I'm grateful to David Martin and his posting about the Vibra Artist from last year.
http://www.shadowmusic.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=732&hilit=vibra+artist&sid=0759c02d3c7558372270a6fe6cda6ef0
This enabled me to finally identify my old,and first electric,guitar after some years of trying to tie it down.
I've realised that this is the wrong bridge in this pic
This pic shows the various colours that this guitar has worn,one of them being bright green Hammerite.The red is original I think,then it was gold,then it was Haemmerite.That's the colour it was when I bought in about 1972,3,4.It was in a barn.
Which is probably why the neck has looked like this for some years.That and the truss rod snapping a few years ago during attempts to straighten the bendy thing out.
And you may have noticed one or three things missing there,like some Tri-Sonics and a birdsnest of multicore.Well,they're definitely missing.Having just turned the whole house upside down for a year with building work the scratchplate is not to be found easily.There are places I have still to look and where it can be hiding but a lot of stuff got jettisoned in a cavalier fashion and there is the possibility of me crying sometime soon.My poor old first proper guitar with the magical sounds .Obviously a lot of that was fret buzz but it was my prefered weapon on stage before it became unplayable.
And just when I felt like a bit of guitar mangling after a fifteen year break.I've got a Pignose waiting and ready.If I can find the scratchplate and pick ups then I think I might go for a restoration job 'cos before I lost it it was all there.
Right,interesting stuff or old guff? You tell me.
The "Burns of London" plate and the tremolo arm were given to me back in the eighties by a chap called Len Styles who had a large music shop in Lewisham.He was amazed when he saw the guitar and told me that he'd worked for Burns in 59/60 and he identified this guitar as having been built in 59 for the 60 season.So an early one then.He said that this was built in a basement flat in,I think,Penge or Peckham when they were operating on a shoestring.He pointed at the multicore tangle as an example of using what was to hand at the time (ie cheap or free).I had no reason to doubt his tales and he did have a big box of Burns bits and bobs which the plate and arm came from.He told me not to bother getting the neck straightened as "they all did that".He was amazed to see one still in one piece.Especially one he almost definitely had a hand in making.
The search goes on........