Gospel Brass Rail Celebrity
Posted: Mon May 09, 2011 11:13 pm
Here is a very special guitar indeed. It belongs to Adam (Dorkrockrecords). He has sent me quite a few photos so that I can showcase this beautiful and extremely rare guitar on my website.
This guitar was built in 1977 by Semie for a preacher named Rev. Beatty. from Bakersfield, CA. There are a lot of very interesting features on this guitar. First, it has a brass rail neck with a brass rail serial number. The neck is attached to internal supports that are very large and therefore this guitar is quite heavy. It has a body with no F holes. This was made from bodies left over from a run of Bi-centennial Celebrities made in 1976 that did not have F holes.
It has two volume controls and two tone controls, phase button, and mini toggles to split the coils in each of the humbucker pickups. Although it's difficult to see in the photos, this is an archtop, not a flattop. I was delighted to get to play this guitar briefly and can say it is quite heavy but uber cool!
The headstock says "1977 Gospel USA"
Here you can see the brass rail neck. Adam believes the Semie also did the artwork on the outside and inside of the case.
The bout
You can see the various elements of the control layout.
What a beautiful job on the purfling.
I think this may be one of the last Celebrity based guitars made by Semie. I have not seen any other later than 1974, in other words, nothing between 1974 and this 1977 example. I spoke to a man who worked with Semie at Jonas Ridge and he told me that Semie never made any hollowbodies there, only solid bodied guitars. If that is true, then I doubt we will see a Celebrity based guitar newer than Adam's.
One way to look at it is I have one of the very first (the prototype) and Adam has one of the very last. I think that is pretty cool.
This guitar was built in 1977 by Semie for a preacher named Rev. Beatty. from Bakersfield, CA. There are a lot of very interesting features on this guitar. First, it has a brass rail neck with a brass rail serial number. The neck is attached to internal supports that are very large and therefore this guitar is quite heavy. It has a body with no F holes. This was made from bodies left over from a run of Bi-centennial Celebrities made in 1976 that did not have F holes.
It has two volume controls and two tone controls, phase button, and mini toggles to split the coils in each of the humbucker pickups. Although it's difficult to see in the photos, this is an archtop, not a flattop. I was delighted to get to play this guitar briefly and can say it is quite heavy but uber cool!
The headstock says "1977 Gospel USA"
Here you can see the brass rail neck. Adam believes the Semie also did the artwork on the outside and inside of the case.
The bout
You can see the various elements of the control layout.
What a beautiful job on the purfling.
I think this may be one of the last Celebrity based guitars made by Semie. I have not seen any other later than 1974, in other words, nothing between 1974 and this 1977 example. I spoke to a man who worked with Semie at Jonas Ridge and he told me that Semie never made any hollowbodies there, only solid bodied guitars. If that is true, then I doubt we will see a Celebrity based guitar newer than Adam's.
One way to look at it is I have one of the very first (the prototype) and Adam has one of the very last. I think that is pretty cool.