventual sale of the company to Martin. I think I might have the correct tuners for it but I am not plugging and drilling the headstock out on this i’ll Just leave it alone. Electronics seem original, someone put Grover tuners on it. They have a narrow nut which some don’t like but I am ok with.ĩ9% original parts, major repairs made, work in progressĪnd 40s-50s lap steel. I own 2 solid body electrics, 2 small tube amps and a lap steel.Īnyone else play Vega? Being from Boston it’s a hometown flavor kind of thing but I love their mahogany necks and Franz P90 pickups, centralab 500k pots, and the tone cap was also locally made. I didn’t notice a Vega thread here in the vintage section