Antoria Les Paul???

[raymie]

I have just picked up an unloved, apart from the resident spider that crawled out of the cavity and up my arm! Antoria Les Paul, circa 1975? No serial number, and bolt on neck with made in Japan plate. The guitar has some well spread out fret wear, so it was loved at one time. It came minus the bridge and tailpiece, so I fitted a cheap set to it, and a set of control knobs. Just waiting on some cavity covers, and a scratch plate in black to go with the pick up rings, Al for the grand sum of £15. The wiring is decent braided stuff, and the guitar was fitted with Dimarzio super distortion humbuckers, I think, as one pickup had only two wires, and the other was set up with a coil tap. Not sure if the dimarzios were original, but they were needed elsewhere. Plays well and has a very slender neck with good playability. Any ideas on model, year, and where this would have been built?

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Well, it's quite an exception but the Wikipedia article says all there is to know I guess. At the least superficially identical with pre-1975 (?) Ibby 2350s, Greco EG-360s and a million other lookalikes.

 

[raymie]

Well, it's quite an exception but the Wikipedia article says all there is to know I guess. At the least superficially identical with pre-1975 (?) Ibby 2350s, Greco EG-360s and a million other lookalikes.

When we were young budding rock stars (1980s) only the posh kids had an Antoria, so it's nice to relive that era and finally have one, even if they are nothing special, been a fun little project to get it up and running again.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

LOL. The posh kid in my first band had a black "Sunrise" (Suzuki) CBS-Strat knockoff, and a pretty darn good one at that - for our first gig 1978? someone brought some amp and the original, same black, maple neck 70s Fender Stratocaster and we were all trying both and fell into some strange kind of disbelief that we were not able to hear or feel that much of a difference between the two.

Must've been one of the better Fenders that it could keep up with the Suzuki!

 

[raymie]

LOL. The posh kid in my first band had a black "Sunrise" (Suzuki) CBS-Strat knockoff, and a pretty darn good one at that - for our first gig 1978? someone brought some amp and the original, same black, maple neck 70s Fender Stratocaster and we were all trying both and fell into some strange kind of disbelief that we were not able to hear or feel that much of a difference between the two.

Must've been one of the better Fenders that it could keep up with the Suzuki!

The funny thing is, we didn't realise that some of these LP copies had really good pickups in them at the time, masked by the fact that the amps were utter crap back in the dark days, well the amps we could afford were.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Actually that looks more like an early (bolt-on neck) EG500, minus the embossed pickup covers of course, nickel hardware and possibly lower grade tuners. An EG360 spec'd EG500 if you will.