"One of a kind" synth-guitar on eBay for $5K

With a starting bid of $5,000, this "one of a kind guitar" may not attract too many eBayers (at this writing, there are no bids), but that doesn't mean the builder (who isn't the seller) shouldn't get some props. According to the seller, the guitar has a synth in the base, and uses buttons instead of strings or frets. It was apparently custom-built in 1970 for a guitarist named Scott Cromwell, and has been moldering in an attic somewhere since Cromwell's death in 1975. No word in the seller's description about whether this still works or not (though the seller says he plans to keep the patent and "all rites"), other than a claim that it can "make you sound like Hendrix himself." Okay, we're sold — though we assume we can get our money back if that doesn't quite prove to be the case.

[Via Music Thing]

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Makes you sound like Jimi but makes you look like David Bowie...

His email should be "[e-mail]"

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Will someone please tell me how you comfortably fit your hand around the neck of the guitar?

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Bonus points for using the word "moldering."

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Wonder if it will sell for as much as the $65K banjo that sold a few days ago on ebay.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

It would help if the seller could type coherently and use something other than capital letters.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

I don't know how "one-of-a-kind" that is... a buddy of mine in college built something similar for his senior project. Only differences were that his guitar/mandolin (it also used buttons instead of frets) looked good and had midi out.

I don't know if he's making them commercially, but he does build electric violins viewable here: http://www.electricviolinlutherie.com/
Too bad he doesn't have pictures of the project up.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

That EVL place is pretty awesome, Dan! A 6-string electric violin... with sunburst paint?! Awesome! I'd love to see Vanessa-Mae with one of those. ;)

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

this thing is pretty sweet...good luck to the seller, hope they get something for it.

speaking of ebay, you guys see the '58 Les Paul going for $101,100?

http://cgi.ebay.com/1958-59-Gibson-Les-Paul-Standard-Sunburst_W0QQitemZ7375520323QQcategoryZ38086QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

uhhh, if this was sold in 1970, the latest he could have filed a patent for the technology in it was 1971. Unless he somehow submarined it, the patent would expire 17 years after grant meaning, if it took, say, 3 years to grant, that any patent on this would have expired in 1991.

-p-

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

You know, the knobs and sliders on that thing look awfully familiar:

http://www.cykong.com/Synths/Korg%20700S/Korg700S.htm

Methinks the person that built this put a Minikorg synthesizer in a different case, nothing more...