"Guitars I
Last updated on 4 November 2016
Life is what happens while you're playing guitar.
Injuries are what happens when you can't play guitar.
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The following guitars are ones that I will probably sell.
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Just a guy with too many guitars! If you don't receive a reply, maybe check your Spam-Box? robwesleyguitars at gmail |  |
I'm an over-buying accumulator! I thought this would be a good solution for the many unsolicited inquiries, wanting to buy many of my Personal Collection guitars, many of which are NOT for sale (yet??!?). I'll check the individual condition of each guitar more thoroughly, once someone contacts me about it. I am NOT a guitar expert, and I will not be responsible for self-alleged "Collectors" who demand exact detail down to the screws. I attempt to describe each guitar to the best of my abilities, or using the information given to me when I bought the guitar. I hope that the photos of each guitar will enable those who are more demanding in detail or original-parts to discern for themselves. Write and inquire if you have questions, and I'll reply as soon as I can find time. -- Rob |
- Rob Wesley - |
Please email to verify the current availability of a guitar, or for more info regarding the guitars on this page.
A few of these guitars have been used by me in various released or to-be-released recordings. Whoopeee............
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(Click on a thumbnail image for more photos of each guitar)
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Epiphone Century 1945-46 Mahogany Sunburst
Beautiful guitar, 15-inch wide red-mahogany body all-around (ply on body top), looks like a fine piece of vintage well-cared for furniture. About 80% condition on the guitar, 90% on the case, some wear on the headstock top edge and a modest buckle rash on the body rear.
The pickup is the original Epiphone Tone Spectrum single-coil non-pole. The white cover is original and possibly bakelite. The white cover removes easily once the cover ring is removed, and could be painted (black?) on one side and left white on the other. The guitar has a cool Bakelite pickguard, contoured for a handrest (factory design) which was allegedly discontinued in 1941 but here it is. The tuners are original but 5 of the buttons were replaced many years ago and are still vintage. All-original hardware.
The tone control doesn't seem to respond nearly as much as some of my other vintage Epiphones but I checked it out and it does work, and appears to have all original solder points. If I keep the guitar I might consider adding another capacitor along with the original one, easily done. Weighs 6 pounds.
Asking price- 
US $1150 no case OR $1500 with original (Geib?) brown leather burgundy-lined case
Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor II 1999 spruce top
All-original. Made by Samick in Korea. Great guitar, I've had it since 2003, bought near-new, played it a few times when I was recording in the studio and that's about it. Still Near-New other than 1 tiny screw-hole where I'd had a different pickguard attached for a while, and 3 near the tailpiece where I tried a different tailpiece.
Epiphone 57 Classic gold humbucker pickups.
Nut width is 1-11/16".
Sells new for $599 on various online guitar stores
Asking price- US $450 with gigbag
Epiphone S-600 black strat-style
Samick-made in Korea. Nice heavy-bodied guitar with great sustain, black high-gloss paint, sharktooth-inlays. Very elongated body, much longer than a standard-strat style.
Floyd-licensed black whammy (WITH bar!) #TRS-101.
Superb action!
Asking price- US $300 with original hardshell case
Epiphone Zephyr 1944 Sunburst
Epiphone Zephyr Master pickup, all-original, has the cool handrest-tapered pickguard although it's showing its age. Spruce body top. Original carousel-style control knobs on the MasterVoicer volume-tone controls.
Great condition for its 66 years age. Very comfortably rounded neck, not a v-neck. Low frets as usual, almost no wear on them!
It currently has .009 strings and still sounds great! I'll throw in a new pair of Ernie Ball nickels in .010 or .011 for you.
Asking price- US $1200 with chipboard case if I can find one that fits
Epiphone Zephyr Deluxe 1945-1947 #1
Spruce body top, gorgeous flamed maple back & rims. Original Tone Spectrum Deluxe single-coil pickup. All-original. I wasn't sure about the rosewood bridge but the former owner insisted it was the original one. Appears to have been very professionally refretted with medium frets which show little wear. Original Epiphone "E" tuners, original MasterVoicer control plates and famous octagonal white knobs. Nut width is 1-11/16". Modest V-neck shape on the rear.
Check out the original Frequensator tailpiece logo on the lower plate! Still nice and shiny! One of the nicer condition guitars of this model that you'll find.
