Memory Lane: 1965-1969 Teisco Del Rey E-110 Guitar Review

Aloha!

Today we are looking at a little bit of Japanese guitar history: a Teisco Del Rey E-110 6-string electric guitar that I picked up at the Rose Bowl Flea Market last month.

Teisco was a Japanese company that built guitars from 1948 to 1969, and Teisco is an acronym for Tokyo Electric Instrument and Sound Company. They built amplifiers and keyboards and distributed drum sets (made by others), but I am most interested in guitars and basses, so this is what you get. They sold instruments domestically and also distributed gobs of them to the United States and Great Britain. The company was sold to Kawai in 1967, and they discontinued selling guitars under the Teisco brand name in 1969 (for export) and 1977 (for Japan).

The company was the brainchild of a guitarist, Atswo Kaneko, and it went through various company names before Teisco was chosen in 1964. So most of the Teisco badged guitars you see were built between 1964 and 1969, or 1964 and 1977 for Japanese market instruments. These guitars were often sold at department stores (such as Sears), and were also imported under other names including: Arbiter, Audition, Beltone, Duke, Heit Deluxe, Jedson, Kay, Kent, Kimberly, Kingston, Lyle, Norma, Silvertone, Sonatone, Top Twenty, Tulio and World Teisco. But everybody and their brother want s a Teisco Del Rey. By the way Teisco Del Rey was the name found on guitars imported to the US by Chicago’s Jack Westheimer from 1965 to 1969.

This one is an E-110, though it took a little searching on the internet to find it as the sicker on the back of the body with the serial number and model number is missing (as is the ubiquitous “Steel Reinforced Neck” sticker). It has a tulip-shaped body that is sprayed in a cool shade of red. I have no idea what it is made of, but it is very thin, maybe 2/3 the thickness of a Telecaster, so it weighs in at a feather-light 5 pounds, 9 ounces. Maybe it is some sort of plywood…

The body is loaded up with one single coil pickup that is wired through volume and tone knobs that are original and still have the little pointers. Strings are loaded through a unique stamped steel tailpiece, and there should be some sort of pot metal bridge, but it has been replaced by a chunk of wood. The original pickguard is to die for, with a cool vines and flowers engraving on it.

The 25.5-inch scale neck is multi-ply maple with a rosewood fretboard and some sort of darker wood overlay on the Strat-style feedstock. 22 frets are sunk into the board, plus a bonus zero fret, which I do not see terribly often. The trussrod extends beyond the heel of the neck (like a MusicMan or Sadowsky), so adjustments are a breeze. The tuners are some sort of cheap open-back units, and the extra cool Tesco del Rey badge is present and accounted for.

Condition of this guitar is good, but not great. The jury-rigged bridge is dying for a Tune-O-Matic replacement, and one of the string acorn nuts has been replaced with an incorrect part. There is a chip at the fretboard near the zero fret, and there is an ugly finish crack in the neck pocket that seems stable enough. And, of course, there are a few scratches and dings, but nothing unusual for a 40-year-old import guitar that was pretty cheap to start with. Fortunately it has been spared the indignities of ill-advised modifications.

None of these things are deal breakers for me, as this thing weighs nothing and it plays and sounds pretty darned good. The neck is very comfy, and the pickup has a very clean tone and a surprising amount of output. I think I will track down a better bridge, do a set-up and enjoy this thing for a while before I flip it. This Tesco will probably not make it for the long term, though, as I already have too many guitars, and all of them are a bit nicer than this one.

Mahalo!

1960s Teisco Del Rey ET-220 Electric Guitar Review

Aloha!

I love funky old Japanese guitars, and when I had the opportunity to buy a new old stock Teisco Del Rey ET-220 electric I jumped at the chance. It was my first chance to play one that had not been beaten to death or modified beyond recognition.

Teisco is an acronym for “Tokyo Elecrric Instrument and Sound Company.” The company was started in 1946 and started to sell instruments under this brand name in 1964. In 1967 Kawai bought the company and discontinued the Teisco name overseas in 1969, and in 1977 for the Japan market. Teisco keyboards were sold until the 1980s. Since then they have attained a cult-like following, particularly with their Spectrum series instruments.

The guitar we are looking at here today is a ET-220 that was built in the late 1960s. It was sold to Faust Music in Wisconsin, and it was put away in the basement until the store went out of business last year. It is unmolested and unmodified with the exception of new strings and a fresh set-up.

This is a small guitar with a short-horned body that is closer to that of a Fender Musicmaster or Mustang than a Stratocaster. The body appears to be made of mahogany, and it is shot with a subdued tobacco burst finish. The silver aluminum pickguard does not go with this color combination very well, but it is original to the guitar. The neck pocket is huge, so much that there is only clear access to the first 14 frets.

The 24 ¾-inch scale neck also appears to be made of mahogany (three pieces) and it is capped with a rosewood fretboard. There are cool-looking fret markets on the edges of the fretboard, which are unlike any other guitar I have seen. There are 20 frets and the fret wire is pretty small. The headstock still has the often missing Teisco Del Rey badge, and it is equipped with cheap open-gear tuners. The nut and fretwork are still in good shape, and it appears that the craftsmen did a nice job 40+ years ago when they put it together.

The rest of the hardware consists of a crude top mount three-spring tremelo with a nifty folding cover and the longest arm I have ever seen. The adjustable bridge is separate from the tremolo, and is not exactly the beefiest thing I have ever seen. The chrome on these parts is pitted, so it must have been a bit damp in that basement.

