Rarest Guitars I've Seen. Part 1

Hi I'm taking a break form “guitar types” right now, and have just decided to write a bit about those guitars that are rarely (or never) found in your hometown's guitarstore, well, first of all I must say that they are not in order, I wouldn't be able to tell you which one of these guitars is the rarest but, hey! Why don't you tell me in your comments?

Okay, as this guitars are very strange for one reason or other, you won't be able to imagine them with just my description, so you'll better look for photos on the web (don’t worry, I'll provide links). What do I mean with “strange”?? I've considered this guitars strange not because of the low number of them that are currently in the market, but for its electronics, shape, features etc, so please don’t send comments saying “my guitar should be included, because its a fender Stratocaster with Jmmy Hendrix's face painted on the body”, your guitar may be unique, but it's the same shape, electronics etc as a Fender Stratocaster!

If you know of any other rare guitar please let me know and i'll se if I include it in another article. So our first weirdo is:

Steve Morse's Ernie Ball Musicman

Well first of all I think I have to say why this guitar in this list is: As you may see, the guitars shape has nothing strange at all, but what makes this guitar rare? Answer: its electronics, please, look at the body carefully, specially at pickups and hardware, It has 2 hambuckers (Di marzio DP-205 Morse Signature, and Di marzio DP-200 Morse Signature) and 2 single coils (Dimarzio DP-108 Vintage and Dimarzio Proprietary Custom Wound), I only know 2 guitars featuring 4 pickups, this one and the Sky Guitar which is also in this list.

This guitar was designed personally by Steve Morse (Kansas, Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple, etc) back in 1987, and is extremely versatile. The electronics are particularly complicated here, a 3-way lever and 2 toggles provide eleven pickup selections, eleven! Think about it, most Stratocasters have 5 pickup selections, and les pauls and SGs only 3, can you imagine what sort of things you can do with 11 different options in your guitar?? Although most of us will never play with this precious, I'll explain how you use it, just to have fun:

There 5 controllers on steve's guitar, volume, tone, 2 toggles and the lever, so now i'll explain exactly what they do (I wont say anything about tone and volume).

3-way lever (position 1 closest to bridge)
01. Bridge pickup
02. Neck pickup
03. Second pickup from bridge

Toggle 1 (closest to neck)

Adds bridge pickup to what is selected on lever

Up - off

Down - on

Toggle 2 (closest to bridge)

Up - Activates 3rd pickup from bridge only

Middle - Adds 3rd pickup to lever and toggle 1

Down - Activates lever and toggle 1

Damn that is really difficult to understand, and I know I don’t express myself properly, so sorry if you didn’t understand that, if this is your case, don’t worry, you would certainly understand it if you had this guitar in your hands now.

Well that’s what makes this guitar very rare, I hope you all agree with me up to now.

Sound

Okay, I cant precisely tell you what this guitar sounds like because I have never played with it, BUT if you listened to steve's albums (which I strongly recommend) you'd notice that the sound he gets when playing high-speed solos is really “warm”, even if he bends high notes. That could be due to the guitar s complex pickup switching, or to his peavey 5150 amp… or both!

Pickups - DiMarzio (neck to bridge)

DP-205 Morse Signature, 20.5K

DP-108 Vintage Single Coil, 6.0K

Proprietary Custom Wound, 5.5K

DP-200 Morse Signature, 9.6K

Frets - 22 - High profile, wide

Wood - Selected maple with rosewood fingerboard

Wood - Poplar

Bridge - Standard - Thumbwheel height adjustment with individual saddles and Music Man® chrome plated solid brass tail block

Optional - Music Man® Floyd Rose licensed locking tremolo with fine

Well, that was guitar number one, shall we move to guitar number two? Guitar number two is:

JEM Heart-Shape Guitar

I think most of you have seen, at least once, a 2-necked guitar and wondered “hey, that must be difficult to play” Well, what would you think if I showed you a 3-necked one?... Shall I???, just click here. I know there are two, both of them belong to the same guy, and both of them belong to this list, but one at a time. (I've heard there were others 3-neck guitars before this one, but have failed in finding them so if you can send me a comment and I'll see what I can do).

The Heart-shaped guitar was built by Mace Bailey of Hoshino USA in bensalem, PA.

When Steve Vai ordered this guitar (he was playing with whitesnake I think), Mr Bailey had to figure out the way to build such a monster, his first concerns were, of course, size and weight, as well as transportation problem. To manage this, Bailey choose to build this guitar's body in two parts,(I think you can see them in the photos). Each half is basswood-hollowed out as much as possible except near the neck joint area. As the guitar's body is very big, the electronics HAD to be simple, so there was nothing to do with many toggles and levers, just “on/off” toggles, 1 volume etc.

