OMG what the h did I buy, again, Guild related content, took a liking to a Viking ;]

[Guildedagain]

I found a guitar...

Tis the story of my life, or rather it found me.

It's been wild lately, I've seen so many guitars go I had for practically 20 years, and seen a bunch of new ones come in, pretty neat.

Just sold my '52 RI Tele I had for 20 years, it was gorgeous but it was a tank, over 9lbs.

Just got feedback on it and the $$$ is headed for the bank account.

So anyway, since scoring these Jet Stars, I've been on a real 60's kick, cept you really can't afford anything from the 60's, cept Jet Stars.

And at the same time, I've been looking at Hagstroms... Guild was very smart to use Hagstrom parts, I'm sold. Love the quality.

I've been wanting a Starfire 3 for geez, a couple years now, not happening.

And the prices now, silly.

I had the Starfire 4, what a battle axe, 9lb 8oz. Playing it sitting hurt.

A Starfire 3 popped up today, full price, broken/repaired headstock, bunch a changed parts. I'm never gonna get one of these and I don't even care anymore.

Then this Hagstrom pops up, really special. I can tell about guitars.

And the price is high as a BIN, better as a bid and wait, but I don't roll like that. It's now or never.

It was eating at me, and for a couple hundies difference, I figured I'd just end up losing it, so I popped the BIN, full price. No offers, I would tried, but didn't want to rub the guy the wrong way. He knew what he had, and I came to realize if was rare as hen's teeth. And it;s like trading a guitar, I sold the Tele, and even after the taxes and all on this, and his shipping was stupid dirt cheap, I'm still ahead by a grand.

I had a Hagstrom once, a 1974 Swede, and I loved that guitar even though it was slightly bastardized, but not too bad, just the average goofiness that comes with vintage guitars. It had a great acoustic quality, a great rhythm guitar. I remember that most of all.

So this Hagstrom pops up, a 1967 Viking, and it looks cool as all get out. Not Cherry like the one Elvis played, or that dark Sunburst like a lot of others, but this one is like a faded flametop burst, with some flame on the neck, all original, with a Hagstrom branded trem, which research shows was made by Bigsby for Hagstrom. Very cool.

I've been wanting a Bigsby guitar for a while, that's part of the reason why I wanted a '66 or so red Starfire III.

It's got single coils, and a video of one on Youtube floored me for tone, good, very good.



So I'm trying to be cautious - a way not to buy things - and I ask about the weight, because vintage Swedes can weigh 11lbs, which is outrageous.

And it only weight 6 something pounds, which is unusual and fantastic.

I actually get pics of the fretboard and frets, and they look good, real good.

So finally, I stop fretting and just buy it, in sort of a haze while in the middle of a phone call with kiddo that wants a Dewalt 20V weedwacker for her Bday.

All I have to do now is wait, and this should make a good mate to my Sunburst Jet Star.

A lot of shared parts with Guild, and man, what a looker!

Vintage Hagstrom Viking Guitar 1967 very rare orange color with Orig. Tremolo | eBay

I try to list one Guitar every week or so. Frets have a lot of life left.

www.ebay.com

This guy says he sells a lot of Hags, and he hadn't seen another like this, and i believe it.

The coolest burst.

Way to go Hagstrom, they nailed the Strat headstock pretty good ;]

I tried to Haggle, but in the end it got me ;]]

Van Ghent tuners as seen on Guilds?

Definitely seems to be some shared DNA between Guilds and these beauties.

 

[HeyMikey]

Congratulations on the Old Hag!

And since you have some cash leftover...

Guild Starfire lll - musical instruments - by owner - sale

1999 Guild Starfire lll built in Westerly R.I. This guitar is in near mint condition without any dings or scratches. The Westerly R.I. Factory produced guitars of exceptional quality. The guitar...

seattle.craigslist.org

 

[GGJaguar]

You're the kid taking the cow to market and coming back with magic beans... or guitars. Congrats!

 

[Guildedagain]

Congratulations on the Old Hag!

And since you have some cash leftover...

