The Electra Forums

Greetings all. First a little story...

about ten..maybe 12 years ago I was shopping around for an electric guitar. I had recently(a couple years before) started playing the acoustic and wanted to move to an electric but like many folks in their early twenties money was not exactly flowing in

So I hit the local pawnshops. I had my eye on this ephiphone Les Paul when a gentleman who was buying a fender tele(the real deal) asked if he could give me a peice of advice. For some reason I said yes. He picked up this what I thought at the time to be an not altogether attracitive guitar. It was a cream color that I had passed over originally. This guy goes on to tell me that for the money this is the best guitar in the shop. He may have mentioned the model number at that time but for the life of me I could not recall it. Anyway he explains that this electra was an anniversary edition and had two humbuckers with push pull pots and went on and on for some minutes. He told me to play it and see if I liked but that it was really a better guitar than the epiphone I had wanted to buy.

Again for some odd reasonI decided to take the advice of a total stranger. The guitar was marked at 140 or some such. Don't recall at the moment. Anyway the pawn shop employee checked the number for me and went in the back and came out with a Fender Strat Hard Case and said this comes with it. I talked him down to 110 flat for the guitar/case because even though I didn;t know much about the guitar itself I knew that fender hardcase cost more than 110.

So I plugged in the little electra and played around with itand decided sound wise I liked it. And I bought it.. hehe and I have spent the rest of that time enjoying it and searching for the model number. Because the ONLY piece the guitar was missing(and I might add the gentleman giving me advice pointed this out) is the plate on the back with model/serial number. The set screws are there but NOT the serial number itself.

And today in another attempt at trying to find the model I found this site and low and behold found the Phoenix X155 pics... an exact match for my much loved "cheap" guitar. Anyway here are the pics of my Electra which I have determined is indeed an X155. If anyone knows different please tell me It doesn;t matter as pretty much nothing would make me part with this guitar. I am looking at buying a second electric but somehow I have a feeling it will get regulated to my backup axe and not the primary. Oh and I have since come to love the color of this thing hehe funny how a few years changes your outlook eh?

Hello and welcome shadoes
Good story on the X155.

It looks to be in excellent condition.
You were lucky to have gotten such good advice.

You can see a good example on the Electra page.
http://www.therathole.org/guitars/electra/x155.html

yea that is exactly how I found it. Anyone have any info on what the pickups are in this?

Those look to be original pickups. They were made in Japan I believe. Should have "MMK 45" or something like that on the back. I have them also, in my Electra's. Some of the best sounding pickups for distortion but feedback pretty bad unless you dip them wax and they turn out to be great pickups. Your guitar looks great. I would guess it may have been stolen at one time so someone took the plate off.


Ronnie

Yea I thought about that too. Well I have owned it for 12+ years now It would be nice though if they had printed the serial numbers somewhere else on the body like in the pickup chamber or some such heh. Sucker is heavy too.

What exactly is the process for dipping a pickup? Never done it or ever actually heard of anyone doing it.

Here is some info on potting pickups
http://www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets/ele ... ralin.html

Thanks. heh I may actually have to try that some time. But so far the pickups as they are currently seem to perform more than adequately

Whew.. back after being way busy Hmm 81 eh> I suppose that is better I have looked for other electras but the word is out and the prices are on the rise. I would like to pick up something with a lespaul body. I did recently purchase a yamaha AEX 502 from a friend. Thats a nice guitar as well heh.

Take a look at Electra LP copies, they're quite good. There are a couple different eras of them, two phases with Gibson-style headstocks and then later the wave-style headstocks. The later ones are great but cost more; I've found the early ones quite responsive to good setup and some are quite fine considering you can find them sometimes under $200.

Your Phoenix is quite gorgeous, congratulations! I agree, the color is very beautiful- they made some of the early Futuras that color as well. And MMK pickups are some of the best made by anyone at any time!

hehe not to get off the subject of pickups but I have to say this eelctra sounds soooo much better than my yamaha. I love the look of the yamaha but sound wise the electra blows it away on just about every style except maybe real bluesy stuff hehe

You are dead on Shadoes! I'll try to split the pickups thing into another thread since it's more off-topic here.

There is definitely something to be said for older Japanese guitars.

hehe you don't have to split the thread Was just commenting on the sound of my axe I have scoured the pawnshops around here lately and there are no Electras to be had. hehe Not evena westone to be seen. Would love to pick up another like mine or the Les Paul body to raise the action on and use for electric slide guitar.

Hmm what happened to the post that gave the details about identifying my guitar? I see my post before that one and my post after but not the actual post where i beleive it was AriaProII who had said he thought it was an 1980 model.

The X155 was available from 81 to 83. My guess is yours is one of the early ones, the bridge is the same as was available on other 81-82 models. Also, all the 83 Phoenixes I've seen had stamped serial numbers rather than stickers or plates, so I'd give it an 80% probability. The Phoenix neck with peace sign logo is definitely something that was done early on, though anything is possible.

But we don't know enough about what went on at the factory to know if they were really making those models all the years they were sold, or if they were made early on and serialized as they were actually exported.