The 3-neck Jem has a triple output, so that each guitar has its own amplifier and sound, and each neck counts with a special feature, which prevents unwanted noises to be produced.

This guitar has pickups for every bridge, tuners, head, etc. I mean, this guitar really works. If you plugged it, you would be able to play with it, however, Steve Vai only used it for getting people's attention at whitesnake live concerts, he only played two necks and made some kind of simple tapping on the other one, just to show he could do it. That has to be very difficult (if you don’t think so, try playing with your weak hand).

Check that each bridge has 24 frets, 2 hambucker pickups and an independent volume control. One of this necks has 12 strings and the others 6, also one of this has a Floyd rose bridge, another a standard “solid” bridge, and the other a bridge similar to Les Pauls and SG.

That's all I can tell you folks, I have no idea of its sound or other specifications, but don’t worry, its more a guitar to be seen than to be played.

As I said before, Vai used this guitar to impress the spectators, but recently he made a recording for one of his albums to show the world that he could play, at the wonderful sound it produces. You can listen to it in “Fever Dreams”, in which it is tuned in a strange way to create some sort of “fantasy” atmosphere.

Allright, tired of reading? You'll better take a break then, because you should pay attention to the next guitar in the list:

Jem Triple Necked Number Two!

Allright, here's our weirdo number 3, as the previous, what makes this guitar rare is the simple fact of having 3 necks. The first difference we see between them is that each of the 3 necks is parallel to the others. After that of course we contemplate its white color, the beautiful drawing in the fretboard, and many, many other things.

The upper neck, is a 12-string guitar, with a standard bridge, and 24 frets. The one in the middle has a Floyd Rose bridge, 24 frets, and I think some kind of scalloping on the upper frets (from 19 on) but im not sure.

The one at the bottom is a completely fretless guitar, lines have been painted in white in order to show tones specifically, but there are really no frets here, this way steve's tapping, hammer-ons and pull-offs get a bit harder to execute, but… he is Steve Vai!

The Jem triple neck always travels with him around the world, he carried it through his last G3 tour (with Satriani and Fripp) and showed the audience that he could “share” his guitar by playing it with his second-guitar player… at the same time! (yes, both of them were playing with the triple neck)

In one of the corners of the guitar, you can see a beautiful drawing, like a pyramid or something like that, that pyramid has an eye on its top, that eye is some kind of hologram that Steve himself asked to be put there, that way, when he is playing the “eye looks at him”, strange isn't it?

The guitar's body is completely made from adler and I have no real idea of what anything else is (I suppose pickups are the traditional dimarzio he uses, but don’t know the model).

Well there is not much I can say about this, as well as the last one, I have never played with this one so I have no idea of what it sounds like.

I know it took me a long time to write this, and i'm sorry, anyway, I promise another article about rare guitars (part 2) but be patient, It may take long… Hope you liked it!

Comments

[skater9517]

yeah

[Wasp]

Haha, funny article

[ctb]

What about Nick McCarthy's guitar (Franz Ferdinand) ?

[teej]

the second triple is nuts.

[mikiedaman]

i'm terribly sorry but it's HUMBUCKER

that pissed me off the whole article, cool column tho.

[Metal Daze]

hmm, very usefull imformation, yet so boring... but i would also highly recommend steve morse's musik to anyone that loves guitar!

[KillerMonkey89]

what about i think it was like a six neck from the guitarist of cheap trick. Thats a one of a kind

[SMFar2112]

vey nice list. i love the three necked JEM

[axeslinger01]

there were like 3 guitars on that list (9th)

[axeslinger01]

and what about the 4 or five neck the dude from Cheap Trick has?

[xraycat]

can anyone tell me the name of the guitar jerry cantrell uses in the AIC video for "what the hell have i?" i've never seen a guitar like it before.

[thefinalcut]

Dude, no offense but you should've tested out the article before you submitted it. The grammar/punctuation/spelling mistakes take away from your crediblility, not to mention there wasn't very much content either.

[ELEVEN]

12th sweet guitars but incredibly ugly.

[DaveGilmour1189]

Yah these guitars are rare, but they're custom made for stevie vai and steve morse, so of course there's only gonna be a few made and they're gonna be the only ones who have them. I think u shoulda put guitars that accually went to production but only a few a still around like the Ro-pat-in frying pan guitar from the 30's.

