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This unusual Baldwin Marvin with oversize legend, no top horn plate and the rest a one piece plate. Used at the Palladium and Australian Tour

Bill- I have seen these guitars before, and have wondered if this model has the Bison type circuit and wiring (4 knobs, no usual pickup switch)?

Judging from the photo, it looks as if it has a thinner and neater tremolo arm.
Personally I never liked the standard Marvin trem arm bulkiness and feel.
Reminds me of a column gear change- oh no not that again!!!

Mike

Dusty Fretz advises these are not the ones used at the Palladium. He also suggests that the bodies may be of a different design with larger body and hard edge - I find it difficult to see as the picture not very clear.

This has been discussed before.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6602&p=45811&hilit=baldwin+prototype&sid=943d6fc8628528331f58b0e9a446e24a#p45811

As far as I'm aware, the only pictures that exist of these guitars are from film of The Shadows Australian Bandstand appearance of '67. There's no mention of them, I don't think, in either Paul Day's Burns Book or Per's Crazy Diamonds book. There are several mentions and pictures of the Marvin 'S' guitar (which was built by Baldwin for The Shads to use on another Australian tour in 1966) - but conversely no photo (that I've ever seen) of The Shadows or Hank playing them, which leads me to wonder whether they ever did. One of the green Marvin 'S' guitars came into Wout Steenhuis's ownership and appeared on the cover of one of his LPs and later Barry Gibson acquired it (I remember seeing it at a Pipeline Convention in the mid 90s).

Rock on!

Is the pickup selection by rotary knob? I'm not sure that I would feel comfortable with that. I like the recent Burns Marvin system of control.

Yes pick up selection was via a 5 way rotary selector switch. Not sure of the actual selections.

Billyboygretsch wrote:Yes pick up selection was via a 5 way rotary selector switch. Not sure of the actual selections.

Thanks, Billy.