Original pickguard wasn't installed in the photos-- but it's included. Weighs 6-3/4 pounds.
Asking price- US $1800 with Matsumoku 1970's hardshell case
Epiphone Zephyr Deluxe 1945-1947 #2
Pretty much the same as the identical one above, but not quite as stellar condition. One pickup pole is missing (makes no real difference in playing). No pickguard. Original Tone Spectrum Deluxe single-coil pickup. Original Epiphone "E" tuners with interesting replacement metal tuner buttons, the wear indicates they've been there for quite a long time. Original Frequensator tailpiece. Original volume/tone plates with replacement vintage chicken-head knobs. Neck heel reglued nicely at some point.
Nut width is 1-11/16". Spruce body top, gorgeous flamed maple back & rims. Modest V-neck shape on the rear. Weighs 6-3/4 pounds.
Asking price- US $1500 with Matsumoku 1970's hardshell case
Epiphone Zephyr Regent 1951 Sunburst
Wow-- great old classic jazz guitar, big beefy neck but not as chunky as the old Kay/Harmony baseball-bat category. Nicely rounded on the rear, not V-neck. 25-1/2" scale. Original everything, I believe, including the famous New York pickup (4.72k) which sounds so nicely mellow with the tone turned down slightly. Classic jazz warmth. Amazing depth of sound.
Original hardware ("E" tuners, tailpiece, rosewood bridge, pickguard & bracket) and the famous metal Epiphone logo headstock badge. Great condition overall (80-85%), the neck binding trim was apparently replaced by someone in the past, and using vintage trim from a 24-3/4" scale neck, so the dots don't totally line up but they work. I removed and reglued to align to the nut, they were lower in the photos. Someone installed a second output jack which went to a former top-mount bridge pickup, there's minimal surface-evidence of the pickup, probably a Dearmond jazz or something. Great action, neck seems straight, also has a truss-rod on the lower end, no complaints on this guitar.
Asking price- US $1250 with vintage chip/particleboard case, allegedly the original one
Epiphone Zephyr Emperor Regent 1954 Natural
It's a monster- about 18-1/2 inches wide! The "Ultimate Fat Bottom Girl" !!!!
Original trapeze tailpiece, replacement Grover Van Ghent gold tuners, pretty much everything else replacement.
The original odd VariTone multi-switch unit (what a pain they are to use) was removed and that coverplate leaves a lot of room for some fun hot-rodding! Drop in an Active-EQ system or some fun coil-tap/reverse switches.
Epiphone P-90 pickups if I recall.
Asking price- US $2500 with RARE 1951 case OR $2000 without the case
Gibson EB bass 1970 PROJECT
Nice 30-1/2" neck scale. This EB model was only made in 1970-- no volute, no crown-inlay, and a Gibson decal logo differ it from the similar EB-0.
I bought this exactly as it is, now, a few years ago and I just haven't had time for projects, and now I'm deciding that I will just enjoy my EB-3 and sell this, unfortunately for me.
Someone made a thin wood pickguard that's pretty cool, or can be painted black or whatever you choose to do with it. Asian replacement tuners of some sort. You'll need a tailpiece, bridge and all the electronics. I actually had bought several tailpiece/bridge combo's which I would sell for an additional price. Allparts nickel $65 which is apparently a near-clone replacement, or a cool old 1978 Ovation Magnum $90.
Asking price- US $450 no case; plus optional tailpiece/bridges mentioned above
Gibson ES-125-CD 1967 sunburst jazzbox with newer hardshell case
Really nice guitar, basically an ES-175 with less fancy headstock logo and dot-inlays instead of the split-bar's. Not sure what the pickups are but they really sound incredible on this guitar. They could be Gibson of some sort but they vaguely remind me of some 1970's pickups used by Gretsch, Hagstrom and other companies. Regardless, they sound great. Stamped "34 26" on the rear.
The guitar was originally a single-pickup P-90, someone routed for dual humbuckers and added a second pair of control-pots and a 3-way toggle.
Replacement Schaller tuners, nice replacement ebony nut, aftermarket ABR-style bridge on rosewood base (not sure of maker). The witch-hat knobs were not original (shown in photos) and have been replaced.
Amazing depth of sound! Great action, nut 1-9/16" profile neck. Neck-rear finish was sanded down, some players prefer this but it can easily be clear-sprayed or tung-oil coated.
