After perusing through the stacks of weird instruments in my attic .. closets .. basement .. etc .. I decided maybe a weekly series covering a particularly weird, rare or unusual instrument or amplifier from my collection would interest people - feedback is welcomed!!

So first up is a seemingly obscure - maybe close to unique - instrument made by the well-regarded Brazilian manufacturer Del Vecchio. Del Vecchio are primarily known for their resonator guitars, though they also have made other acoustic instruments such as classical guitars and ukes.

What I have here however is a solid body electric guitar, loosely modeled on the Fender Jaguar - and apparently from sometime in the 1960s. I found this on Ebay several years ago after using one of my favorite search terms "project" - it was cheap because it was incomplete and essentially an unknown instrument. Oh yeah - and it's built QUITE poorly !!








Some classical guitar construction influence can be seen in:
- the tuners, which appear to be right off a 12-string acoustic
- the mega chunky neck without an adjustable truss rod


The paint color, three pickups and incomplete tremelo all point to the early or mid-60s surf guitar influence. The pickups maybe have not held up well over the years - though they are not dead - just VERY low resistance (2 K ohms) and even lower output.


As a point of comparison, below are a few pictures of a more typical Del Vecchio resonator guitar - this rather beat example was for sale by Elderly Instruments at one time.





I will add some more pics to this post in the future, but if anyone out there has any more info on Del Vecchio electrics or has ever seen another, please let me know.