What Kind of Prototype is This?

[electrofaro]

Was browsing for a picture of a 360 FG and got this as one of the image results in Yahoo:

69proto.jpg

Does this have a name/number? Who designed it?
And... what kind of pick-ups? Are they white like the scratchplate? Or hidden?

[jingle_jangle]

It's a Porky Freeman prototype. Porky's the guy who was behind the Fender Marauder, as well. The Marauder predates this guitar by a few years; interesting is the four-side-switch plate for the four pickups under the pickguard, similar to the Marauder. You can see the silhouettes of the pickups under the guard.

There were 8 Marauders made in '65 and '66, and four of them had slanted frets. Did Freeman originate the slanted fret concept as well, and bring it from Fender to Rickenbacker?

[electrofaro]

Thanks, Paul - quite interesting, indeed. I actually thought of Jazzmaster/Jaguar when I saw that control plate!
But, asked if there might be a connection I would never have guessed there's one (or more)

This Ric proto has two soundholes I only now noticed!

You might be onto something with the slanted fret thing - one thing for sure: all the manufacturers are interconnected through all these people!

[jfine]

There seems to have been a lot of cross-pollenation going on in the Southern California guitar-building community in the '50's and '60's (and going back to the '40's). Paul Bigsby and Leo Fender knew each other (it's been pretty well established that Fender copied Bigsby's headstock design), and Les Paul would hang out with them sometimes. Semie Moseley (Mosrite) apprenticed with Bigsby, and he also worked at Rickenbacker in the '50's under Roger Rossmeisl, who designed Fender's acoustic and hollowbody electric line in the '60's. Porky Freeman was a Southern California-based guitar player, and it would make more sense for him to try to interest a locally-based company in his ideas, than for him to go to a Midwest or East Coast-based company like Gibson or Gretsch. Something similar happened here in the Bay Area in the early '70's--I know several Northern California-based guitar builders who all got their start with Alembic.

[jingle_jangle]

Jon, I'm not so sure that I'd put it so strongly that Leo Fender "copied" Paul Bigsby's headstock design. Leo was a bit defensive about this claim, and went on record as saying he originally got the straight-string-pull inspiration from some instruments that he saw a Croatian band playing, which had headstocks very similar to both Bigsby's and his own designs. He also mentions being in a museum while on holiday and seeing a display of the same instruments.

I think that Bigsby's headstock design made him more comfortable with the look. We should recall that Leo's Tele prototype (the pine-bodied one with the super-wide and flat fretboard) had a "snakehead" 3+3 headstock and that the 6-in-line headstock he finally designed had nothing in common with Bigsby's design but the tuner alignment. Intriguingly, though, the later headstock for the Stratocaster bears an even more striking resemblance to Bigsby's aesthetic design.

[electrofaro]

UK mag GuitarBuyer wrote that Bigsby was upset Fender used "his" idea - they leave it open if Bigsby was the first to use the lay-out.

[libratune]

Also discusssed here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=398103&p=656321

[paologregorio]

The original "small peghead" Stratocaster style headstock is a much more refined and aesthetically pleasing design, IMO. I've never thought the Tele headstock looked as nice, though it didn't stop me from buying a Telecaster.

[electrofaro]

Also discusssed here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=398103&p=656321

Many thanks, Ron - some good extra info on the prototype in the earlier thread.

Quite a recent thread at that - the topic title must've been too uninteresting sounding for me to check it out just over a 2 months ago!