Cheap acoustic archtop?

[Nightfire]

Hey,
can anyone recomend me a cheap acoustic archtop? Any old brands that could be picked up for cheap on ebay?


Thanks

Mike

 

[lpdeluxe]

Define "cheap."

 

[Nightfire]

Your right I shouldve mentioned a budget.
Despite some of the laughs Im gonna get, the budget is about $100-150.
Its for experimental purposes.


Mike

 

[Nightfire]

Also, in the $100 budget, what kind of parlor guitars should I be looking at (those small but full curved acoustic guitars) as far as used goes?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[heatmiser]

Hey Nightfire,

I have my dad's old Kay archtop from 1948. Although I believe Kay was a department store type brand, he bought the best one they had (couldn't spring the extra $75 for a bottom-of-the-line Gibson (damn!). It is a beautiful instrument with lots of inlays and nice bindings - also has a nice plucky, retro, mid-rangey kind of sound. Kind of hard to play though as the action is less than great.

I've seen a few older models similar to mine for a few hundred on ebay and many cheaper models for $100 or less. Just a thought...

 

[guitar junkie]

Harmony is a good place to look on ebay and on craigslist/pawnshops etc etc

I think you could also look around for a cheaper off brand like silvertone which is the same thing as Harmony.

Parlor guitars can be a lot of fun and in fact there are a bunch of them on shopgoodwill.com right now that look really sweet from Stella among other brands...

I picked one up at a music store for $50 that has some sort of Pat Pending adjustable neck that you turn a bolt to convert the guitar from a "hawaiian" to a "western" sounds like cardboard and waxed paper rubbing together when I play it but then again that was what I was looking for.

 

[Nightfire]

Thanks for all the info.
I went to all the pawnshops yesterday and found an old Silvertone, the dude wanted $500 cause it was a collectible He also had a TEAC 8 channel mixer that he wanted $500 for because it had tubes and he said tubes are collector items nowadays
Needless to say I got outta there, but couldnt find anything else in the city.
I will take a look at Kay, Silvertone, Harmony and Stella.
The archtop I want to use to mount some guitarfetish pickups on it (the gretsch type), and the parlor guitar I want to get that old folky guitar sound for some of my songs.


Mike

 

[guitar junkie]

sounds like you need to look on ebay or craigslist