Fender bouzouki custom. (Attn. Mongoose)

[sangandongo]

I thought the Cyclone was introduced in the late '90s...

[WonderCouncil]

Maybe I'm missing it but what would the connection between this and the Cyclone be?

[sangandongo]

Maybe I'm missing it but what would the connection between this and the Cyclone be?

No, you are not missing it... (I was just trying to be polite and perhaps get a humorous response).

[WonderCouncil]

Good then I'm not going nuts. I kept looking at it trying to figure out what the similarities were.

[sangandongo]

Good then I'm not going nuts. I kept looking at it trying to figure out what the similarities were.

The strings... there are six.

Incidentally, I've been forwarding the photos of the thing to a few friends who run higher end vintage guitar stores. I'll report back when I get some new info... I have a feeling this thing is going to cause a lot of head scratching. I might go to Gruhn with it, too, but that'll be a last resort.

[sangandongo]

Bad news. Luckily I went through PayPal and Ebay. Hopefully they'll be reasonable about this.

________________________________________
From: Tim Shaw [mailto:tshaw@fender.com]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 9:57 AM
To: George Gruhn
Subject: RE: '60s Fender Rossmeisl Oddity

Hi George,

I got a pretty quick reply as follows:

I’ve seen this guitar before. And, for the same reasons… provenance. I’m don’t recall exactly, but maybe Richard sent me the photos. Anyway, the -only- thing that’s Fender about it are some of the parts. Bronco bridge parts, 12 string pickups, misaligned f-gears, ‘59/’60 amp knobs, a neck and neck plate, it appears, from offshore. The pick guard material, while it appears to be that Fender gold-ish color, is not something that -was- used. The back of the Acrylic Fender material was sprayed with the same gold base color as candy apple red. Roger brought that from Rickenbacker and they began to use it in late ’63, early ‘64. That couldn’t have been done on multi ply material.
In my experience, and I have seen several of Roger’s hand built protos, this piece is not a Fender. Let me know…

So there we are. I support this conclusion.

Tim

From: George Gruhn [mailto:ggruhn@gruhn.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2012 5:45 PM
To: Tim Shaw
Subject: FW: '60s Fender Rossmeisl Oddity

Tim

This does not look like anything I have ever seen made by Fender. I haven’t seen any of Rossmeisl’s hand made prototypes. Do you know anyone who could verify this? I am a skeptic.

George

[sangandongo]

I'm going to hold off final judgement for when I get the instrument in my hands and take it apart, look at the control cavity, neck heel and other things, but I have little fuel when it comes to refuting the word of both Gruhn and Shaw.

[sangandongo]

So, all's well that ends well. I've been in communication with the seller. I believe we can come to a mutual agreement without getting Ebay involved. I'll post all my findings and my letter to him afterward, but I'll post some pics in the mean time:

[sangandongo]

Got to wondering what was under the pickup covers. This is neat:



It looks like real Fender pickup wire. The pickup covers have a slice right down the center, as if someone cut the Fender XII pickup covers down to size and glued these together to fit. Explains why the have a bisected center.

[sangandongo]

Pots are 304-6506, making them miniature Stackpole from 6th week of '65. The mini toggle is a C&K with the code of 7211.

[sangandongo]

I've contacted Gruhn again and am going to have a more detailed look. This is just too strange and there are too many pieces of evidence indicating that this is not some foreign knock-off as he first suggested.

[WonderCouncil]

Great pictures and really interesting stuff, the mystery deepens. I can see how it could be perceived as some foreign guitar, neck plate, pickguard and such. What ever it is though looks to be made well. I'm guessing there aren't any other manufacturer marks aside from the headstock and pots/switch.

The pickups are really interesting, they would be custom right? Mustang bass pickups have the poles further apart correct? Or is it just the angles messing with me? I'd be curious to know the readings on them.

The tremolo still intrigues me though. Looks all professionally made and not just a hacked up Bronco trem. Certainly something like that would be very costly for a one off wouldn't it?

So have you plugged it in yet? How's it play, what's the neck like? I bet with that trem you can get some interesting sounds out of it, banjo-esque vibrato

[sangandongo]

I've been playing it for hours. It's got a great feel and sound. I don't think I'll ever be able to prove it was Fender factory sourced, there are ZERO markings. Zero... but those pick ups... they were absolutely customized for this. The routs: made specifically for this. The build quality is absolutely superb. You're right about the bridge: it's no hack job. It was fabricated specifically for this instrument.

The neck feels nice but some of the frets really high up are coming loose on the ends. Going to have to address that. It wasn't refretted, simply the frets are pulling away from the board, likely due to the short width of the neck. Think banjo minus the 5th string. It's thin. I think this can be fixed though.

I really need to put this into the hands of a true Fender expert. Someone who can look at the parts and simply know with authority. I don't know how to do that though.

It sounds amazing. I'll make a recording this weekend - I've got a couple songs I wrote for the band which use banjo. I've also been playing a bunch of bluesy slide songs on it. They sound great. The trem itself is sort of wonky, but I've never played a Bronco, so I cannot compare. Still, it's got a nice subtle shake when you use it.

I'll report more later.

[sangandongo]

Man, I'm stacking up evidence. Check this out.

Rossmeisl's design, a '58 Rickenbacker 5002 Mandolin


Headstock from a '67 Coronado II compared to the Banjoline:



Pickguard color comparison. (Tim Shaw said Fender never used that color. Here's evidence they did.)

[floater]

wow, this is really cool. Great research!