Asking price- US $1250 with newer hardshell case
Gibson ES-335-TD Pelham Blue 2001 Custom-Shop Country-Autographed w-original Gibson hardshell case
For all you country-fans out there, this is your heart-dream! According to Gibson Customer Service the guitar was special-ordered with the Pelham Blue finish in 2001. Memphis radio station KIX-106 (WGKX-FM) used it in a promotional (2003?) where it was autographed by numerous country artists-- 14 or more from what I can count, including Alan Jackson, Alabama (w/Randy Owen), Tracy Lawrence, Mark Chesnutt, Steve Azar, Steve Holy, Jimmy Wayne, Keith Urban, and others. The winner of the contest didn't play, and eventually sold it to someone who never played it, and then sold it to me in Jan2009. I've played it about 10 minutes total. It's in about 90-95% like-new condition. A few scuff-marks on the pickguard and tailpiece, two spider-cracks in the finish at the neck in the left cutaway (definitely surface-only cosmetic and not unusual). All original. Gibson Classic 57 humbuckers (N=7.72k B=7.54k). That's about all I can tell you, other than it's nearly perfect and a huge collector item. I'm more into fretless-wonder Gibson's and this one has the standard medium-jumbo frets so I probably am not going to get much use out of this incredible guitar, unfortunately.
Asking price- US $2250 with original Gibson brown/pink hardshell case
Gibson ES-347 1980 Ebony w-original Gibson hardshell case
Not to be confused with the ES-345's, the 347's are basically upgraded 335's with similarities to the ES-355. These 347's have the higher-quality ebony fretboards, all-gold hardware, large block inlays, lots of binding, brass nut, coil-tap toggle and a TP-6 tailpiece. This was the first edition of the ES-347's and it has a standard-sized coil-reverse toggle on the upper right horn, rather than the lower mini-toggle introduced the following year. The standard 3-way pickup toggle is in the usual place by the controls.
Original Gibson Series 7 Tim Shaw era gold-cover pickups, much-sought by jazz guitarists who like the brighter yet mellow sound. These are NOT DirtyFingers pickups (which have 2 rows of 6-poles) -- totally different.
Fair to moderate wear on the gold hardware. About 75% or better, overall. Fairly decent structural condition, has a repainted belt-buckle rash spot on the body rear. The neck rear has been resprayed, I'd intended to keep this and shaved down the depth slightly for better action and then repainted it with black nitro, perfect job. I later decided to shave it even more and the new "drip-proof" masking-tape leaked slightly at a few spots on the neck binding, which I removed but the aged patina is mostly gone on the bass side.
Body front has a very nice high-shine finish, despite needing some polishing which hadn't happened before I'd taken the photos.
Weighs 9-1/2 pounds. Nut width 1-11/16"
Asking price- US $1850 with worn vintage Gibson hardshell case
Gibson ES-355 1964 Refinished PROJECT w/hardshell case
This is a great guitar, overall. All of the hardware has been removed, so this includes body/neck/nut ONLY. There are a few areas where guitars are frequently exposed to sweat during playing, so minor flares on the body surface. They wouldn't show well in photos, but I tried (check the photos). Someone at some point decided to refinish the guitar in a sort of caramel-burnt-red color, spray the interior black and re-do the neck rear. The body finish is flaking along the left side horn. There are a few places along the binding where they didn't quite seem to glue it down firmly so you can see minor gaps in the photos. The neck rear is really nice. Overall however, a solid structure, great player and I've really had to juggle whether to sell or keep. The nut width is 1-9/16" (they were doing that on the 355 models before they started it on 335's in 1965), but it feels less narrow than the later 1-9/16" necks, or maybe it's just less arched on the neck rear. A stop-tailpiece was added in the late 1960's, so you have either option for setting it up.
Put on some new hardware and you're ready to play. Or, sand/strip the finish and re-do it in your choice of spray-nitro or stain and coat it with hand-rubbed tung-oil or poly, you've got a great vintage 335-style for a great price. This one however has the more desireable ebony fretboard, modest fret wear (see photos) and the fancier block-inlays and headstock.
The orange label is long gone from what I'm told, apparently it didn't stick too well to the black interior paint and eventually disappeared, whereabouts unknown.