[DaveGilmour1189]

Hey! Now that i think about it, you coulda put on Ed Van Halen's Frakenstien. Hey its rare! he made the thing himself and there's only one.

[sensate]

Please post about rare guitars, not one-offs. You'll be here forever if you go and list all custom models.
And three necks aren't that exclusive, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones have been using them for ages. The more photographed one is JPJs Mandolin, 12string and 6 string combination.

[Nirtallica]

my friend has a really rare jackson, he's tried to look it up but can't find it anywhere. it has a double cutaway the body is small and it has a headstock with 3 pegs on each side like acoustics, its a really sick guitar.

[Nirtallica]

correction a double cutaway like an sg

[Ramco]

What about oldschool Galantis, Mosrites and other axes from the 60s that today are worth thousands in mint condition?

[JimmyVanHendrix]

wat about the guitar that hendrix burned and was restored by frank zappa? i believe it sold for 4 million.....

[VR05]

the thrid guitar has no link to a pic

[rockinlewis]

shoulda done rare makes of guitars like Airline and stuff. I think Nick McCarthy's is an airline.

[cantshreddave]

what about jack whites airline hollow body, i herd tht they are rare, plus does anyone on this site own the les paul tht eric clapton had stolen from him before the first cream gig. if you are the culprit plzzz.. give, urself up, do the time then sell the guitar to me, i mean tht guitars pretty rare right?

NB. ok so i realise im not gonna get an answer to this, but u never know lol.

also, i thought nick mccarthy's guitar is a fender tornado or summin like tht, dont quote me on tht, but those guitars are hardly rare

[Hypnot1st]

When I went to the Vai concert the 3 neck was on stage, but sadly he didn't play it.

[msierragtz]

When G3 came to Mexico City , Vai played it live it was great

[5ironaudiorage]

the mansons made for Muse are incredible! One contains lasers in it, and mirrors, and is sensored by playing. So the harder you play it, the the lights shine and the brighter they shine, its awesome. Also many of them feature effect pedals built in them, amazing.

[askurmoran]

wow those are some monster sized guitars dude and weird

[Vinura]

thast sick man

[BrentL92]

how in the hell could you play the second one!?

[slash0986]

.....

[sensate]

Haha, well Muse would need a flashy guitar to disguise the fact they can't play for ass

[killer_mop]

Ive seen a tie-dye SG with Bob marleys face on the back ;/ only one, on ebay was solt for 1000 dollars looked awsome, no neck or pick-ups but ehh

[IgnoreThis]

2 Vai guitars! Good article!

[bass_man_dan]

ive seen a wierder guitar - a bass wiv 27 n 2 halves frets

[rockinlewis]

sensate:
Haha, well Muse would need a flashy guitar to disguise the fact they can't play for ass
[POSTED: 22 April 2005 - 05:39]|

Muse can play for shit and Matt Bellamy's guitar kicks ass...its got a built in feedback forcefield

[semolinapilchar]

what about the ramones guitars ? they were all tweeked and changed from the original...well maybe not all but allot

[Sunburst Strat]

heres some interesting ones for you:
http://www.cag.lcs.mit.edu/~diego/guitars.html
Have fun. Good article, although you could have put a few more guitars in it.

[Sunburst Strat]

btw, heres another one of rick neilson(cheap trick)

http://www.hamerguitars.com/pics/artists/ricknielsen.jpg

[x_themetalfan_x]

Ha ha, hambuckers.

[ChubbyLove]

thats to much for me,
that heart shaped one, thats like a waste of cash, what would be the purpose to that? hmm...awkward

[KIMB]

lol hambucker, classic
that triple neck is crazy, is it 6 string, 12 string and a baritone or 7 string for the third neck?

[Abe]

i only like the first one

[Jams]

Just to calarify, nick McCarthy's guitar's are all Hagstrom Sweetone's.
They're very rare Swedish guitars made in the 50's/60's.

[IlIk2plygUItAr]

damntthat triple must be hard to play

[$hab]

www.exoticguitars.com/
That's What I'm Talking About

[ctb]

Thank you Jams

[slash_015]

Good Article

The rarest Guitar i've seen is this here

---..> http://mitglied.mercuryserver.de/slash/040918_newyorkny_getty_60.jpg

[PLOP]

LMFAO!HAMBUCKERS!HAMBUCKERS I TELL YOU!!!..

