OK So its a wooden resonator without a cone, Right? Wrong!

Hello Again Fret heads!

Yes twice in a day - I am really spoiling you eh? OK one for the rare bird fans here. And this one goes out to anyone who has seen one of these before.

Stunned silence eh? OK well its about the loudest wooden parlour guitar I have ever played. Its a particular type of guitar called an Ampliphonic Guitar and it was built by a gentleman called Peter Thomas Ney from Grimsby. Who apparently mainly built banjos or perhaps still does!

And at that point dear readers the story and trail goes cold!  The Ampliphonic nature of the guitar accounts for its extremely loud and resonant, some might say forceful tone. The craftsmanship and fit is superb with high quality tuners a stunning top, ebony hand carved bridge and a unique "Art Deco" style tailpiece.

So what else can I tell you about this guitar? Well it isn't your typical "man in a shed" project guitar, by any measure, the craftsmanship is just far, far too well done. There is a label in there that states "Made by Peter Thomas Ney, England 1998". Another Ney instrument, a rather fine parlour guitar in the style of Lacote was recently offered at auction for £800. So someone else out there in guitar land knows what they are looking at and owns one of these fine guitars. A lute by the same builder was offered in the US for $6000.

A cursory glance at this fine instrument reveals excellent proportions and dimensions, a nice "older" Martin style squared off headstock and a spruce top, ebony fingerboard and rosewood back and sides.  Someone called gripet0 was selling a more conventional Maccaferri style 'Ney' guitar on Ebay in 2013 and provides a detailed and comprehensive write up of the instrument and its build quality. From this listing there may be some other elements common to Ney guitars such as Carbon Fibre truss rods.

Tonally it is well amazingly odd or oddly amazing. Take your pick! Imagine something between the volume of a wooden bodied resonator and a dreadnought, but with the tonal subtlety of a nice say Martin parlour or OM and you are getting close. Lots of complexity in the tone and it makes you work hard to get anything out of it. Acoustic Blues and Folk picking feel easy and finely balanced and its a guitar that is made to be played, aged and loved.  It doesn't have enough patina or wear on it yet as you know fret heads I do like my 1930's Gibson Archtops so I am thinking this is a keeper for oh...about the next 25 years.


Finally I will leave you with one thought and an appeal.  Firstly anyone who does herringbone binding like the photo on the right must be doing something right...Right?

Secondly if anyone out there has any more Peter Thomas Ney guitars to sell or knows Peter in Grimsby or further afield,; or have dealt with him please get in touch?

Finally does anyone else own an Ampliphonic Guitar from another builder?

I so love a good mystery, especially one with such a interesting and well built guitar at the centre of it.



Until next time Fret Heads! Adios!

Cata What?

Aloha Fret Kings and Twang Queens

 Yeah! Yeah! I know! No blog posts for ages, but c'mon the dog ate my homework ( or the dog ate my blog, whatever!) Hey I've been busy and there's major changes at Modern Guitars Towers. I now have a proper job and work on guitar stuff for some very nice Dutch people called...

I work as their guitar auctioneer and this means my friends that I value guitars and set up auction sales of some very fine classic, vintage and high value guitars.  I know the phrase 'greedy kid in a sweetie shop" come to mind. The frustrating thing is I can't bid on any! Oh well its great to spend every day looking at cool guitars and amps! Its my perfect job! They have even been daft enough to put my photo on their rather lovely website! Oh well I did try to warn them! Seriously folks, its a very exciting development in my world as I am happily still working on Modern Guitars and attending the guitar shows but also get to do this Catawiki thing, and I get paid for valuing guitars, what could be nicer! My current auction is on now with 25 Classic and Exclusive items of fretboard, wood and wire loveliness. Spot the museum piece VOX Amp that hasn't been used for years, always nice - and that very lovely Smoke Green Gretsch is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time! Check it out here Catawiki Classic Guitars Auction

Until next time Fret Kings and Twang Queens

These are the early ones…they are always the best.

