I've written about these Teisco re-issues before and while I've owned, and sold all four in the series (see catalogue below), I do think they are awesome guitars and in some ways, better than the originals. The build quality of these re-issues is great, and they nailed the vintage vibe really well. I love the old ones too but they have their quirks, which I also love.
The Spectrum (in this shape) was introduced in '66 with a bunch of new great Teisco shapes including the K series, as re-issued in this series. These new shapes were a bold and inventive move on Teiscos part and showed real forward thinking in terms of aesthetics and innovation.
The original '66 catalogue said "The Spectum 5 electric guitar is one of the finest guitars ever produced. It has unique features that no other guitar in the world can match. Designing and making the Spectrum 5 was a labour of love.It required infinite patience and craftsmanship to sculpture solid mahogany wood into the graceful and intricate design"
The king of Teiscos was the Spectrum 5 (named for the 5 colour options in tone from the slider switches) which was also part of this re-issue series in the late 90's. It was the same body and neck, although with fancy inlays (on an ebony fretboard) but featured a three split pickup and stereo set up.
By late 1967 the Spectrum had been "dumbed down" somewhat with more standard pickups and electronics as it was a very dear guitar at the time, especially for a Teisco. The shape stayed the same for another year or so and was offered with square pole pickups in 2, 3 and 4 pickup versions for guitar and 2 pickup for bass. After the Kawai takeover the Spectrum name was used on more traditional shapes with later Spectrum pickups still in the 3/3 design but in one housing.
The Spectrum here is technically not a "re-issue" as this particular guitars wasn't offered in the sixties. The non 5 Spectrum at the time was the Spectrum 22 which had two more standard style Teisco pickups with a simple ON/OFF for each and master volume and tone.
The SP62 here has the "Spectrum" split pickups like the 5 but only two of them with an ON/OFF for each and tone switch so it should have been called a Spectrum 3. The 5 could be split between top three and bottom three of each pickup and could be run to two output jacks. These pickups are VERY impressive with heaps of output and sustain with lots of mids with sparkly tops.
These are really well made guitars and the German carve on these Spectrum models is AWESOME. I'm a big fan of the carve, having come from the Mosrite camp and these carves are spectacular.
The necks are comfortably thin but not too thin and have medium jumbo frets which some prefer to the original small frets. The re-issues all had zero frets also just like the originals. Tuners are good quality sealed gear type. These also have a nice copy of the original Teisco bridge from this period.
While the classic '66 Spectrum 5 is the "King of Teiscos" these SP-62s are a great re-issue and 5s are starting to get VERY expensive in both original and re-issues. I've never owned a 5 and 62 at the same time so I can't do a side by side comparison, but my memory of them is that apart from the stereo/tone switches, the playability and sound is exactly the same from both. These split pickups really are great.
