I bought a 'vintage' Kay...or did I???

marklester · 09-10-2010, 08:55 AM

Hiya,

My new guitar turned up this morning...

It was what I believed to be a late 60's/early 70's guitar made in japan.....here are some piccies:

Out of the box the plastic bits that go in the tuner hole were all falling out so put them in - the cogs were loose on tuners, put them back together. The nut fell off..I'll re-glue...

Neck looks and feels okay, but for some reason the guitar looks 'small'...I offered it up to my tele and neck length and bridge distance looks the same, but the body is very small.....I haven't bought myself a 3/4 sized guitar have I?? hope not ;-(

Took pick guard off, pots are small, there's an RS capacitor on there and the pickup is VERY VERY light....

With all this in mind and also looking at the last pic I posted, the serial number looks like maybe a date?? 24th October 1980??? and then at the bottom of the sticker is a Wa I think....as in 'taiwan'???

I think I may have chosen poorly, as this might not be a 60's *** guitar, but instead a 1980 taiwan 3/4 sized guitar...

doh...if a guitar is 3/4 sized, is the neck length etc the same or is it all scaled down???? is it just a small body?

help and thanks ;-(
m

Squirr · 09-10-2010, 11:27 AM

Ahh...another mystery guitar!

If I were You I'd drop a line to this guy and see if he may be able to identify it, he seems to know a good deal about obscure vintage instruments. http://kingofkays.com/default.aspx

slotrod65 · 09-10-2010, 12:20 PM

These typically early 70's Japanese import guitars were the type seen in the Sears or JC Penny Catalogs at the time. They were of course beginner guitars, much like the First Act guitars at Walmart and Toys R Us today. They always seemed to be designed by someone who saw a picture of an electric guitar once, but did not have one to directly copy. I think that they have a certain "naive charm" to them. The necks can be "rubbery", and the bodies are often undersized. With proper setup, neck adjustment, etc, they can be made to play rather well. The biggest hurdle is that the pickups can be microphonic and feed back. First you just need to get it strung, and set up.

As for the scale length, measure from the nut to the bridge. Strats have a 25.5" scale length, and les Pauls are 24.75". Fender Jag is 24" and the Fender Dou Sonic is 22.5"

Do you have the broken part of the pickguard ? If so, you should be all set.

Stratatouille · 09-10-2010, 12:46 PM

Kay went out of business in 69 I believe. I think thats a 80's model made in Taiwan, similar to a Teisco?

wickedtools · 09-10-2010, 09:23 PM

The neck looks bigger than the body on mine too.

Sparkfire · 09-11-2010, 07:11 PM

I saw one similar to this at a pawn shop about a month ago. It had a funny looking tremolo on it. I almost bought it but needed the money for other things.

tjnugent · 09-11-2010, 09:27 PM

It is definitely a blast from the past.. and a work of art..

kevinpaul · 09-12-2010, 12:36 AM

In the 1970's 3/4 size guitars were common. Yammaha guitars were big on smaller guitars. In fact I could not find a full size in the modle I wanted.

YeahDoIt · 09-12-2010, 08:07 AM

That's an interesting looking guitar, Marklester. The shape reminds me of a tulip.

marklester · 09-13-2010, 05:17 AM

hehe, thanks for the replies..

I measured the guitar and it is just over 25" from nut to bridge so assume that's full size.

After my moment of being a bit 'gutted' at my purchased, I thought I'd continue with it.

Fixed the heads on the guitar - they are rubbish, but maybe with an oil they'll get a bit more fluid to use (and hold tune maybe?)

Jack socket was scratchy and ground hum etc, sounded awful.......so wrapped some wet and dry round a screwdriver and scrubbed up the socket, after that no more hum and bad contact.

With new strings on it, and adjusted the height of strings, it's starting to play better, few dead frets at the moment...

the most amazing thing though is the pickup - wow, was totally blown away, it's trashy lo-fi sounding, but at the same time, just sounds great, hard to explain - very very chuffed..

So I think it will turn into one of my gigging guitars, it just needs a little help hehehe...I'll get some proper piccies up soon... also will try in the studio, see how bad the feedback issue is!!

cheers
mark

IronWolfe11 · 09-13-2010, 09:22 AM

I have had around 15 or so of those weird import guitars over the years...most of them are actually pretty nice, considering their age and quality when new. I used to collect vintage 'no name' guitars because not only were they much cheaper than USA vintage guitars, but everyone's seen a strat and a les paul, most no one has never seen any of the vintage japanese imports..so it was kinda cool. Also, the quest to find the story behind each one was fun too.

Good luck with yours and I hope you have a blast with it once she's in full working order

softwarejanitor · 09-13-2010, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stratatouille

Kay went out of business in 69 I believe. I think thats a 80's model made in Taiwan, similar to a Teisco?

According to the Wikipedia article, Kay was bought by Valco in 1967 and then Valco went out of business in 1968 and a Japanese company aquired the Kay trademark and sold imported guitars under that name in the 1970s and 1980s.

I think that model is probably 1970s or very early 1980s though, by the mid 1980s most of the cheap Asian guitars were usually look-a-likes of popular Fender or Gibson designs of varying quality levels. This was leading up to the "lawsuit era". The really cheesy looking ones like this had mostly all but disappeared by then because the ones that looked closer to a Fender or Gibson sold a lot better.