Cool Crucianelli Bass

[Guildedagain]

So from S-50 with Tremar to a '67 Hagstrom Viking and from that to this. A too stupidly low priced vintage bass to pass up, almost at yesterday's prices, and shipping prices. I had a Crucianelli 335 once with some very vintage Gibson humbuckers, and it was fabulous. You knew it was special the second you picked it up, but like a fool I sold it.

It turns out Crucianelli made Vox's guitars for them, so all the early Stones stuff, impressive. Them and EKO, often mentioned by Rambozo, went head to head for contracts with companies wanting guitars built for them, like Vox and in fact only in the rarest cases like this one do they actually say Crucianelli on them, this may have not been for export, but brought back by a GI.

Not a lot of info on these, but it promises to be pretty great.

This is one of those there's only one of these out there, and that's usually what I get ;]

I'm really falling for these aged poly finishes like the Hagstrom, bulletproof, not even affected by sweat. It's like a guitar you could use as a canoe paddle ;]

Man is this gonna cure 60's Starfire bass envy on the cheap or what?

A nice hollow body bass, well built with good tuners and I presume decent single coil pickups, and hey, it's original, after all this time, amazing.

Not sure there will be experts on this one, like the Viking. The Hag has me in the middle of an email with someone in Sweden who wrote back on decoding the serial, the batch number, what year, was indeed '67, just a lucky coincidence, the last two digits of the Viking is 67, a lucky guitar.

 

[Guildedagain]

Very hard to find company info.

"Crucianelli in the ES-335 style
by Jack Marchal

The Beatles and the Mersey Beat boom of 1963-64 were a giant step ahead for the music — and a step backwards as far as gear is concerned. All of a sudden the high tech solidbody guitar fell out of fashion for being too strongly associated with early 60′s instrumental rock music (The Shadows and Spotnicks in Europe, Dick Dale and the surf music in the U.S.).

The British invasion bands favoured old dual cutaway semis made by Gretsch, Harmony, Epiphone, Rickenbacker, when not a real Gibson like Eric Clapton in his Cream era.
Even bass players wanted to go semi-acoustic, which gave fully unexpected exposure to some European brands (McCartney and his Höfner, Bill Wyman and his Framus). For all makers issuing an ES-335 copy became an unescapable obligation. In 1964 the Stratocaster popularity was peaking; in 1967 production was almost discontinued. Meanwhile even Fender had to introduce a 335 copy of its own, the Coronado.

The most experienced in that field among European makers were supposed to be the German, but their guitars looked a bit too special to make convincing 335 copies. The Eko 285/Barracuda still was too definitely Eko -like. Japanese models were still flat out clumsy. Even the U.S. made Harmony and Kay suffered an amateur image. Crucianelli was one of the few european producers able to offer a sensible price-to-quality ratio along with the reasonably pro look that was in demand. Unlike Hagström’s world famous Viking range, Crucianelli’s ES-335-copies are scarcely visible, being scattered as usual over many brands. They were nevertheless produced by thousands, under the names Vox, Tonemaster, Baldwin (bodies only), España, FH, Élite and even (a dire rarity in the electric range)… Crucianelli!

The 335 hype wasn’t merely a matter of fashion, there were also some practical reasons behind it. For young people getting a noble piece of nearly traditional craftmanship as a Christmas present was far easier than extorting from Mum & Dad some equally expensive crazy sparkle plastic covered shape. A skilled musician who wanted to make a living in mainstream music or enter a jazz band would have been unwelcomed with his Wandré or Eko -700, an ES-335 styled guitar made it easier. Furthermore these guitars allowed home use without the back then so expensive amplifier. The semi-hollowbodies’ tendency to feedback wasn’t a problem due to the poor amp power available at that time. On the contrary, allowing a bit of feedback helped the specific resonance that typified lead guitar sound in mid-60′s pop music. Around 1969-70 the sudden availability of high power amplification paved the way to the LesPaul dictatorship, putting a brutal end to the semi-acoustic’s era of dominance — and to Crucianelli’s guitar operations as well."

Crucianelli in the ES-335 style - Fetishguitars.com

www.fetishguitars.com

 

[ruedi]

Happy canoeing Interesting, I didn't know about these connections!

You really bought a some interesting stuff lately, thank you for sharing!

 

[GGJaguar]

It's fun to say "Crucianelli".

 

[Guildedagain]

It's Crucial ;]

Remember the name of the band on Wayne's World?

Crucial Taunt, Lololol ;]]]

 

[Guildedagain]

More Crucial info ;]

Crucianelli Guitars

Crucianelli Guitar under the Elite brand name The 1950’s were boom years for accordion makers. In 1951 The Lawrence Welk Show started ...

uniqueguitar.blogspot.com

And a pic of what the Italians were doing for Vox, killing it with guitars like these made for the Voxton line 1966-1968.

The VOX Showroom - www.voxshowroom.com

How interesting, it's like the Axis, it is the Axis, of guitars. Germany, Italy, Japan, locked in combat with American guitars. In this case the Italians helping the Brits sell some damn fine looking Gibson copies with Guildy sounding model numbers ;]]

Visit the Vox showroom for a bewildering array of guitars, into the present.

The VOX Showroom - www.voxshowroom.com

 

[Rambozo96]

They were the other major Italian maker. The biggest was EKO

 

[fronobulax]

How interesting, it's like the Axis, it is the Axis, of guitars. Germany, Italy, Japan, locked in combat with American guitars. In this case the Italians helping the Brits sell some damn fine looking Gibson copies with Guildy sounding model numbers ;]]

Not going to search to confirm my memory, but my recollection is that there was a time when importing American made guitars into Great Britain was extremely expansive - tariffs and taxes on top of everything else. The obvious response was for European builders to create and build guitars to supply the British market. Mid 1960's? Late enough to forget about WWII alliances

 

[Rambozo96]

Not going to search to confirm my memory, but my recollection is that there was a time when importing American made guitars into Great Britain was extremely expansive - tariffs and taxes on top of everything else. The obvious response was for European builders to create and build guitars to supply the British market. Mid 1960's? Late enough to forget about WWII alliances

I believe you are correct. IIRC Sir Paul McCartney bought his Höfner because it was the cheapest left handed electric bass available in England. The Futurama III for those wanting a strat in Europe but lacking in the funds department.

 

[Guildedagain]

This is the kicker here, the Lyle hollow body with "the longest Wangbar" in thread below is a Japanese copy of this Crucianelli. Wild.

 

[GGJaguar]

It's Crucial

Yes, but in Italian the "ci" sound is pronounced "chi" as in "chin" rather than the soft c sound in crucial. That's what make it so much fun to say.

 

[Guildedagain]

Crew Chee Ann Elli ;]

 

[Guildedagain]

Managed to score a pair of original knobs to replace the uber rare missing volume cap center, yea ;] Talk about a large font, so big the whole cap falls off ;]

They're like Italian racing car dashboard knobs. Loud knobs.