Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

A few years ago I bought a (circa) '53 Bacon Belmont from and individual . These were made by Gretsch at the old Williamsburg factory (60 Broadway) and was the same model as Gretsch's Electromatic. In fact, the only difference in the two models was the logo on the headstock. This particular guitar had been modified a little, with a couple of extra holes drilled in the top to accomodate extra pots. It was missing the pickguard and had a replacement non-Gretsch/Bacon tailpiece. After gluing some loose bracing under the top, I replaced the crazy (non-original) old rotary switch with a 3-position toggle switch on the upper bout. I also added a Bigsby B-3 vibrato and bridge and a tortiseshell nitrocellulose pickguard. This was a really cool player with a big but fast non-trussrod Gretsch "Miracle Neck". Acoustically it was not bad, but electrically those two DeArmond Dynasonic heads really sang! Unfortunately, this was another axe that I sold in my surplus guitar reduction program. You can't keep 'em all...

Forest: Any interesting bit of history here. When did the Electromatic instruments first appear?

I believe it was 1940 or so that they came out with their Electromatic Spanish. They had a model 6185 Electric Spanish that was almost identical to the Bacon, introduced in 1949. The '51 catalog pictured this guitar, but the headstock came to a point rather than the more familiar rounded Gretsch shape the deluxe Gretsches had. The headstock overlay is black over white plastic, rotograved (like an Army nametag) With the Gretsch "T-Roof" logo, and "Electromatic" and a zigzag vertically under the T-Roof. The Belmont has the later Gretsch rounded headstock, same plastic overlay, but with Bacon Belmont. Really, these were basically the same guitar.

Forest: Thanks for this information and these nice photos. You have to love the history!