The Electra Forums

Looks very clean, don't know if all is original as claimed (still learning)...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-ES-335-Elvi ... 414b9b7a2c

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If you don't know the blues you got a hole in your soul -Freddy King
Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions, circa 1994

Very nice example of an Elvin Bishop model. This one may be a PCM model or an early model as it has the star tuners and also has the large Elvin Bishop sticker on back of headstock. The trapeze tailpiece is also missing the middle portion so that is why I tend to believe it may be a PCM model. Anyone else have any ideas on this one?. I was saving it for XMAS but I will go ahead and let it out of the bag now since this came up. I was lucky and fortunate enough after a long period of asking to become the proud owner of of two beauties from our very own JMM. I purchased the excellent examples he had of the Elvin Bishop(1976 model) and the X410 Jazz Strad(open book headstock) that he had pictured with his collection. They are both in excellent to near mint condition and they both play and sound great. They will play circles around any Gibson 335 I promise. As soon as all this fowl weather passes I will post some pics for everyone to see and compare to this one. This is indeed a fine specimin and the price can be negociated a little I would think but again the pristine Elvin can be a hard find and I have never came across one exactly like this one. Good Luck and I will get up the pics soon. Mortarman120gang11c

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

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Mint?? She's clean, but I think the seller is a little full of himself. Look at the pickups, there are plenty of swirls on the front and back of this guitar. 'Taken out of closet just to play and adjust...'??? It's certainly early production with those star tuners and the openbook headstock, but something is up with that tailpiece and if someone pays $1500 for it, they may be a little disappointed when they see it up close, if they are expecting NOS like the seller is implying.

On the other hand, I do agree that the Electra Semi's more than hold their own with a Gibson, and you'd pay probably $3000 for a Seventies 335, and that was probably their worst era for quality, so I guess everything is relative. I'll stick with my $400 Maple Pro!

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Electra Guitar Videos ===> http://www.youtube.com/user/mjm33mjm?feature=watch

As always, thanks guys for the input. I didn't buy the "Closet Queen" story and did see what looked like some erosion on the Pups. I'd say this is in Fine to Extra Fine condition, good enough but from where I sit, certainly not at his current prices. A thou, I could see it. As with collecting guitars, trees don't continue to grow into the sky forever so collector pieces have to bought at more than reasonable prices and a planned hold for a period of years for the investment to pan out. Just my 0.02 worth. I've certainly paid a little too much for several of my Electra pieces learning the ropes. But all in all I'm pretty comfortable with what I'm sitting on. Now I'm looking for an early late '50s to '60s mint ES335 (or both), the only hole(s) in my "other" vintage collection (expect of course for the '57 Les Paul Gold Top I had and sold 20 years ago ).

Being a little OT (okay, a lot), Here's my recent '68 acquisition, she came in and is beautiful,



Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah and Festivus for the Rest of Us to all!!

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If you don't know the blues you got a hole in your soul -Freddy King
Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions, circa 1994

For what it's worth here are the pics of the Elvin and X410 that I got from JMM.Hope I got this right:
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1243.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1244.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1247.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1248.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1249.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1252.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1258.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1269.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1271.jpg
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... 0_1273.jpg

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

That is one sweet Gibson you have there. I am drooling excessivley, and bet she sounds great.

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

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SWEET!!



Thanks and yes she does...

Meantime back at the farm on the 24th our newest Outlaw hits PC Looking forward to cracking that case.

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If you don't know the blues you got a hole in your soul -Freddy King
Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions, circa 1994

The Elvin I recently acquired has the same saddle config as in pic 1248. At first I thought someone had monkeyed around with it. I've never seen saddles set up that way. Can you think of a reason for it? Aside from witch hat knobs (which appear to be replacements), and smaller bridge posts, mine looks to be a clone of yours Arthur - Very close s/n too. I am LOVING this guitar and it's contributing heavily to ( and making it just a tad easier) my forced sale of a bunch of my other Electra's.

The Elvin is indeed one of my favorites to play and to just look at and admire. I have no answer for the bridge setup other than it works and works well. Intonation is dead on. The Elvins are very hard to put down once you start to play them and are know to cause severe EGAS in the players and anyone around one. My excessive Egas started just after I began playing the Elvin and X410 I scored from JMM. The Elvin is loved by all that play her no matter what playing style they have. Congrats on your Elvin. I do not have a socket to fit the nut on the tailpiece so I assume it is metric but not certain. Enjoy the Elvin

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

The saddles can go either direction (captain obvious here). Sometimes you need that extra mm of travel to intonate, so it's not too uncommon to see the top three going one direction and the bottom three going the other way. It looks better (imho) when they're all going the same direction, but it really doesn't make that much difference, it is still serving as the fulcrum point for the string starting point.

The saddles usually have different size grooves cut in them for the different string sizes, and the bridge can be turned around (erroneously) by a noob doing a cleaning job which can cause problems. Also I've seen the Adjustment Screws for the saddles in both orientations on lots of different makes and models, so I'm not sure if there is a correct direction. I like mine pointing towards the back, as its sometimes tight to get a screwdriver between the bridge pickup and the bridge, but again, I'm not certain if there is a correct way they're supposed to go.

If I'm missing the point on your question Jead, please fill me in.

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Electra Guitar Videos ===> http://www.youtube.com/user/mjm33mjm?feature=watch

The saddles from bass to treble go 2 facing front 2 facing rear 1 front 1 rear (or the opposite of that depending on what "front" is). I like the adjusting screw in back as well. Probably 80% of the guitars I see would have saddles going 3 front 3 rear and the other 20% have the saddles all in the same direction. I kind of doubt it makes any difference at all which direction they point except, as you rightly point out, for intonation purposes. I was just surprised when I saw that mortarman's Elvin was set up exactly the same - Got me to thinking there was more to it than just randomness.

mortarman - I took off the nuts today and though I'm not sure, I'm thinking they may be standard. The remaining cap nut fit right on so I figure what were the chances of someone having 4 metric nuts of the right size just lying around. I know I wouldn't. Anyway, I can test them out on some screws I have and get a grip on the correct size. This Elvin has lots of tiny dings and scratches - none of which are major, and moderate fret wear. I know it sounds cliche but almost all of the scratches and dings blend in from a couple feet away. Binding and electonics are all intact as is the vine inlay. It's not perfect by along shot but I am really happy with it. I'm toying with the idea of taking it to NYC for a PLEK job. I will not do fret work on this guitar - first off it's bound which makes everything much trickier and secondly I don't want to take even a small chance on messing up the vine.