Asking price- US $2750 no case (and I'm taking a big loss on this guitar already)
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Gibson Les Paul Custom 1973 Black Beauty formerly owned by Lonestar's Michael Britt-- w/ his road-case
I bought this guitar in 2009 from Michael Britt, guitarist for the band Lonestar. He said he got the guitar in 1997 and used it to record Lonely Grill and on the road. He had it re-fretted with more standard-height frets, of course expertly done. I prefer the standard lower-frets of the 1970's Gibson's. If it wasn't for the frets and my lack of local luthier, I'd probably be keeping this guitar for a long time.
Original neck Patent-Label pickup (7.55k), original bridge Patent-Engraved pickup moved to mid-position, a Seymour Duncan of some sort (12.12k) added in the bridge (looks neck-spaced, possibly a Custom Custom, or a Distortion, I've done the same with a few of my own guitars). Replacement Gibson Kluson Deluxe tuners. Original Patent# bridge. The guitar had a Bigsby at one time, now a replacement tailpiece, not sure which configuration it had from the factory. Control pots 1377317. Original Lonestar smudges ha ha.
Weight 10-1/4 pounds. Modest dent in center of lower bout, possibly overcoated, otherwise minor surface wear.
Mike has included an autographed copy of the info page you see in the listing.
Jimmy Page's Black Beauty was just like this, if you put on a Bigsby. I know, I played it :-)
Asking price- US $3250 with heavy-duty road-tour chainsaw-style case and Lonestar band-tag
Harmony Custom Kraft H-1222 (Harmony H-1457) Acoustic Spanish-Archtop Yellow 1942
Custom Kraft was a headstock-branding distributor for various guitar-manufacturers, and this one was made by Harmony in 1942 (Harmony model/serial & date code "F42"). Nicely faded light mustard-yellow front finish with some wear (similar to Gibson's current Worn-Yellow finish).
Spruce top, mahogany V-neck. Some rub-wear around rear edges, one small ding on body-rear, some moderate neck-rear wear at the first-position, otherwise surprisingly good condition. Original bone nut. Nice vintage wear on the tuner buttons, one appears to be a replacement done years ago. Appears to have original trapeze tailpiece, bridge and pickguard. Very modest neck curve "within reason" and very playable, chunky V-neck. Crack up lower mid-front of body under tailpiece to bridge seems to have been repaired many years ago, looks secure and doesn't seem to cause any problems. Mild 1-mm neck heel separation at back edge, otherwise stable.
Asking price- US $350 NO CASE
Kay K-40 Spanish-Archtop Jumbo Blonde 1955-56 (Model K8440?)
Amazing depth of sound from the huge 17-inch body, spruce top, curly-maple sides. All-original hardware from what I can tell, although I think the buttons on the tuners might be replacements. Classic tulip-shaped tri-fleur inlays! Slight neck warp, typical of these old Kay's but THIS one amazingly has a Zorzi truss-rod which adjusts in the neck heel. I just don't seem to have the right tool. Similar to the design used by Gretsch in the 1970's on some models.
Body cracks on the top, easily seen in the photos, repaired before I got the guitar, I've never had any problems with rattle or buzz. Might need some luthier's fine-touchups, could be a brilliant old classic!
Nut 1-5/8" width.
Asking price- US $375 no case
Rex Flattop 1935 by Oscar Schmidt or Harmony
Nice project, selling exactly as it was when I bought it 8 years ago without any hardware or nut. Stamped S-35 inside in typical Harmony dating-style, Harmony bought the Rex brand name from Oscar Schmidt in 1939 but was probably making the guitars for them already.
Neck has some warping and the body rear is separating at the lower bout, should be an easy re-glue.
Asking price- US $100 no case
Supertone Folk S-203 Modernistic Tobacco Sunburst 1930's by Harmony
Another project I'm not going to have time to work on. Currently all the original hardware is removed so I'll need to track down the bag of parts, be patient please! It came with a Maxwell chrome slide-nut but I believe I also have the original wood nut. Slight neck heel separation about 1mm, some neck warping. Solid birch construction (very solid too!). Not sure if the fretboard was originally white-stained or whether that's a later addition. Black dots appear to be hand-drawn but might still be factory-done.
Supertone was Sears' house brand until they started using the Silvertone name in 1941. The guitar is very similar to Harmony's H-2525.
Asking price- US $200 with its original khaki carrying bag which is missing the closing end-clasp
- OR - if you want the guitar totally stripped of hardware for $125 you can find pics HERE
