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This is a rarely seen model. Striped headstock and neck 4 piece Scratchplate . Photo courtesy Dusty Fretz

I'm not sure if any production models were made with the HSH pickups' Jim carved the pickup cavity by hand with a chisel to accommodate the the extra size of the humbuckers on this guitar in july 1981, the middle section was from a Bison with the hole for the single coil again done by hand.

Thanks Kevin for letting us know. I don't suppose you have any pics of the back of the neck do you ?

Billyboygretsch wrote:Thanks Kevin for letting us know. I don't suppose you have any pics of the back of the neck do you ?

Normally, the Littleport Burns guitars had a plain neck reverse-side. The maple fretboard was attached like a rosewood one would be - and had no "skunk stripe" for that reason. That is, the truss-rod was installed in a channel routed out of the main part of the neck (and not via a drilled-out aperture).

But the one in the picture will have a rosewood strip down the middle, which itself is nothing to do with the truss rod arrangement but is simply part of the decorative construction of the neck.

Not being a Burns expert, I suppose such later Marvins and other Burns models ('70's and '80's) don't have the appeal or market value like the early ones, particularly as Hank and the Shadows no longer used them after about the very early '70's?

I would imagine the later models were still intrinsically reasonably good quality and good sounding though?

The neck had a walnut strip running the length of the neck topped with an ebony fingerboard, most of the Jim Burns models had quite a fat neck as did this.
These era Marvins did not sound like the Marvin that we know, I'm referring to the 3 single coil model when I say this! the pickups were ceramic magnets (designed by Kent Armstrong) and they were not in the same positions because of the truss rod adjustment and the 22 fret neck all pickups were set closer to the bridge, in my opinion the biggest let down on the guitar was that horrible Strat style vibrato fitted to a knife edge fixture, it did not work well and did not offer the tone that the Rezotube does!
quality did vary quite a bit on these 80s creations.