Hello again Twang Kings and Fret Queens Long time no blog huh? Well sorry about that but the dog ate my homework mumble mumble! Anywhow's back now!!! Yet more counterfactual reasoning from the wonderful whacky world of guitar dating, identification and valuation. The question of time and its relationship to value has always interested me. I was on my stall at the last and quite wonderful Liverpool Guitar Show at Aintree and conversation was struck up with a guy who had a 1970's Stratocaster outside in the car and would I want to take a look at it. As someone whose first "decent" guitar was possibly the worst 1970's Strat ever to leave Fullerton and the proud owner of a 1974, a 1979 and two Anniversary perhaps I didn't need to see another Strat but hey…! Its always difficult when the person selling/seeking valuation is convinced they have the 'crown jewels' when what they have is a not particularly well made 1970's guitar. The fellow seeking to sell the guitar was convinced it was worth around 25% above market value. Please remember that your unlovely local guitar dealer is also seeking to make a profit as we don't tend to do the "buying selling thing" for fun and have rent, diesel, light, heat, phone etc to pay for. What struck me, part from just how poor the Stratocaster was, was the way that the vendor was trying to convince me and the other dealers that there was an imaginary time based cut off point around 1978 - yes that right fret heads a pre 78 Strat. When I was a young inexperienced guitar shop saturday boy there were just 'old guitars and 'second hand' guitars. Then the vintage thing started and thanks to Gruhn and Carter we now have pre-CBS Strats and CBS era Strats. Now there are Dan Smith era Strats, I know I have two and they are OK. Please remember Twang Kings and Queens there is little relationship between these time periods and playability or even in some cases build quality. I have played 63 and 66 Strats that don't feel as good to me as my 1974 Black Strat, but then even that isn't as much fun and as versatile as a lovely Blue Pearlburst Strat Plus I have at the moment. What I find odd is that just as time is, according to Einstein, subject to distortion; so to is the way that we add value to guitars. Now that 'rare' is the most oft used word in any collectable market are we now in the 'pre 23rd of February 1978' guitars are better than any made after the 24th of February? This is obviously dependent on when the guitar was made and what seemingly arbitrary time period it fits into. If I am feeling particularly cheeky and I get the "these were the first ones that came out of the factory" line, I throw the 'yeah the later ones were much better weren't they - its called "The Experience Curve" you know process improvements being made as production increases! Oh and don't get me started on 1970's Gibson Les Paul Deluxes which might be better weighed rather than dated as a more certain indication of quality and playability! Perhaps we should just re-boot, re-set and start all over again with 'old guitars' and 'second hand guitars! and on that thought... Until next time Fret Heads!

Relic Guitars and some alternative places to put your hard earned six string readies.

