Everyone knows how much I love Greco. They have made some of my favourite guitars over the years. When I say "made" I mean several factories in Japan have made some of my favourites, Greco has branded them.
I've owned a bunch of vintage ES and SA Grecos from several factories but my favourites are always Fujigen, Matsumoku and Teisco Gen Gakki factories, although other factories have made some great Grecos. These are just the most common factories to manufacture guitars with this name on the headstock, which in this case, is one the giveaways as to which factory made this actual guitar.
The Fujigen factory was used to manufacture a lot of great Grecos (and many other brands) including this one, and I personally LOVE this headstock shape.
This is a laminated body hollow body loosely based on a Gibson 335 style double cutaway hollowbody which was a commonly copied guitar in Japan in the sixties. Like the Hofner violin bass, the Gretsch Country Gent, the Rickenbackers etc, they were sued by the Beatles which means everyone wanted one and all of these guitars were commonly copied from entry to professional level by many different factories and brands.
While the shape is familiar it's actually quite radically different with those huge, round "Mickey Mouse ears" cutaways, which is one the things I love about these models. The body is a thinline archtop and back with binding everywhere. Top and back three ply binding with F hole binding. The body is extremely well made and feels solid.
The neck is a bolt on maple neck with bound and block inlaid rosewood fretboard with a zero fret. The GREAT headstock is also bound with a pearl inlaid GRECO logo. The neck is thin and very comfortable as the Fujigen factory was famous for. This was a high quality factory using great timber and quality control and this was the factory Fender chose to make the Fender Japan guitars after seeing their quality.
This one has pretty typical hardware for the time and the Hofner "Staple humbucker" style pickups that were also used on the bolt on neck Ric copies at the time. They're a great medium output pickup that can be a little microphonic but have areal chime to them that I love.
The vibrato is reminiscent of the type used on Aria solid bodies and gives the guitar a completely different look to a Bigsby style as used on many copies. It's a smooth and great vibrato that functions much like an offset unit.
The bridge is a floating archtop style unit on a timber base with adjustment for height and intonation. Electrics are standard Gibson style three way switch with volume and tone for each pickup.
These were available in bass versions as well and were available, as Grecos (and other brands) from other factories like Matsumoku with different hardware and a different headstock.
This one is in great condition and is 100% original except the vibrato arm and the three way switch that I replaced as the original was a little sporadic. It plays really well and everything functions as it should. This one also has an original (probably aftermarket but available at the time) yellow lining hardcase in great condition.