Bartolini red glitter finish 1960's Italian-made "cheesy" guitar

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Guitars like this 1960s-era Italian-made Bartonlini may be perceived by many to be "cheesy", but I just love them. Maybe I'm easily impressed by the glitter and pearloid celluloid finishes, the rows of pushbutton switches, the perspex fingerboards, the unusual choice of FOUR pickups. Maybe I should be more concerned with what these guitars actually sound like. However, Hubert Sumlin, guitarist with Howlin' Wolf, was known to play a very similar Bartolini, and hey, if it was good enough for the likes of him...

Currently listed on eBay.de with a Buy It Now price of €1,499.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
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Believe it or not: 1980s Kramer Ripley stereo guitar

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At first glance you'd be forgiven for asking "Are there enough controls on that single pickup guitar?" However, of course, the Kramer Ripley is not a single pickup guitar as such, rather it is equipped with a Bartolini hex pickup which essentially consists of individual pickups for each of the six strings. The guitar features a stereo output and individual panning controls allowing each string to be assigned its own position within the stereo spectrum. This particular example is one of only three made that includes an on-board "Hex" distortion allowing levels to be individually set for each string, and it is also the same guitar that appeared on tracks on Mick Jagger's Primitive Cool album from 1987.

Eddie Van Halen is also known to have played a similar Kramer Ripley guitar, and its stereo effects can clearly be heard on the song "Top Jimmy" from Van Halen's 1984 album.

This particular guitar - which has been played by Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Jeff Beck and Mick Jagger - is currently being offered for sale on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £1,800.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!

Bartolini thinline

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I often flash on vintage guitars on sale on eBay but I'm rarely tempted to actually buy one - my main purpose with guitars is still to play them on stage, so they have to be in a good state, and of good quality to start with - and with these oldies you never know (I do play on a couple of old Musimas, but I consider myself lucky that they are playable)... But when I see this Bartolini thinline guitar, I really think that this baby should be playing some good music, and by me preferably (if it's possible...)

Very little is known about he Bartolini brand - they usually sport the BAR brand you can see here, that stands for Bartolini (or Bartoli, I found the two versions, but Bartolini is more likely) Alvaro (some say it's the first name of Bartolini, some that it's an associate) Recanati (being the Italian town where the company was created - same town that saw the birth of most famous Italian guitar brand Eko). But as often in the 1960s, you could find the Bartolini guitars under several brands, such as Baronet, Soprani, Dega or Diamond, depending on the country or even just the Italian city where they were distributed.

Though this thinline guitar's design isn't as inspired as Bartolini's solid bodies, it shares one of their specificity: the big pickguard that covers almost half the body and follows the outline of  the guitar - I love that on a hollow-body. I enjoy also a lot the armour-plated tremolo - almost German in its intensity - and though it lacks the big plastic switches adorning its solid body siblings, it has the typically Italian complex electronics.

Bertram D

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - 10 years and counting!

1960s Italian Dega Safari bass by Bartolini

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Following on from our previous post, here is another example of 1960s Italian luthiery.

From what I am able to work out, Bartolini produced guitars under the brandname Dega on behalf of Alberto Morbidoni, accordion-makers of Castelfidardo, for export into the USA.

This Dega Safari Bass appears to be a model that not even Fetish Guitars have pictured on their excellent website. In fact, stylistically it is more similar to the Eko Cobra than any of the other Bartolini guitars pictured.

This particular bass, still located into Italy, is currently listed on eBay with a starting price of €499.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Bartolini / Morbidoni / Diamond Ranger 3 - more glitter and pushbuttons from 1960s Italy

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This guitar serves as a convenient reminder that you can't believe what an eBay seller tells you, even if they are someone who supposedly knows a thing or two about guitars, a guitar dealer or a guitar shop for example.

This glittery orange beast festooned with pushbutton pickup selectors is currently listed on eBay with the title:

1960s EKO DIAMOND PANTHER Electric Guitar ORANGE Sparkl

(sic)

There seems to be a tendency to proclaim any vintage guitar coming out of Italy as being an "Eko", much as vintage Japanese guitars will get labelled "Teisco" or "Matsumoku" without any foundation whatsoever.

So, having said that it should come as no surprise that this guitar is NOT an Eko and neither is it a model named "Panther" despite the Panther picture on the nameplate on the headstock. The major giveaway as to its true name is the actual NAME on the nameplate. (D'Oh!)

It's a Diamond Ranger 3 (the number denoting number of pickups), and from what I can ascertain is actually a guitar Alberto Morbidoni Castelfidardo produced by Bartolini. The Diamond brandname was applied for export to the United States and in particular Washington. Other brandnames such as Dega and Samferri were used for guitars supplied to distributors in other states.

Follow that? It is all rather convoluted and I think I got it correct. Italian speakers can check for themselves here. Anyway, it's currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,195.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Vintage Bartolini

I really love switch buttons on vintage Italian guitars like this Bartolini - with its 4 pickups, there are quite some combinations to set... The scroll potentiometers are quite cool too, I sometimes wonder why knobs became standard on guitars in the last 40 years.

And look at that nice Jaguar-like vibrato, not to mention the shape that seems to be the morphing of 4 different guitars with some saw action on the top, all of this still simple and coherent... The curve in the back must be quite comfortable when you have a classical guitar background and want to play sitting with a high neck...

Bertram