One of the best parts of this guitar is the electronics package. There are two smallish humbuckers that have their own tone and volume knobs as well as ON/OFF toggle switches. This nice combination, and it is handy to be able to shutoff both of the pickups when putting it on a stand.

Set-up was a breeze. The strings install easily through the tremolo, and the bridge has only one saddle, and there is no provision for adjusting intonation. Also, the factory tuners are kind of crummy to use, though they seem to hold well enough. No wonder so many of these guitars have been modified! The truss rob is adjustable at the heel with a truss rod wheel – the earliest instance of this I have seen. Maybe Musicman was not the first to come up with this innovation…

This ET-220 is fun to play. It is compact and very light, and I have always enjoyed hacking around with shorter scales. The neck has a beefy V-profile and although the factory frets are not very tall I do not have any problems playing it in rhythm or lead roles. I do not generally use a whammy bar very much when I play, but when I do on this guitar it does not break strings, though it does drag it a bit out of tune.

Its tone is naturally warm and can get quite gritty if it is pushed hard. As expected, the neck pickup is warm sounding, and the bridge pickup is bright quite bright and aggressive. The tone knobs make all the difference in the world on this instrument, and it seems at its best when the treble is backed off. Output is not super-hot, but it would still be a good axe for blues, rock or punk. It is certainly not the best guitar I have ever played, overall it gets the job done and is fun to mess around with. Of course if I could only have one guitar this one would not make the list.

I think my friend Morrow put it best when he said Teisco guitars “…can be truly gawdawful or at best not bad.” This ET-220 is not bad, and I am happy that I got my hands on it. This being said, if you are thinking of getting one you had better play it first to make sure you are not getting a dud.

Mahalo!

Teisco Guitars of Japan

Aloha!

My friends know that I love Japanese guitars but one brand has always eluded me: Teisco. I have hit countless secondhand stores in Japan and have never seen one of these guitars in the flesh. I know they have to be out there somewhere, and I always see them on eBay in the US.

Teisco was a Japanese company that built guitars from 1948 to 1969, and Teisco is an acronym for Tokyo Electric Instrument and Sound Company. They built amplifiers and keyboards and distributed drum sets (made by others), but I am most interested in guitars and basses, so this is what you get. They sold instruments domestically and also distributed gobs of them to the United States and Great Britain. The company was sold to Kawai in 1967, and they discontinued selling guitars under the Teisco brand name in 1969 (for export) and 1977 (for Japan).

The company was the brainchild of a guitarist, Atswo Kaneko, and it went through various company names before Teisco was chosen in 1964. So most of the Teisco badged guitars you see were built between 1964 and 1969, or 1964 and 1977 for Japanese market instruments. These guitars were often sold at department stores (such as Sears), and were also imported under other names including: Arbiter, Audition, Beltone, Duke, Heit Deluxe, Jedson, Kay, Kent, Kimberly, Kingston, Lyle, Norma, Silvertone, Sonatone, Top Twenty, Tulio and World Teisco. But everybody and their brother want s a Teisco Del Rey. By the way Teisco Del Rey was the name found on guitars imported to the US by Chicago’s Jack Westheimer.

From 1948 to 1964 the company built Spanish guitars and played it safe on the electric side by copying guitar and bass designs from Gibson, Fender, Hagstrom and EKO. But in the 1960’s they started building unique instruments with bizarre and modernistic features. We started to see bitchin’ hook-shaped headstocks with distinctive 4+2 tuner layouts (or 3+1 on basses), as well as sexy sculpted body profiles. They experimented with pickguard designs, and a lot of these guitars are pieces of art.

Teisco also came up with over the top electronics for these guitars too. There were guitars with up to four pickups, with either humbuckers or single coils, and oodles of volume and tone knobs. They also had a penchant for adding switches like they were going out of style, and usually these change the phase of the pickups or turn them ON and OFF.

So these guitars looked cool and had tons of sounds that you could get out of them. They also usually goofy bridges and tailpieces that changed their sound even further. As time went on, these guitars gained a cult-like status with bands that used them as they were a good substitute for a Jaguar or Jazzmaster, and were a lot cheaper too. These guitars were used by Jackson Browne, Hound Dog Taylor, Jesus and the Mary Chain, and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Many of these guitars were beginner model guitars and were not really quality instruments or very well made, but there were higher grades of guitars too, and some of them are really quite valuable now. Some of the more sought after models include:

∙ The Teisco SD-4L with four pickups, six switches and bizarre barrel type volume and tone knobs. and eight switches. These guitars came with a tremolo and I have seen some of them covered in vinyl. This is the model that Hound Dog Taylor used.

∙ The Teisco Del Rey Spectrum 5 with 3 split-coil pickups, colored pickup selector switches and mono / stereo outputs. These were quality guitars with a walnut bodies and lacquer finishes. This is the top of the pyramid for me, and I really want one of these.

∙ The Teisco Del Ray May Queen with simpler electronics that include two pickups, volume and tone knobs and a pickup selector. What makes this guitar desirable is that it is semi-hollow, and it has a goofy oval shape that some interpret as an artist’s palette.

∙ The Teisco TRG-1 with its own onboard amplifier and speaker. These were also sold as "Kay" and "Silvertone" guitars through department stores.

These are all fun and unique guitars and I hope you have the chance to see an play one some time. If you are looking to purchase one, keep in mind that they were not super-expensive guitars to start with, so the hardware is cheap and it may have been broken and replaced with non-standard parts. Also if you find a super minty specimen it might be a re-issue, as Kawai re-issued these for awhile in the early 1990s.

Mahalo!