[jimjam3]

urm.. actaully the parker P series... most of themhave 4 pickups

[AC_friggin'_DC]

i'm gonna go get a hambucker from mcdonalds can i bring someone someting....

ok article really neat guitars too, must be hard to play

[Geldof the Grey]

1961 and 62 les paul (this was the redesign of the les paul that became the SG)
do a column on that.
Incidentally... how can you judge which of several unique, one-off guitars is the rarest? My ol' strat copy is the rarest guitar EVER... it's the ONLY one with the serial number 379-872-348-230-A

[Geldof the Grey]

The Jem triple neck always travels with him around the world, he carried it through his last G3 tour (with Satriani and Fripp) and showed the audience that he could ?share? his guitar by playing it with his second-guitar player? at the same time! (yes, both of them were playing with the triple neck)

it says on the website you linked that he found it too fragile to carry around with him...

[#1 nirvana fan]

A few spelling and grammer errors, and a completely boring article, but for some reason I read it. I think I like the pictures the best

[#1 nirvana fan]

i'm sorry grammer is spelled incorrectly, it's grammar

[slash111391]

wut bout the guitar michael angelo batio has, that thing is sweet

[ibanez666]

and where are the pictures?

[stratomaster 17]

theyre just weird guitars not rare because if only 2 exist is there any chance we could get one jerkoff

[julian2k4]

first of all...u dont make sense(stratomaster 17:
)slap urself...second..to use the three neck guitar u dont need 4 arms u bunch of assholes.. each neck is different...thats the point of it..and third...why the *** would someone do this article...whats ur point...i think its a waste of space

[blitzballer1]

Ya bunch of nobs an i am the biggest nirvana fan so *** off

[blitzballer1]

a guitars a guitar you play it who cares if yours is special or rare

[ADarkerBreed]

pretty cool guitars actually, sorry, but they are HUMBUCKERS, not hambuckers, check out Ibanez's HR Giger styled Iceman guitar

[Mental Hop]

Hambucker? What the ***? Apparently it's a guitar from the Danelectro collection.

[Zero528]

The Dean From Hell.

[Goody]

70's hunk of wood with a neck

[Goody]

hr giger ice man????

[Metallica420]

oy man that article is to long man i didn't even read the whole thing.However I would like to say I'll bet you've never seen my guitar man, it was my dad's,he gave it to me a year ago he had it way back in the sixties some famous classical guitarist gave it to him he wasn't a rocker so I don't remember the guys name but the guitar type is National it's got one full shoulder and one half shoulder,a two sided head,it's a 6 stringer,it's got 2 tone knobs and 2 volume knobs,it's Black,White and gold and some of the fretts are made of Ivory man the only other guy I know of that had the same brand (it didn't look anything like mine but it was the same brand)was a guy named Paul from my friend's dad's old punk band in the '70s.If any of you have seen a guitar like this E-mail me at [e-mail] and send me a picture cause I'd really like to know more about it.

Peace

[Metallica420]

Oh ya and the name of my friend's dad's old punk rock band was The Action incase anyone on here as ever heard of em.

Peac again.

[Metallica420]

Oh and if you want a picture of my guitar email me and I'll gladley send you one.

[Metallica420]

I just found out the name of the guy who gave my dad the guitar was Cliff Taylor.

[daronfan]

What about Daron Malakian's Ibanez "Iceman 2" customs he has? The ones that his dad, Vartan has painted. They're "pretty" rare.

[Supergreg]

hey, only one guy picked up on the guitarist from cheap trick having a FIVE neck guitar, thats two more than a THREE neck guitar, wow! theres too many guitars that are rare for an article to include only three mediocre guitars

[Metallica420]

ya but to be fair the article is called "Rarest guitars I'VE seen" maybe the guys never seen a five necked guitar jeez man.

[J_Dizzle]

Nick McCarthy's guitar is a First Act by the way, they do make more than Wal Mart guitars.

[Dogwillhunt]

I saw a guitar at a shop they had on display. It was made from a wooden toilet seat and a Strat neck. It was called (drum roll) the Stratocrapper. I found a rare Samick with a plexiglass body.

[newcomer]

I like mine: 1977 Fat Strat (double humbucker @ bridge), but it had no neck pickup so i put an EMG on it, bigsby tremolo, 1981 short staff neck, flat frets, 2 switches, one 3 way, which is neck/both/bridge, and the other switch (2 way) changes the Bridge into two single coils, the tone knob, when turned to 0 sounds exactly like the bass of a wah, i fu*king love it.

[bradbradbrad]

There is an old guitar from the 70's my friend has that has an amp built in.

[next_satriani]

dude, what about MAB's quad guitar???

[Ric Bass 4003]

What about George Harrison's messup strat from Sgt. Pepper's? I saw a limited edition reissue. Good times good times.