Hello twang meisters and mistresses! I have long been a sometimes vociferous advocate of the view that so called 'relic' guitars are not a good long term buy if you want to get your money back. There are those out there in twangland dear readers that cry out that the 'relic' guitar is cool...you don't need to worry about chipping them and they are already played in. Like vintage but brand new and available at your local dealership. OK! Lets explode some 'relic' myths here: 1. The 'Keef will play em if he can have them all beaten up' was a brilliant piece of smoke and mirrors myth making by the Fender marketing department. Hey stories like that turn a buck - but he claims he didn't say that! C'mon this is Keef we are talking about here! 2. The relic process was demystified at a NAMM show sometime in the mid 2000's - there is no Fender Custom Shop magic mojo 'pixie dust' at work here. Keys, sandpaper, deep heat, liquid nitrogen its not a "skill" its a chemical process and when did the Guild of American Luthiers adopt throwing keys at a guitar as a 'skill'? 3. They are a baby boomer affectation a bit like faded Levis - the 'baby boomers' are dying out. Repeat the Baby Boomers are - unfortunately for us guitar dealers - a dying breed, therefore its simple demographics - demand will therefore, inevitably fall over time. 4. The "kids" want something different to their dads. I get a lot of 20-something players at guitar shows going mad over 70's Stratocaster's with their thick 'unmarkable' poly finishes. Time and the vintage guitar market move on! 5. Remember Fender increasingly can't 'do' nitro finishes in Southern California due to environmental legislation. They DO DO lots of nitro and thin skin finishes in Mexico. Hmmmmmm where DOES that $3500 relic Stratocaster start out its life? Why not just buy a Mexican relic model and play the S**t out of that instead - you'll have much more fun trust me...you remember "fun" its what we used to have before we started worrying about the resale value of $3500 "damaged" guitars. 6. The outer skin and finish of a guitar is a fashion trend - think of Gibson painting TV Yellow and Gold Top finishes on to Les Paul Juniors and Standards - fashions change - often rapidly and some like mullets and flares dont tend to come back round very often - can YOU wait "that" long Mr Relic Guitar Owner. 7. If a relic finish on a £2000 guitar is just "wear" why do guitar repairers I know get asked about repairing chips on a relic guitar? Huh? 8. Opening a box fresh pristine guitar made of quality tone woods and with a beautiful unmarked finish is one of life's simple pleasures IMHO! 9. Scratched iPhone6 with a cracked front glass anyone? But its dead 'cool' and 'street'. Nah thought not? 10. Thanks to some pretty hefty "recalibration" by various marketing departments 'relic' guitars direct from the dealer with a discount attached are getting to close to what the market seems to want to pay for a genuine vintage instruments in some cases. A chap recently "offered" me ( and I use the term advisedly) £300 less for a genuine early 1970's guitar than he was willing pay for a relic version of the same guitar. His head had clearly "gone"! If you want any validation of the insanity that is the 'relic' guitar try this simple test. Take your wife, girlfriend or significant other (relic guitar buyers are 98.6257% male right?) to a guitar shop - take a relic and a standard USA Stratocaster and try to explain to her why the beaten up guitar in the glass case costs twice as much as the nice shiny one on the wall. Not brave enough for that simple test chaps? OK lets move on! Back in the real world where real money gets spent. A Fender 69 Custom Shop relic Stratocaster is the biggest "faller" in the relic stable at £1250 (market value) that is down roughly 15% on second hand prices from 2 years ago. Sorry if you have one of these but its a relic replica of a guitar that is post CBS and has been superceded by various Hendrix lookilikeecasters. Not a good brand new buy - not a gigging guitar and I am unsure where it fits in at all as a keepsake investment instrument. A 57 Stratocaster Custom Shop heavy relic on Gumtree recently did not sell at £1100. I didn't buy it and it was re-listed a few times. It wasn't "nice" looking at all and the heavy relic thing really does look as rough as a badger's behind to me. Most of the 50's style Custom Shop relics are however, hovering around £1400-£1600 mark in the UK second hand guitar market. Look I know some dealers and customers prefer the more polite term 'investment' instruments but lets call a spade a shovel rather than a 'digging implement' here. The problem is they aren't going up and aren't likely to for a while. Remember those Nash relic copies a while back I have seen those going for £600-£750 and the price always seems lower every time I see one. Besides Gumtree, Preloved and Ebay seems to be full of 'terrible' relic jobs some bloke has done in his shed and that's not going to help sales or re-sale value anytime soon. My view is that in 10, 20 or 30 years time the guitar buying public and TV documentary makers will be discussing something along the lines of "They did WHAT!!!! to guitars in early 21st century" and it will be the subject of ironic TV programmes in the way that we look back at the 1970's in the same ironic way now. Final point! I think people are now bored with the "it's made to look like a vintage guitar but it's brand new" sales pitch...thats not 'amaaaaazing; any more as dinner table chit chat. Sorry folks! The problem is where is the smart money going if you want to buy guitars as investment. My advice and it pains me to say this is electric guitars "aren't" at the moment. We are going through something of a golden age of acoustic guitar building from Martin, Taylor, Santa Cruz, Froggy Bottom, etc. The prices do reflect the quality of timber and workmanship but some of them represent amazingly beautiful hand crafted artefacts where the quality shines through in a way that some "Custom Shop" employee throwing bunches of keys at a load of pre sprayed bodies unfortunately for me don't. There is also massive oversupply in the world guitar market. Manufacturers caught on to fact that some of us (me included) were buying and hoarding guitars in ever increasing numbers and geared up production to match. There are factories in the Far East churning out various guitars for manufacturer's low price branded ranges in ever increasing numbers. Its a great time to be starting out as the choice of good quality cheap guitars is endless. Farther up the food chain things get a little more opaque and the 'relic' thing has served to muddy that pool still further. The debate over tone woods and the Lacey Act will I think rumble on for a while and no-one wants to think their mahogany, rosewood or ebony led to the destruction of any sort of wildlife's natural habitat. I don't want to see buying a new guitar with expensive internationally sourced woods to be as unacceptable as buying a mink coat for the wife or killing tiny forest creatures but that seems to be where the debate is headed. Smartwood Gibson Les Pauls seem to be going up in second hand value - I wonder why? On that point I do tend to like luthiers and builders who increasingly use locally sourced "native" timbers such as Patrick James Eggle, Vigier, Brook and Lowden. Its not a Toyota Prius eco "thing" for me they also are damn fine guitars made from locally sourced materials and remember Stradivarius sourced native materials affected by soil conditions and other "pollutants" to get his unique tone woods. But if you can afford a Patrick James Eggle and Indian Rosewood or a relic guitar "worries you", you can always come to me for something pre-loved and pre-owned! Think of it as a real "relic" guitar thats also being recycled and is new to you! Until next time fret-heads and twang kings and queens Arrivederci!

