Crestwood Deulxe

[eltuce]

As long as the subject of Crestwoods and Wilshires came up I figured I'd tack on the latest family portrait. Left to right, '68 Deluxe, Daguet Crestwood, '61 Crestwood Custom, Wilshire tenor copy, '60s Coronet. I still want to get an earlier symmetrical Coronet, preferably a Dwight model.

[JimPage]

Wow, Tommy; that is a GREAT collection!

Mine must have been a Coronet model, as it was a single pickup. Mine had a big Epiphone E in the middle of the white pickguard, if I remember correctly.

I just looked at a grainy scan of a Polaroid that shows me with that old Epiphone in 1974, and it looks like the black-covered single pickup is surrounded by the white pickguard instead of being below it.

--Jim

[eltuce]

Yeah, my E is pretty much all worn off. The Coronets have a P90 like a Les Paul Junior and the Olympics have a lil' single coil like Melody Makers. I had a cool white olympic but it broke during shipping and I wound up just getting it fixed and selling it. I kinda regret that decision.

[eltuce]

Grainy as it may be I'd love to see the picture if possible.

[JimPage]

Hey!

Good info. I bet mine was an Olympic then; I think it was a single-coil pickup.

Have you seen the reissues of the Wilshires that Epiphone is putting out nowadays? I have almost bought one from Musician's Friend more than once, only to doubt the quality and then chicken out.

I bought a mid-'70s (I think) Japanese Epiphone "reissue" of the old '60s Rivoli bass I loved, and the reissue was just a dog. I sold it at a loss on eBay a week after I had bought it.

Of course, Asian-made instruments are much better now than they were then.

--Jim

[JimPage]

Hey--

Here's the picture:


Now, you can also see my Mosrite bass, a Jerry Byrd Rickenbacher (how it was spelled on the headstock) laptop steel, a Gibson J-50, the remains of a Hagstrom that I ripped the naughahide off of, a Kay bass I was trying to refinish, an old Bacon and Day Sultana Silver Bell banjo, a National mandolin, and other weirdness. Wish I had kept some of this stuff, or photographed some of the other instruments I also had at the time.

Sorry the photo is so bad!

--Jim

[eltuce]

I've heard mixed reviews on the reissues but mostly positive and two friends of mine have 'em and love 'em. Heck, for that price it's worth checking 'em out. I see them all the time for less than $300. I picked one up at a store and it felt alright but I didn't plug it in. The cherry finish definitely looked pretty cheesy though. I'd say if you were to do it to go for one of the newer ones with the mini-humbuckers and correct barrel knobs. Unfortunately, I don't think the newer ones come in white which seems to be the better looking finish of the reissues. I'm not familiar with the bass you're talking about but I also have a Japanese 70s Crestwood. It's a disaster that's been begging to be restored but they're not bad guitars at all really.

[eltuce]

No worries on the photo quality. It adds to the charm! Yep, that's definitely an Olympic.

[JimPage]

Nice to have an exact model name for it!!! Thanks.

Got that used, with no case, from Ace Music in Miami for $35 in 1969. They had several of them; my buddy-- the one who went to the Johnny Winter concert with me-- got a double-pickup one for $35, also with no case.

We scored that day!

--Jim

[eltuce]

Yeah, those things much like many vintage instruments used to sell real cheap! I have a friend who got his Coronet at a pawn shop for 20 bucks in the late 70s. Ok, I'm such a dummy that it just dawned on me now that your Jimmy Page! That is if you went by Jimmy of course.