Guild Starfire lll - musical instruments - by owner - sale

1999 Guild Starfire lll built in Westerly R.I. This guitar is in near mint condition without any dings or scratches. The Westerly R.I. Factory produced guitars of exceptional quality. The guitar...

seattle.craigslist.org

Good grief they made a nice SFIII at Westerly, stunning.

 

[Rambozo96]

The neck on my Hagstrom II was pretty thin for that time period. Only neck I ran into that was any thinner was the Ibanez Wizard necks and a neck on my 1968 Kustom K-200 which is impossibly thin.

 

[Rambozo96]

The one Elvis played was borrowed and apparently was quite a rarity. I don’t think the Viking had it but some of the Hagstroms have a bunch of switches for tone filters which I guess was to compensate for lack of a tone control. Not sure what was with Europe’s thing for strange tone filters in guitars back then.

 

[Guildedagain]

You mean this ;]

 

[jp]

Congratulations on a nice Viking!

Hagströms are cool, weird, and quality guitars all at the same time. I always wanted one, and I'm very intrigued by the newer Swedish made Super Swedes.

And does it have "the world's fastest neck," or the world's thinnest neck? Or maybe both!

 

[Nuuska]

The Kings Neck

They had this H-shaped metal profile inside neck at one time.

 

[mushroom]

Some of my biggest guitar regrets are selling some Hags I had.
Silly Silly Mushroom.
Those Vikings are great guitars

 

[Guildedagain]

I took a liking to a Viking ;]

Truth be told always had my eye out for one of these, but this one... that shading just knocks me out. I'm not too much into the Cherry finish, too red. The Tobacco Sunburst is too dark, too stark. Not sure the color of this one even shows up in a catalog?

Yikes, what if it's a refin?

It doesn't look like it. Looks like a one off.

I had this 1974 Swede I picked from some kid off CL ten and some years ago, it was his Dad's and he didn't like it. Who does sh*t like this?

Anyway, I loved it, it had this special tone, kinda spanky for a Les Paul. It was a rhythm machine and always had me belting out cool riffs on it. To this day, if I hear a recording of it, I know what guitar it is instantly. Plugged in I don't remember anything about it, except it looked damn cool next to my '75 Marshall JMP50W half stack.

It had a crack in the neck pocket, I took it apart, borrowed some clamps from my luthier neighbor.

Here it is.

 

[Nuuska]

 

[SFIV1967]

Not sure the color of this one even shows up in a catalog?
Yikes, what if it's a refin?
It doesn't look like it. Looks like a one off.

That one looks great! Congratulations!
That color exists multiple times, here is a 1967 sister of her which was sold in Germany (note: no color on neck):



And another 1967 one, again with color on neck:




The version without vibrato and with chrome hardware was called V-1 , the vibrato version VB-1.
The color was called "Golden Mahogany Sunburst", even if it was maple...



The V-2 used flamed maple and gold hardware (also from 1967):



Ralf

 

[Guildedagain]

Thx Ralf for answering my question.

I did find an identical example this morning. I was pretty confident it wasn't refin, a) no one is this good at finishes, b) seller claims to sell a Hagstrom a week, so he would know his guitars well enough to spot a refin, so that was just a little post purchase/pre receipt anxiety, more of a silly question, but still thx for finding these.

This is the guitar I found this morning, and here is the minor conundrum. This gorgeous original case is for sale, while the one I purchased comes in a not correct but probably much better 80's Gibson 335 case.

So do I buy this case for the VB-1 and put it in the correct case, or don't?

I'm sure I can sell the Gibson case for as much or more than asking price for correct Hagstrom case, hmmm...

Also, thx for the ad literature, these are extremely hard to find. Also hard to find is a catalog pic of a VB-1.

A reverb seller has a 1966 price sheet - nice - which shows the VB-1 priced at $299.50 and the case at $39.50 = $2453.21 & $323.54 in 2021, wow!

So the guitar was undervalued, even more so than a Guild, and the case has held its value a little better.

I suppose the real question for me is how does it smell? If it smells vintage, I'm likely to go for it.

If it smells like Febreze or some other toxic smell I can't even bring in the house, forget it.

