The Electra Forums

I just found the Electra homepage today, and finally found some info on my guitar. My grandfather had this guitar since it was new and used it for get togethers known as "pickin and grinnin" for many years. I grew up around music (mostly roots rock and outlaw country) and took up the guitar myself as a kid. A few years ago my grandfather gave me the guitar. I've always loved how well this guitar played, but never knew anything about who made it, or when. Now I know the specific model, and according to the serial number it is an '81 (the year I was born).

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It's winding down and there's much you've missed, working on that graveyard shift.

Awesome! Welcome to the Institute.

Do you want to sell it??

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Mark A Johnson

I can't image he would want to sell it. His grandfather gave it to him, he loves how it plays, and it was made the year he was born.

Hey, everyone!

My first guitar waaaaaay back in 1981 was the x260. I had never seen a guitar that I thought was so beautiful in my life. To this day, I still haven't.

There is something about that gorgeous dark natural wood and the way that neck plays.

Sadly, I sold the guitar when I moved across the country in 1987. I still regret that decision.

However, one day I was donating my time at a local high school and I saw the stripped-down body of a familiar guitar tossed onto a storage shelf. I was certain that it was an Electra, but it was ever-so-slightly different from my x260. I asked the band teacher about it, and she said, "That old thing? Take it if you want it. By the way, the neck and all the parts are in a box in my office."

When I opened the box, I saw the familiar Electra neck and tell-tale headstock. (I later discovered it was the x280 bolt-on model). All the pickups, knobs, tuners, bridge, everything was there. The only damage was a small crack where the neck bolts on and the nut was missing from the neck. For less than $100, a luthier repaired the damage and reassembled the guitar for me. It now plays more beautifully than any other guitar I've owned. A close friend of mine just dropped $2,000 on a Les Paul and he is constantly begging me to use the Electra! HA!

For my birthday this year, I bought a framed promo ad of Jeff Lynne holding an Electra! That's definitely going on the studio wall.

I've had Strats, Teles, and Ibanezes, but nothing comes close to my Electra x280 (and my x260, wherever she is).

Peace,
Dan

I have an Invicta from 1980. I bought it for $200 in 1988 or so from a guy who said he paid 400.

I’ve also thought it wasn’t that great. Part of that stemmed from my impatience with restringing. I just wrapped them around the post a one and a half times, making it go out of tune. Plus I was just bashing the strings playing punk, even using a Bud Tallboy as a pick a few times. So everyone said my guitar sucked and I believed them.

Now I have designs on using points from my Amazon credit card to buy an SG Standard, Explorer or V Factor. Yet as I poke around the web to get an idea what my Electra is worth, I feel like maybe a fool. It sounds like my guitar is pretty nice after all!

My neck is super smooth, a small gouge is in the headstock, and the bridge is slightly corroded.

I replaced the bridge pickup with an EMG Select and the freboard pickup with a Dimarzio. The EMG seems very hot and rocking but the Dimarzio seems far less loud and much less distorted.

It sounds like the original pickups were pretty nice so maybe I shouldn’t have swapped them. My amp setup when I first got it was a Gorilla practice amp and a Peavy Basic 40, so I couldn’t tell how good the pickups were anyway.

The hard case is gouged outside but a perfect nest inside.

Now I have the sudden dilemma and second thoughts. Would a new $1,400 Gibson be nicer than this old Electra?

I am just a punk rhythm player with no band. I just always wanted a really nice guitar. Maybe I already have one?

Then maybe I could replace my Marshall Jackhammer distortion pedal and 1978 Peavy halfstack for a real amp setup!

If anyone has advice, it would be welcome.

The original pickups were very good indeed! But it's not too late to swap back!

The stores that replaced them kept them.

Hey, Editor! Welcome to the club!

Whether or not you'll enjoy a new Gibson over your old Electra is strictly a matter of personal preference, but I can say that there's no reason your Electra can't deliver the same goods you'd get from a Gibson at a fraction of the price and with a lot of unique character.

It sounds like you aren't happy with the neck pickup and that maybe you need to replace the bridge due to corrosion. You can get a great neck pickup from $30-$100 and Electra bridges can be easily replaced with almost any tune-a-matic for $15-$30. Then, throw on some locking tuners (my personal preference is Planet Waves Auto Trims at about $60, which will pretty much eliminate your tuning issues), put some graphite gel (maybe $10) on the nut slots and the bridge saddle notches to prevent string breakage and take your Electra to the best luthier in town for a $40 (this probably varies) setup.

At the most, you've spent $240 and I can guarantee that your guitar will play and sound a thousand times better. After all that, I doubt you'll ever miss the Gibson. Then you can use the leftover money you didn't spend on a new Gibson (which probably would have needed at least a few of the above itself, BTW) and get yourself a nice 50w tube amp and a couple of pedals you can be happy with. I'm sure forum members would be happy to espouse the virtues of all their favorites in those categories as well.

Finally, if you do decide to go the Gibson route, make sure you play a bunch of them before deciding on one. Anything that isn't Custom Shop is pretty much cookie-cutter at this point and quality and setup can vary greatly from guitar to guitar. I'm not saying they aren't or can't be good guitars, but you have to wade through a few before you find the one that might work for you.

Good luck! I hope you decide to put the money into your Electra. It's always fun to rehab a worthy guitar and nice to have money left over for other toys. I'm jealous!

Matthew

P.S., If you do decide to rehab the Invicta, you might consider trying a different bridge pickup, too, unless you're completely happy with the EMG. I've never used an EMG, though, so I can't make a judgment call there.

The original pickups appear not too infrequently on ebay- look for MMK45 on the back.