Bert Weedon Strings

[neil2726]

I see someone has a few "Bert Weedon" strings, both flat wound and tape wound, for sale on E Bay. A rather young Bert is pictured on the packets and from what I can make out they were disributed by Boosey and Hawkes. I dont seem to recall having seen these strings in the music shops in my younger days - I take it they come from the early sixties, although I did buy Bert's "Play in a Day" at that time. Most of the local music shops seemed to stock Rotosound, Catherdral and Gibson.

[dave robinson]

When I first started going into music shops in 1962, there were no Rotosound strings, the choices were Monopole (tape wound) , Gibson and Catherdral. Rotosound appeared a few years later in our shops, in fact Fender, Gretsch, Ike Isaacs and James How were all around before we saw Rotosound. I had a feeling later that Rotosound were same as James How - something to do with Burns?

[neil2726]

Your right Dave it was monopole and not rotosound that were available at that time.

[dave robinson]

I just did a quick Google. Burns strings were made by James How back then and James How strings became Rotosound in 1965.

[Paul Childs]

I can remember Bert Weedon plectrums back in the 60s but not strings.
Don't remember seeing Gibson strings back then only the usual barbed wire like Monopole, Cathedral, Red Dragon etc.

[ecca]

Red Dragon, with the free first string. String it up 1,1,2,3,4,5 so as to enable bending and finger vibrato.

[RUSSET]

I can remember Bert Weedon plectrums back in the 60s but not strings.
Don't remember seeing Gibson strings back then only the usual barbed wire like Monopole, Cathedral, Red Dragon etc.

I remember Gibson strings called 'Sonomatics'.

Tony.

[JimN]

I remember Gibson strings called 'Sonomatics'.

They were more or less the industry standard and were certainly used by Shadows members from the mid-sixties into the early 1970s. You were still able to get them until the 1980s, and Gibson also introduced a "Sonomatic Light" set in the late 1960s: 11/12/19w/32/42/52, IIRC.

The company has rebranded its former "L5" set as "Sonomatic", but the modern set under that name are not of the original gauges (13/17/26w/36/46/56) as real Sonomatics.

JN