#Westone guitar prices how to#
#Westone guitar prices skin#

So that is the end of the tale, except of course in the age of the internet, these things never die.

Oddly, these lovely guitars did not sell, and production quickly ended. All were made in the UK and were remarkably cheap given the very high spec involved and the extraordinary quality of the instruments.

This resulted in 2 models, the Corsair and the Prestige. They instead worked with Status Guitars (famous because of the legendary Status Basses) and Sid Poole, perhaps the finest luthier to come out of the UK. In the late 1990’s, the old UK importer of Westone, FCN, decided to resurrect the Westone name, but not by slapping it on a generic range of Chinese imports. Japanese production ended in 1987 and the Westone label was attached to various collections of indifferent Korean and then Chinese guitars in the 1990s, it seemed that the label would fade into insignificance.īut there is an interesting little coda to this tale. Their product range, so exciting in 1981 was looking tired by 1985 and even the introduction of the Pantera, the last really good model made by Matsumoko, in 1986 could not reverse the decline. Fender even ended US production for a while and got all Fenders made at the same Japanese factories as their rivals, and the introduction of the Japanese Squier range really shock things up (those first Squiers were so, so lovely).Īnd the fashion for pointy headstock superstrats totally wrong-footed Westone. There were even headless basses such as the Quantum and the Rail (with a sliding pick-up! I want one!)īut the success of Japanese guitars finally pushed Fender and Gibson to get their act together. And with this success came new models, the carved top Prestige aped Gibson bling for a non-Gibson £250, the Concord represented a move into Fender single-coil territory and Spectrums covered the emerging poodle-haired rock market. The Paduak sold for £110, the cheapest Thunder for £120 and even the Rainbow – which stood up very well against the 335 – was £197.Īt modern prices, these don’t look like bargains – £500 to £1,000, but at the time, this was extraordinary value for beautifully made instruments and so Westones sold very well. These were all superbly built with high quality parts and were (for the time) absurdly cheap. These early models, the Thunder active guitars and basses, Rainbow semi –acoustics and more eccentric offerings such as the Paduak, a single active pickup guitar with (if I recall) 22db boost. In 1981, Matsumoko launched their own label, Westone and began exporting a range of instruments to the UK and the US. Matsumoko were a Japanese sewing machine company that has somehow branched out into guitar manufacture and by the early 1980’s had a fabulous reputations as a supplier of very high quality guitars to a number of famous names such as Epiphone and Vox, as well as established Japanese brands like Aria and Vantage. So there was a huge market waiting for someone who could make good quality guitars at a decent price. It did not matter anyway as the wiring was bad and it made no sound.

The humbuckers were a single coil with just a humbucker cover. The neck had no truss rod, it had brass frets.

#Westone guitar prices skin#

The body was a plywood skin stretched over a clumsy wooden frame. And when it arrived, it was an abomination. It was illustrated by a line drawing – the lack of a photograph should have been a clue. It looked like a Les Paul, it had 2 pickups. A friend of mine back in 1980 bought a guitar advertised in Sounds (a truly great British music paper, now sadly no more). For those with £200-300 to spend (Perhaps £1,500-£2,000) you could find some of the Arias, Vantages and Ibanez’s that were being imported, manufacturers who recognised the weakness of the American brands and were frankly kicking ass.įor a beginner or someone who could not run to 2 months’ salary for a guitar, it was truly desperate.

#Westone guitar prices how to#

Gibson could not make a decent Les Paul for any money, Fender seemed simply to have forgotten how to make a Telecaster or a Strat. Guitars were crap.Įven at the high end, Gibson and Fender were at the nadir of their fortunes. To appreciate the particular pleasures of Westones and indeed Japanese guitars of the early 1980’s, you have to understand where the guitar market was in the early 1980’s. This is a Westone Rainbow, built in Japan in 1981 and I bought it for £50 in 1991 and when I bought it I joined a secret band of brothers of guitar nuts with a particular fondness of the Westone brand. Those elegant f-holes and deep mouse ear cutaways have been idolised since 1958 but this is not a Gibson 335, or a Gretsch. The guitar I have had for longest and the only one my wife likes, “it’s so pretty, not like that tatty old Telecaster you have”. The deep tobacco hue and those timeless curves. It stands in the corner, always there for me when a dalliance with a new guitar fades.