The Electra Forums

Hi all,

New member and fan here. Been active on The Gear Page and the Hamer Fan Club for many years now.

I have a real love for Japanese guitars built in the mid 70's to the Mid 80's. In my experience, the quality of the workmanship, playability, and tone is second to none. I've owned or still own several Tokai, Burny, Greco, and Ibanez guitars from that era. I didn't keep them all for various reasons, but still have 3 Grecos (a V and 2 Explorers). I've recently started to become familiar with Electra guitars that were built in the Matsumoku factory in Japan. I came close to buying an MPC model that had built in, exchangeable effect modules, but was a little too slow on the trigger. But in my research, I found a high quality under appreciated brand of Japanese guitars.

My local craigslist never has much to really consider even inquiring on. It's mostly stuff that has been purchased at full retail and someone is trying to get rid of at the great deal of 10% off retail. So I was pleased to see an ad for an Electra 335 for a decent asking price. After a little research, I determined it was an X410 model:

I arranged a time to try it out (which is a rarity for me when buying guitars), not knowing what to expect. What I found was a guitar being sold by its original owner (it's a 1977 model) that had been unplayed for many years, and babied when it had been played. With the exception of some tarnishing of the gold bridge and stoptail and a dirty selector switch, it was in basically like new condition. It has cool tortoise shell binding around the front, back, neck and F-holes. The pickups sounded very full and articulate through the Fender Princeton I took with me. After a little haggling (ended up under 5 bills), I bought it on the spot. A big thanks to Thorny, who spent a great deal of time with me on the phone right before I went to check it out.

I've had a few 335 guitars (including an early 80's Gibson Dot Reissue) and this hangs with all of them at a fraction of the cost. I'm not sure of the value of the guitar on the open market, but in terms of how it plays and sounds, it's an absolute steal. I'm going to try and get some better pictures up soon, but here are a couple of shoddy ones form the CL ad to whet your whistle.

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Free Your Mind and Your A$$ Will Follow......

Took some better pics and uploaded them here:

http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c270/ ... ra%20X410/

very nice axe.. another closet find

Very nice binding, on a very nice guitar!
Beautiful wood grain as well, classy look.
Good find!

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Addicted to Matsumoku.

Agreed!

Nice axe.

RCSBlues

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RCSBlues

Welcome to the site and let me also say thats a very nice looking guitar.
Only the second one I've seen.

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SlmGuy