Teisco V-2

My love of Teisco is well known around these parts. I've written a lot about the guitars and the history of the brand itself so I won't bore you more with that. 

The V-2 was first made in '67 after the Kawai takeover of Teisco and was based on the then very popular Mosrite offset design. In fact the V-2 is traced directly off a Mosrite Combo which was a large hollow body with a solid carved top and back first introduced by Mosrite in 1965. 

The basic design and concept of the V-2 was available in several different versions including the lower end and slightly smaller R-2 and the bass versions in the BR-1 and BR-2. There was also an upmarket version with a hollow body in the Vamper and active electronics in the EV-52T Vamper

 

The bass version of the V-2 was the BL-2 which had a longer scale than the BR version and these slightly more upmarket versions were 18.500 JY for the guitar here and 20.000 JY for the bass as apposed to 9.000 JY for the simple little BR-1.

 

By the late 60's Teisco were making some really nice guitars in quality and playability and these were a good example of a simple yet stylish design on a thin solid body guitar with a thin yet very playable neck with good quality hardware for great prices. Teisco cashed in on the Mosrite influence along with many other vintage Japanese guitar brands but these, like so many others are influenced in aesthetics only. 

The body of these V-2s are thin but big giving them a substantial feel when playing them. Early versions had a simple German Carve around the entire edge of the front of the body while later versions, like this one, had an elbow contour added to the German carve. 

 

The bolt on neck is thin in depth and width and were really nicely made on this era Teisco having done away with the early 60's baseball bat necks. While these lack all the binding of the higher spec'd Vamper with simple rosewood fretboard and dot markers, they feel and sound like a well made vintage Japanese guitar. The swept 3 a side headstock is a great design almost rivalling the classic 4/2 headstock from previous models.

The pickups are blade type single coils and sound great. Medium output with plenty of clarity and punch. The hardware is all good quality with this one featuring the later period vibrato based on the Mosrite unit with it's original cover, which are getting harder to find now. The original bridge is missing off this one but it has a period correct Teisco replacement.

While it was the looks that got me into vintage Japanese guitars, after owning hundreds (possibly thousands) over the years you get to understand that brands like Teisco, like most Japanese manufacturers, made guitars and basses to cover all bases in all the price ranges and some people, quite unfairly, assume a "cheap Japanese guitar" is a "cheap Japanese guitar"  but as I've said many times over the course of my blog, they really made some great guitars and especially made some great guitars for the money. This is a very playable and great sounding guitar for the money. So much so that Josh Homme used one of these very guitars in QOTSA and on several other occasions, and some people say he knows a good guitar tone when he hears it. 

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