3-Neck Magnatone on eBay: Is it real?

Al Gershen · From: Grants Pass, OR, USA * R.I.P.

Hi Group:

There's an old 3-neck Magnatone steel guitar being re-auctioned on eBay at the URL:

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=301111685

I drove up to Eugene, Oregon to look at it and I thought that it was home made. The guitar has dual pickups and a Magnatone name on the front. There's also a serial number plate on the bottom of the instrument.

I asked Doug Jones to look at the instrument in person in Eugene, Oregon and because he didn't notice the Magnatone name on the front, he couldn't vouch that the instrument was in fact a Magnatone. He did say that the guitar appears to be professionally built.

Please take a look at the pictures and express your opinions about the authenticity of this instrument.

I don't recall ever seeing a Magnatone steel guitar with dual pickups but stranger things are possible.

I look forward to reading your comments about this interesting steel guitar.

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Regards,
Al Gershen
Grants Pass, Oregon. USA
Fender 1000 and Fender PS 210

[This message was edited by Brad Bechtel on 11 April 2000 at 08:36 AM.]

Pete Grant · From: Auburn, CA, USA

The *parts* (fingerboards, pickups) are Magnatone. Dunno if the actual axe is. I think when the guy wrote out the price, he put the decimal point in the wrong place. I'd give him $42.50 for it.

Chris DeBarge · From: Boston, Mass

Pretty sure it's real, a friend of mine has one just like it. Sounds great too! It has sort of a modular construction, they seemed to have built the bottom depending on how many necks you wanted, then just added the necks.

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I used to own a Magnatone D-8, and all of the parts look very familiar. I'd say it is a Magnatone.

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Sierra Session S-12 (E9), Speedy West D-10 (E9, D6),
Sierra S-8 Laptop (D13), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (D13, A6)

Bob Tuttle · From: Republic, MO 65738

Al Perkins played one of those back in the early 50's when he and I were taking lessons together out in Odessa, Texas. As well as I can remember it looked just like the one in the pictures.
Bob

Adam · From: Seattle,WA

Now that the steel has sold,I think it's appropriate to raise a coupla issues on my mind.Paul Bigsby at some point designed a steel for Magnatone.This steel on Ebay has fingerboards which closely resemble Bigsby's design.The steel pictured also has pickups similar to those on the Bigsby designed Magnatone Mark IV six-string guitar.Can anybody shed any light on this?

Jerry Gleason · From: Eugene, Oregon, USA

I saw this instrument on ebay. I've never seen it around here, don't know the owner.
This guitar looks like other Magnatone guitars I've seen. I saw a double eight here a few months ago that had the same pickups, similar
to a stringmaster.

I doubt if Magnatone forgeries are a big problem.... Who would want to pass something off as a "genuine Magnatone"?

George Keoki Lake · From: Edmonton, AB., Canada

On the topic of Magnatones, back in (circa) 1955 I bought a humungus 4 neck Magnatone which had individual tone and volume controls for each neck. They were placed in back of each bridge. For all appearances, this monster, which seemed like it weighed a ton, looked like 4 individual guitars all joined together as one...can you imagine ? In my youthful folly, I was inspired to buy this Magnatone from hearing Webley Edwards on the weekly Hawaii Calls radio shows announcing "the Magnatone steel guitars of Jules Ah See and Alvin Kalanikau". Alvin is perhaps more familiar to you as "Barney" Isaacs. Barney played his double neck Magnatone up to about 5 years prior to his passing. After Jules died, his Magnatone double neck was acquired by Alan Akaka as a keepsake. Alan did play it some 20 years ago, but I have never seen him playing it in recent years. Most will agree, those guitars left much to be desired for tonal quality. I suspect Magnatone gave those guitars to Jules and Barney for the publicity Magnatone received each week on Hawaii Calls. I sold my monster within a year and acquired a triple neck Fender which I still have.

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

My Magnatone D-8 was fun to play, but it had a lousy tone. I sold it rather than deface it by putting good pickups in it. The pickups reminded me of those cheap Teisco guitars we used to have in the 60's.

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