Does anyone know anything about this Burns?

[hankb56]

IN the mid 80's there were a couple of these Marvins with the Baldwin headstocks for sale in a music store in Hope St Glasgow, Guitar City I think it was which closed down within a short period of time. I spoke to one of the assistants who said that the bodies were original 66 but resprayed & fitted with Baldwin necks. I wonder if they were posibly mix match from the various parts that were sold by Golumbs in the Trongate as they aparantly had secured component stock when Baldwin ceased production.

Ian

[George Geddes]

Several years ago, I bought a Baldwin Marvin which Paul Day reckoned was originally a Golumbs 'parts-o-Marvin' : Baldwin headstock, Burns badge, un-engraved vibrato plate, etc. It had subsequently been butchered with new scratchplate to house two humbuckers. Several years later, I finished restoring to what it should have been like (though I never did fix the ResoTube plate...). It was a white one, though.

[dusty fretz]

This is a prime instance of 'Ebay Imagination'; in other words the guitar's claimed history and provenance is, to put it kindly, total tosh! The final incarnation of the Baldwin Marvin did come fitted with the larger 'James O. Burns Design' single-coils, in keeping with the company's on-going rationalisation of the range. However, it's equally likely they'd run out of Rez-O-Matiks and didn't fancy paying out for a few more!

The Jim Burns association seems somewhat spurious, as in 1980 he was firmly ensconsed in Littleport. However, if Jim WAS indeed involved with the sale, then I'm afraid he wasn't beyond spinning any yarn to earn himself some drinking dosh, especially if the prospectve purchaser was eager to believe!

Ignoring all the ad's waffle and fiction, the guitar looks to be reasonably okay, at least from what can be gleaned via the poor quality pics, although I can see the vibrato arm is a leftie. I just hope no one's taken in by the stated claims and that the price stays accordingly realistic.

[George Geddes]

Funnily enough, the arm on my Baldwin was a leftie too...

George

[geoff1711]

also the string alignment is off, the low E is almost off the top of the board and none of the strings line up with the pole pieces, it looks like either the trem has been (re?)assembled out of true or the neck has had a wallop, I wonder if there are splits around the neck pocket?

Geoff

[StuartD]

Definitely nothing to do with Hank at all. I was around the guys then and the only Marvin Guitars Hank had in the late 60's until they were stolen, were the green one and the white one that had the bottom scratchplate changed to Baldwin.

Stuart

[Tone]

It made £2250! In view of the comments on this thread that seems a very high figure.

What would you expect a "standard" mid sixties Marvin in good, playable condition but with no specific Hank connection to fetch?

Cheers.

Tony

[Razzmataz]

It's back, only this time with a buy it now of £6,500.00
Also they are claiming:
"IT HAS JUST BEEN VERIFED BY HANK MARVIN VIA A DUTCH COLLECTOR AND AN AUSTRIAN COLLECTOR WHO BOTH SAID THEY
KNOW FORMER BAND MEMBER JOHN FARRER... "

Paul

[dave robinson]

It's back, only this time with a buy it now of £6,500.00
Also they are claiming:
"IT HAS JUST BEEN VERIFED BY HANK MARVIN VIA A DUTCH COLLECTOR AND AN AUSTRIAN COLLECTOR WHO BOTH SAID THEY
KNOW FORMER BAND MEMBER JOHN FARRER... "

Paul

Back where exactly ?

[Tone]

Dave, it's just been relisted on eBay by the same seller with a Buy It Now Price of £6500. The description is exactly the same as in the first listing but with the additional comment quoted by Razzmatazz. Why wasn't this comment, although it doesn't mean much, included in the first listing (and note that the seller has misspelled "Farrar")?

So, a guitar which was sold for £2250 yesterday is today being sold by the same seller for £6500. Hmmmm........slightly odd to say the least.

Cheers.

Tony