Last-ditch attempt to save Tin Pan Alley from being turned into a theme park

Last-ditch attempt to save Tin Pan Alley from being turned into a theme park



There are those who say Denmark Street has had it coming from a long time.  Especially the vintage guitar shops who in the past might have been a little more customer friendly.  BUT... it is a place of musical and cultural significance in the UK. The original Tin Pan Alley.  Me I try to avoid going "down that London" if I can I am just happy Upt'North with my whippet flat cap and '72 Telecaster but it would be a shame to see it bulldozed and developed just because some Numptie from Camden Council Planning Department says its ok to!

The Aria Ike Isaacs - A forgotten 1980's classic!

Hello Fretheads! A guitar to watch out for that is something of a forgotten classic so much so that I found it hard to track down a really clear picture of one is the Aria Ike Isaacs Signature Model The best ones are from the early 1980's as they were first available in 1981. They were designed around a concept of a classic semi acoustic design made to be lightweight and with a very comfortable neck. They sound great unplugged or amplified - try a Polytone or a small boutique 10 watt -20 watt combo. Sound wise they have a light touch with a fair bit of attack. Build wise a nice cutaway allows access to the upper frets with little real difficulty and the double binding is always a useful indicator. Perhaps the most important aspect on these early ones is the solid spruce top - no ply here, combine this with an Ebony board and you are into serious quality territory. "Champagne quality", and if you keep you're eyes peeled "for lemonade money". People simply do not know how to price these and I have seem them as high as £750 but as cheap as £350. Aim to pick one up for around £500 and you can't go wrong. The original model number was the somewhat dull TA1500 - don't you just love those Japanese product names? Only the Japanese could take a beautiful instrument and call it the TA1500! Nonetheless I see great things ahead price wise for shallow and deep semi solids and these Aria's are worth keeping your eye out for. Until next time Fretheads!

All original 1979 Fender Stratocaster Body Original Blonde Finish with Bridge Jack and Trem cover in Devon, Exeter | Guitars, Guitar Amplifiers for Sale | Gumtree.com

All original 1979 Fender Stratocaster Body Original Blonde Finish with Bridge Jack and Trem cover in Devon, Exeter | Guitars, Guitar Amplifiers for Sale | Gumtree.com

£450 07895355482 modernguitars@gmail.com Can Post but NO Paypal please!

Selling a 1970/71 Selmer Treble and Bass 50 R SV Valve

1970/71 Selmer Treble and Bass 50 R SV Valve head in Brixham, Exeter | Guitars, Guitar Amplifiers for Sale | Gumtree.com

Currently selling this 70's Selmer! Imagine what this sounds like? Raucous but with subtle undertones of early 70's Hiwatt and a Plexi style decay!!!!! Lovely! Click through above or give me a call on 07895355482