Rare Vibra Artiste Picture

[dusty fretz]

The Vibra Artist pictured was an example employing a sycamore fingerboard with black position dots, therefore when incorrectly used in negative format the image was duly reversed, resulting in an appropriately dark fingerboard and white dots, with the higher position indicators and frets being lost due to poor repro quality. The cropping job was equally inept and I recall just being thankful that the guitar was at least still the right way round!

[Billyboygretsch]

Maple neck with black inlays. That's why the bulbous switch looks white with a black tip unlike other pictures. Well that was exciting on a wet bank holiday Sunday

[Billyboygretsch]

Who ate the two guitarists on the front cover with Jim ?

[RayL]

As the years go by, and no other true 'reversed' Artist models turn up, it seems increasingly likely that the 1959 Artist that I bought in 1963 was unique.

To refresh memories, here's a pic taken in 1964 when it was still in original condition, with cream control plate and black scratchplate..

Burns Artist made 1959.bmp

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.
If not the earliest 'production' Artist (rather than a prototype), it was certainly one of the earliest to be made, with all the classic 'early Artist' features - offset contour neck, 1/8" jack socket, protruding-pole Trisonics, etc.

The item that makes is doubly interesting is the Bigsby, which must have been fitted from new as there are no screw holes in the body that would indicate that a standard tailpiece had been removed. The Bigsby was presumably a special order for a customer who was prepared to pay that bit extra. An original Bigsby (solid guitar version) would not have been cheap, or easy to come by. At that time, of course, Jim had not devised his own tremolo unit.

Perhaps the 'reversed' colour scheme was also to special order - it seems more and more likley that Jim Burns never made another.

By 1965 I had already begun to experiment with pickup phasing and had cut holes into the control plate for extra switches.

The guitar's current state is as shown on my avatar, but I have retained the original control plate and here it is, looking rather sad.

Burns Artist control plate.JPG

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Ray

[dusty fretz]

Hi Ray,
Your cream scratchplate Artist was certainly in very short supply back then, but I do have pics of at least a couple of others, plus the prototype advertised in the Dec 19th 1959 issue of Melody Maker (although of course that initial attempt displayed quite a few differences), while my photo archive also indicates that the addition of a Bigsby was a feature found on a few early Artists.

[JimN]

Who ate the two guitarists on the front cover with Jim ?

A 1979 front cover from "International Musician":

[burnsbonkers]

Hi, Dusty, would it be possible to show us the pics you have of the early white plated artistes?.
I also agree about the factory fitted Bigsby too, an early artiste sold on eBay a year or so ago with a factory fitted unit like Rays. It had no other sign of another type of tremolo fitted either.