I've read that Gibson got cloned by a bunch of japanese companies back in the 1970s and some were actually very good quality but created lawsuits because of how close some of them were to the original?

This video shows a guy playing a ventura barney kessel and i have to admit i have no idea who kessel is (im only 40 and not cultured so please bare with me) but i thought the guitar sounded great and from what ive seen these guitars are a nice way to get a gibson sound on the cheap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HDhJRfVgbk

I guess my questions would be if you paid about 350 would this be a nice vintage guitar?

Is it a lawsuit guitar?

And who is barney kessel?

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

The Ventura guitar in of the 1970's knock-off vintage.The asking price with the mods seems fair. On the same YouTube page as the ad there are videos of Barney Kessel playing in a few trios. He's on the left, dark hair,glasses and beard.

Cheers,
John.E

A big reason that Gibson sued a lot of these Japanese guitar makers was because they were making guitars that were as good as or even better than many Gibsons being made at the time.Even though they said it was because of the body shapes it was well known that some of these knock-offs were of phenonimal build quality and sound.Venturas were pretty good copies,not as good as Burney or Ibanez but very good indeed $350 would be a very reasonable price for a Ventura Barney Kessel.Barney was one of the top jazz and session guitarists in his day and was revered in the guitar and jazz community and still is,his playing was so fluid and melodic that he was the inspiration of many great players like Pat Metheny,Larry Carlton and Larry Coryell etc.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I checked out barney on Youtube and i gotta say the man was definately an amazing guitarist no matter what his style was.

ive been wanting to get one of those jazzboxes for a longtime but you say that ibanez and burney make good ones also? I have to check that out sometime.

Not sure how many people play those type of guitars here but i see epiphone dots and some artcore guitars on cl pretty frequently. Most seem new tho, id prefer a vintage one if i can get one close to the Ventura price.

Thx for all the great info and if i ever get one will post pics.

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

Oh gun btw, i checked out some vintage ibanez and man they were wicked expensive for the gibson clones! 2400 on ebay for a banged up one but it looked really good.

ive heard for some reason gibsons werent made well in the 70s.

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

The Ibanez ones were the main culprit. Their Les Paul copies were great guitars. So Gibson sued them over copying their "open book" headstock. Because of that, the Ibanez clones that have the "lawsuit headstock" are considered very desirable.


Gibsons were pretty good. In the back half of the '70s, the Japanese got real good; the top-of-the-line Ibanez and Yamahas were as good as anything being made.

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

Just Like Fender Stratocasters of the time. Many of these Japanese guitars had nothing wrong with them. Look at Tokai guitars!

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

I got a Samick JZ2 Lasalle Greg Bennett. Just a wonderful guitar .. BTW they make most of guitars for everyone. yeah they make some price point guitars but also some real great ones as well. Mark

There's a site called guitarsjapan.com and they sell top shelf Japanese knockoffs of great American solid bodies and jazz boxes,my buddy bought an Orville Les Paul from them 3 weeks ago and it actually sounds better than an actual Gibson.He put it up against his buddy's Gibson and even his buddy conceded that the Orville had the better sound.Apparently the owner is an American who moved to Japan and started this business.The site has many dozens of beautiful coppies even Rosewood Teles by Burney that are simply outstanding.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I played one of the Ibanez LP copies back in the 80's and it was quite heavy. After a couple of hours playing that thing, I was sore for days.

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Calling an illegal alien an undocumented immigrant is like calling a drug dealer an undocumented pharmicist.

I must admit the orville firebird is gorgeous and it looks almost exactly like the real mcoy. Boy they are expensive too!

Just curious, what do you think of teisco? i saw they made a nice clone of the gibson 335.

I was also considering a archtop guitar thats vintage, maybe an ss stewart, regal, kay or silvertone or harmony?

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

If the Orville is out of your price range you may try Dillion,they make very good copies of Firebird Vs and VIIs their VIIs are beautiful and their playability and sound is supposed to be quite good,Epiphone makes good Firebird reissues,I have one and it's a dream to play and hear.If you could get hold of a used Eppy Firebird VII you'd have a superb guitar.Teiscos were funky little student guitars popular in the 60s they made Silvertones for sears as did Danelectro,Harmony and Kay.Skunk Baxter has used Teiscos on Steely Dan cuts.I wasn't aware that they made a 335 clone,it would be worth picking up just for the uniqueness of it.As far as archtops go Harmony made ones of varying grades from student to high quality pro grade.Regal was bought by Harmony in 1954 and from 59-66 they made Regals for Fender.Kay made guitars for National,Dobro,Recording King, Old Kraftsman and others.Your best bet for an archtop would probably be Kay or Harmony,you can pick up Harmony Archtones on ebay for $250-300 and they're great mellow guitars that sound just as good as the more expensive Patrician.I have a 66 Archtone and Bill Gates doesn't have enough money to get it off me,it's that sweet sounding.Anyway I hope I made a few things more clear,any more questions fell free to ask and I'll try to look it up in my guitar library.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Thx! alot of useful information. Here is a guy selling a teisco 335 but he took out the pups and put in different ones. Its a very good condition guitar for its age but woulda been nice to have the original pu even if they were inferior.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Teisco-335- ... 3ca6e3d94e

I think the hardest choice with those archtops is acoustic or electric? saw a nice harmony hollywood electric model within my range. To own a 40+ yr old guitar would be alot of fun to me, and i tried out a pre war guitar in a store once and was surprised that it sounded so good.

Even if guitars are made better today id still like to have a few relics in my collection for the sheer novelty of it

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

That Teisco certainly looks sweet however the pups were what made them so great.With the Seymour Duncans she should sound good anyway and sometimes you can find used Teisco pups and hardware on ebay so down the road it could possibly be put back to original.Both the aoustic and electric Harmonys had a great sound,the electrics were somewhat Gretsch like in their sound.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Martin Guitar was actually the originator of the Lawsuits. They got Gibson involved. Fender did not persue it. Takimine was the first culprit. Martin was trying to protect the Sigma Guitar made for them in Japan. I had a Takamine D-45 12 clone that was wonderful. And I had a few of those Ibanez's. The Gibson clones were dead on or better. The Strat clone was a fine guitar. But it did not sound like a Strat. I do wish I still had them.