by dusty fretz » Sat Nov 15, 2014 4:08 pm
Thanks Brian for unearthing these 'before' shots of that old Thinline Mk.2 prototype, and I'd forgotten what deal we did to enable me to add it to my collection all those years ago. As you say, it's pictured in the book, with the photo modified as best as possible at the time to show what the guitar originally looked like - publishing life is certainly a lot easier these days! The even poorer pic alongside it on the same page was indeed taken from the illustration employed on Monopole and Picato string packets back in the '60s, this being a green finished version (shown in glorious monochrome in the book of course), complete with the missing segments crudely filled in, as again I had to work with what I could find.
I subsequently restored your blond example, including installing the correct, suitably modified vibrato unit (pretty much as I visually estimated in fact), and the end result made a pretty impressive instrument. It was an obvious precursor to the TR2 and I now have details of three other similarly styled, but previously unknown semis that Jim & Co came up with before settling on their active-ingredient equivalent. In typical Burns manner, each of these exploratory models displayed distinct differences, with one adopting a Bison outline, complete with long and curvy horns, while another featured controls located on BOTH sides of the bridge - a far from practical arrangement! Such finds still fascinate me, ensuring that my research is an on-going process, but I fear diminishing market interest (and money) means there's now little chance that all this additional information will ever be put to practical use.