Description
Hidden gem of a solid-top jazz guitar. “Concert Professional” grade.
What you have here is a very good copy of one of Epiphone and then Gibson’s top of the range models, for a fraction of the price. That was probably true back then, and it’s certainly true today.
It’s fabulous looking, oozes quality, and when you pick it up feels solid and is immensely comfortable to play. The sunburst finish is pleasantly light especially at the lower bout, No doubt some forgotten Japanese luthier worked on this for hours with love and dedication to deliver a really high end guitar. For a start he had to hand-carve the top from solid wood (probably spruce) to give it that short classic decay jazz acoustic resonance. All the hardware is of the best quality available at that time, and the floating humbucker pick-up faithfully delivers warm, full jazz tones.
It seems he carefully copied all the best or most interesting features of all the HR oval-hole models. The inlays have varied geometric shapes up the rosewood neck. The tailpiece looks more Gibson L-5 than anything else, the tuners and hardware follow the later Gibson style, yet the neck is without volute – an earlier feature despite the three-piece construction. Whether this is all by careful selection and design or very lucky coincidence is impossible to tell. There aren’t enough of these guitars around to know their manufacturing evolution.
However it came about, this guitar works very well, it delivers. It lives up to our criteria of being just a Great Guitar. It also happens to cost a fraction of the price of the Gibson or Epiphone versions.
This guitar has a bit of an interesting history too. It belonged to George H Goodness of the Mel-O-Tones and his initials “GHG” are engraved on the truss rod cover.
Overall condition is good, with some oxidation of the gold plating.
It is sold in a brown Gibson hard case with pink plush lining, that is of the period but obviously not original.
Japanese guitars of the 1970s
In the mid to late ‘70s Japanese guitar makers were arguably making some of the best instruments around, many of them unauthorised copies of Gibson, Martin and Fender classics (the so-called “lawsuit” models). Some of these delivered equal or better quality for much less money than the originals, which made it all the more important for the establishment to shut down illegal production and for collectors to try to get their hands on them.
Of these unauthorised guitars makers, Ibanez was the most famous; and this guitar certainly looks every bit like it was made by Ibanez. Except that it says Electra on the headstock! But then, if you were a Japanese manufacturer trying to get under Gibson’s radar in the late 70s, you’d probably also use a string of names too, wouldn’t you? In fact, both Ibanez and Electra were made by Hoshino of Japan. This model, the X510 was at the very top of their range, being designated “Concert Professional”
The Howard Roberts full body jazz with the oval sound-hole, is as different to other jazz boxes as HR himself was to playing jazz guitar.
Features
-
16” hand-carved (probably spruce) solid top with Florentine cutaway and oval soundhole
-
Sunburst finish, bound top, back and neck
-
(Likely maple) sides and back
-
3 piece maple neck, without volute
-
22-fret rosewood fingerboard with geometric inlays
-
Electra machine heads with Kluson style tulip buttons
-
Gold-plated hardware
-
Tortoiseshell scratchplate with 5-ply binding
-
Floating humbucker pickup
-
Gold top hat style knobs with pointers volume, tone and mid-range
-
Adjustable Tune-O-Matic style bridge
-
Rosewood bridge plate with L-5 style inlays
-
L-5 style two-part trapeze tailpiece
-
Non-original Gibson hard shell case
-
Electra machine heads with Kluson style tulip buttons
-
Gold-plated hardware
-
Tortoiseshell scratchplate with 5-ply binding
-
Floating humbucker pickup
-
Gold top hat style knobs with pointers volume, bass-cut and treble-cut
-
Adjustable Tune-O-Matic style bridge
-
Rosewood bridge plate with L-5 style inlays
-
L-5 style two-part trapeze tailpiece
-
Non-original Gibson hard shell case
tags
Hoshino, electra, howard roberts, gibson, epiphone, japan, archtop, japanese guitar, X510
Sound Samples