Showing posts with label BLS-59 Live Road. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BLS-59 Live Road. Show all posts
Thursday, April 1, 2021
O-hisashiburi
It has been a long Corona year, and there really is no good reason to stop posting guitar photos and occasional thoughts about all things related to Japanese instruments. Today I'm just going to add a few photos of some amazing Grecos.
A rare pair of EGF-1800 Super Real Grecos
EG57-60 from 1982
52 Blackguard-style TL-800
The one that should have stayed: 1981 Greco SS-800
Old Tokai LS-80s are a real pleasure to play and photograph. This particular one is an early one from 1978 with mother of pearl fretboard inlays and chrome plated hardware.
It was a sunny winter day here in Tokyo with the sun coming in hard through the windows. The top of the LS really caught flame and revealed the fine figuring of the old maple.
A very clean headstock with the early pearloid tuning pegs.
A more subdued look in the shade.
Not your typical back grain here on the 1-piece mahogany.
When checking email for auction alerts I had a Greco SG notice that was already an hour old.
One click on the link, and right away I am staring at a Greco odd-ball SG, the same one that I remember seeing years ago on the legendary Udonitron's Flickr site (pics below from the talented Udonitron). With a fair purchase price, I remembered enough to read the description before hitting the magic button. "The Greco logo looks similar to a Gibson - don't purchase if that bothers you." stood out but only as something I've never seen before. The pictures look decent enough so click, click, click and off the market it did come.
Someone from the great FB Greco group posted a video link to another example from 1989. There is some good playing here to demo the pickups.
Certainly there was another 3-pickup SG that came out around the same time, also with gold hardware but with P-90s, dot inlays, and metal tuning pegs like on a junior. One one of the auction sites, a proper model name: Greco SS-85S model for Ranmaru from "Street Sliders."
A quick search and we have actual footage of the man himself with the guitar.
I pulled these pictures from an old auction:
So that solves one Greco 3-pu model story, but I couldn't find anything for the SG model with mini-hums. At least there is one more out there. There is one more SG that I had, but as is my bad habit with most of the rare guitars I get, I ended up selling it. Perhaps it was a custom order or a model made for an artist. I'm sure another one will show up someday.
Back at the old place in Aoyama the sun came through the window just right to take pictures of guitars on the wall hanger. Here are 36 Japanese made guitars from Greco, Tokai, Burny, Bacchus, Epiphone, Edwards (yes, an MIJ in there!), Orville by Gibson, Navigator (ESP) and a very rare Bison Golden Era reissue. I wish I had kept a few of these but they all have since passed on to new owners.
And yes, I know I should have kept that Greco SG-800 Custom in cream.
