This weekend, I drove to the Spartanburg, SC Vintage Guitar show along with my friends Zac (pictured above with my Yamaha SA-17) and Dan. Overall, I was a little disappointed at the selection. There were plenty of $10,000 to $60,000 Strats, Les Pauls and the like, but very little of the guitar kitsch that I love. A few notable exceptions were Coleman Music and Johnny’s Guitars.

In addition to the two Aria hollowbody basses pictured below, Coleman’s also had a Univox Hi-Flyer bass and some other cool stuff.

Both of these basses were in pristine condition. The EB-2-style Aria still has the bridge cover and working string mute. I was very tempted to trade the SA-17 for these guys. If I wasn’t working on a Univox EB-2 copy, I probably would have.

I talked to Chip Coleman, the owner, for a while. We discussed the ever-shrinking pawn shop market and our love of kooky instruments like my SA-17 and the skinny viola bass above. Really nice guy. The basses above were priced at $300 and $350, both very reasonable prices.

If you are interested in either of these basses, click over to www.colemanmusic.com where you can get the phone number and address of the shop. Chip said that the webpage is never up to date, so don’t go looking for these basses there. Just give ‘em a call.

Next up was the Olivia’s Vintage booth. If you’re not familiar with Olivia’s Vintage, they’ve got the best gear pr0n on eBay. They had just bought this clean Fender Coronado I from a show attendee:

I can’t remember the price they quoted for it, but I don’t remember it being out of line. You can inquire about this bass at joseph@oliviasvintage.com.

The last dealer w/ anything funky was Johnny’s Guitars from Tennessee. At his booth were four hollowbodies (more than any other dealer): a recent Epiphone Jack Casady, a 90’s Epiphone Rivoli, a 60’s Guyatone and a 70’s Microfrets Signature Bass.

First up is the Micro-Frets Signature bass. This was a ‘Style 2‘ version and was in good shape. Marked $700.

Next is this funky Guyatone. I was pretty intrigued by this instrument. The body shape, control configuration, bridge and pickguard is the same as a Yamaha SA-70. But this bass had a bolt-on neck with a Gibson lawsuit headstock. The only brand name was ‘Guyatone’ on the trussrod cover. Pickups are typical Aria/Sekova/Etc black plastic covered single coils. Tuners are the typical cheapo rectangular-covered type. The tailpiece (seen below) is different than any I’ve seen before. Neckplate was marked “Tokyo, Japan.” This was by far the coolest instrument I saw at the show. To me, this was also the rarest guitar at the show. Never seen another one like it. I’d love to add it to my stable of funky hollowbodies. This one was marked at $495.

I talked to Johnny for a few minutes, and showed him my SA-17 because I knew he’d appreciate it. He doesn’t have a website, but if you’re interested in any of these instruments, give him a call at 615.574.0008.

Oh yeah - the Epiphone Rivoli he had was a natural-finished version w/ hardcase, in near mint condition, for a measly $550 (which is a pretty good deal).

And I’ll end my report with one of those “man, if I only had $850 to spare” guitars: the Gibson “Pin-Up” Melody Maker: