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I picked up this guitar on craiglist last week; I was looking for a cheap guitar to knock around. Well, I'll be darned if this isn't one terrific plank of (ply)wood! The neck is remarkable - many 60s budget guitars I've played have thick necks and rough frets. This one is in the realm of Mosrites - thin, super low action and honest to goodness speed frets. Maybe somewhere along the line it was owned by a Mosrite fan who filed the frets down?

So, today I gave it a proper run through at a friend's block party jam. The pickups are pretty low output so I had to turn up the amp pretty high, but it sounded great, didn't feed back and generally stayed in tune.

I have no idea what this model is called, but whatever it is, I have to say "Arigato, Teisco!"

Cool! It has some serious horns on that thing!

....and it has a zero fret. Wonder where they got that idea? Looks great with that Ampeg.

I learned a long time ago that a guitar didn't have to be expensive or even a top brand seller to be great guitars. Even if they aren't great to start with, most any guitar can be made to play great with a proper setup. How's the vibrato?

Too bad you didn't have a Teisco baritone instead of a Fender a few years ago when it decided to disappear.

I'm not sure of the model, but it's from the late '60s and more commonly appears in a 4-pickup, greenburst version under the Kimberly moniker.

Congrats!

Nice find, glad it pleases you!

I have several of the old Teisco guitars and all of them have the zero fret. I don't know if Mosrite came out with the idea first or if Teisco came out with it first. However, it really doesn't matter who had the idea first--it's just a great design that at least 2 guitar makers in different parts of the world applied at similar times.

As for the zero fret, I do belive it is predated long before Semie or Teisco came along.

Danny, I had heard that the '0' fret goes back several hundred years.
The Selmer-Maccaferri guitar played by Django Reinhardt had the
zero fret set up as well and LONG before Mosrite, Gretsch,Teisco, etc.....

I've seen pictures of the four pickup Kimberly greenburst. Four pickups would be cool, three would suffice but two will do for the moment.

The vibrato is functional. Not a huge range, little more than 1/2 step, but it stays in tune, so that's the main thing.

Again, for me, it's the neck that makes the guitar. I've become quite partial to guitars with a zero fret; the action out of the box is great. The output of the pickups is so low that I had the Ampeg on about 7 to compete with the drums. I prefer more headroom, but it was a nice raunchy sound!

dorkrockrecords wrote:I'm not sure of the model, but it's from the late '60s and more commonly appears in a 4-pickup, greenburst version under the Kimberly moniker.

Congrats!

Funny you mentioned the Kimberly label as I used to own one. Green burst, 4 pickups 4 slide switches 2 vol 2 tone, cheap tremolo.