Vintage

The Electric XII was only manufactured from 1965 to 1970, but its contribution to the sonic legacy of guitar music is significant.

A vintage Gibson acoustic is many a producer’s secret weapon and this gorgeous example certainly has ‘that’ sound.

Late-1960s Telecasters are not especially rare – unless they happen to have a rosewood body and neck like the guitar George Harrison played on the roof of the Apple building in 1969.

The ultimate secret weapon in the recording studio?

Fender’s Jazzmaster and Jaguar might look similar, but when we put a pair of vintage custom-colour offsets through their paces, they prove to be very different animals.

Much is made of the desirability of pre-CBS Fenders, but how does a 1952 Telecaster from the golden era stand up to a model from 1968? Time to find out if the answer is as cut and dried as you might think.

Only a year separates these two Gibsons, but the sonic and structural changes are significant. Find out what happens when single and double-cut Les Paul Specials from 1958 and ’59 go head-to-head.

This ash-bodied 1959 Jazzmaster sports a gold anodised pickguard and a blonde finish, making it one of the rarest and most collectible offsets in the Fender canon. Although its price tag that places it firmly in the wheelhouse of collectors and rockstars only, we wonder about the impact that ash has on vintage Jazzmaster tone.

Finding a vintage reverse-body Firebird without a headstock repair is hard enough, but when custom colours are thrown into the mix, they’re scarce indeed.

If you’ve ever wondered whether vintage tone is in the wood or the pickups, this pair of custom-colour pre-CBS Fender Stratocasters may help settle the issue.