I got an unusual burnt orange vinyl gigbag in the mail yesterday, which would in fact fit the Viking, purchased prior to ever seeing the Viking, odd... and the seller wrapped it in a "scented trashbag" that reeks to high heaven, even outside, it stinks up the whole yard.

What is this bizarre fascination with these toxic "fragrances"?

Hopefully this isn't as common where you are.

 

[SFIV1967]

They had this H-shaped metal profile inside neck at one time.

1967 USA pricelist:

http://www.hagstrom.org.uk/Jan67Price/Jan67Price.htm

Ralf

 

[F312]

Nothing like a happy man, at's the best.

 

[Guildedagain]

So the case got here yesterday and spent all nice in our package shed out by the road, unbeknownst to me, busy mowing an orchard with the John Deere 214 - like riding a mechanical bull over the blasted gopher mounds - and so she brings it in this morning after taking a letter to the mailbox, and says "Your air guitar's here" ;] because it's a Taylor box that barely weighs anything.

I got the case out of the box, and while I realize that people love the smell of Tide and dryer sheets that nauseate both me and wife, the seller was wrong about the case not smelling, it reeks of cleaner and had to be kicked out of the house. Don't know if I'll be able to keep it. I can see the remnants of black mold in the headstock area, obviously the case had a musty odor, and internet wisdom says "Try Sunlight or Febreze, but this may not be enough." or "put dryer sheets in the case and leave case closed".

I suppose I could try baking soda and then vacuuming it out. It's airing out on the porch, I'll have to wait and see if it dissipates on its own.

The guitar itself is supposed to be here today, it may just have to stay in the 80's vintage Gibson 335 case if it doesn't have an unpleasant odor of cleaner.

 

[wileypickett]

Do not, under any circumstances, try Fabreeze! However bad things smell now, they'll smell worse if they get anywhere near that ghastly stuff.

The Viking, as you've discovered, is quite light. (Nice guitar -- not my favorite pickups.)

I've owned dozens of Hagstroms. I don't play 'em now because my electric days are pretty much behind me, but man, I loved 'em!! (I sold my two main electrics -- a Fender Strat and a Fender Jazzmaster -- after finding my first Hagstrom III in a pawn shop.)

The company, under Hagstrom senior, started out making accordions. That's why the early models, such as the Hagstrom Kent pictured above, had tops made from molded plastic -- the company that made their accordion parts was originally employed to make their guitars too.

Which they started doing under Karl Erik Hagstrom after Hagstrom senior, his dad, died. (It was the early '60s and Karl Erik saw that the company's future viability, just making accordions, wasn't too rosy.)

I used Hagstroms for the nearly 20 years I was in a band. We toured Sweden in the '80s and passed through Alvdalen, where Hagstroms had been made. I sent the rest of the band off to have lunch somewhere while I walked around Alvdalen's main thoroughfare -- which was all of a half-block long.

And, completely by accident, I ran into Karl Erik Hagstrom. He took me on a tour of the Hagstrom museum, and putting me in his car, took me to the abandoned Hagstrom factory for "a tour." The place had no electricity, there were weeds growing up through the floor and everything -- all the original molds and machines and work benches -- was covered in dust.

Before we said goodbye, he had me sign his guest book (dozens of bands had stopped in over the years, including Mudhoney, also big Hagstrom fans) and loaded me up with old catalogues and guitar parts.

Guild connection: Guild used the same Van Ghent tuners you'll find on most Hagstroms, as well as the Hagstrom whammy bar.

 

[walrus]

I had an old Hagstrom Strat-type copy decades ago. Somewhere around the late '70's. No idea what model it was. In those days I was pretty unaware of different guitar brands and models. All I remember was it was red, and had a missing fret marker. And I actually have a few cassette recordings of me playing it.

I just wish I paid more attention to the details in those days...

walrus

 

[fronobulax]

I just wish I paid more attention to the details in those days...

Ain't that the truth. I wish I remember details of the Starfire bass that started me on this journey and the list of bands that I heard in concerts, I no longer remember anything about is long enough to trigger regret