FUTURAMA 3 Guitar 1959/60 ?

[geoff1711]

I never had one although I did lust after the Strat style one, however, our bass guitarist at the time (Barry Lomax where are you now?) had the bass version, Strat style and it played and sounded very good, bearing in mind that I was playing a Hofner Galaxy and rhythm was a Hofner V3.

Geoff

[JimN]

Geoff,

I don't think the Swedish Hagstroms (which were definitely the best Futuramas - certainly better than the Czech-made ones) were in any way superior to Hofner solids like the V3. Hofner electric guitars always led the bottom half of the pack in terms of quality. But I agree that the Strat-shaped Swedish Futuramas looked the business!

JN

[geoff1711]

Actually Jim, at the time I had my Galaxy I had a play of a Strat, we came across a band practising in Shoreditch, one had a Strat the had a Rickenbacker, the Rick was great, but the Strat.... well I guess it was the 13's it was probably strung with, but my Galaxy felt great afterwards.

Geoff

[Graylion]

Now here's a thing! Both Mikey and Apache 1 are correct with their photos both being "Futurama 3". The "piano key" version is in my earliest Selmer catalogue dated October 1961 and the other one is in August 1963's catalogue. Prices are 45gns and 39gns respectively. In today's money that's about £943 and £760 respectively
The clue is in the old group photo with the Futurama 2 - the numbers aren't "Mark" numbers - it's the number of pickups! All the 3-pickup versions were Futurama 3's and all the 2-pickups were Futurama 2's . Not so easy for dating them. The later model was a "De Luxe" - as opposed to nothing else it seems! Cases weren't included and the 1961 one was £7. 7s - that's a whopping £147 !
If anyone thinks these prices are "cheap", or even "budget" then you're on a different planet from me!
If anyone wants me to scan in any catalogue photos, I will.
Cheers, Lionel

[JimN]

Now here's a thing! Both Mikey and Apache 1 are correct with their photos both being "Futurama 3". The "piano key" version is in my earliest Selmer catalogue dated October 1961 and the other one is in August 1963's catalogue. Prices are 45gns and 39gns respectively. In today's money that's about £943 and £760 respectively

That is, of course, true. But guitars, of all musical instruments, were simply more expensive (in real terms) then than they are today.

[color=#0000BF]The clue is in the old group photo with the Futurama 2 - the numbers aren't "Mark" numbers - it's the number of pickups! All the 3-pickup versions were Futurama 3's and all the 2-pickups were Futurama 2's . Not so easy for dating them. The later model was a "De Luxe" - as opposed to nothing else it seems! Cases weren't included and the 1961 one was £7. 7s - that's a whopping £147 !
If anyone thinks these prices are "cheap", or even "budget" then you're on a different planet from me!

Well... actually... they were budget prices (and were seen as such at the time). That's because, as you know, a fully professional model guitar would typically cost somewhere between c. £120 (eg, Fender Telecaster, Gibson SG Special) and £200 (Fender Jaguar, Gibson ES345 Stereo).

What has happened since then is that guitars (and amplifiers) have become much cheaper in real terms. A Strat in 1963 required about eleven or twelve weeks' worth of UK male average industrial (net) earnings). Today, even the special "Vintage Reissue" range of USA Strats only cost four or five times the modern equivalent pay.

If anyone wants me to scan in any catalogue photos, I will.
Cheers, Lionel

Ooh! Yes please!

I keep meaning to get up into the loft to look for my big box of 1960s (and 70s, and 80s) catalogues as well.

JN

[alanbakewell]

"Back in 1966 I had a Futurama III identical to the one in this pic. For some insane reason I swapped it for a tankful of tropical fish"!

Sounds like a line from a Monty Python script.

[Graylion]

Hi Jim - I think you're actually agreeing with me as you are also stating the obvious re: the prices today and then. They were much more expensive in any terms you want to relate to, whether it's inflation or wages. They might have been amongst the cheapest of guitars of the day, but they definitely could not be regarded as "budget" prices by any stretch of the imagination! Not when they cost several times a weekly or monthly wage.

I suppose the prices were justified by the "Popeye" method of manufacture. If anyone remembers a Popeye cartoon in which he whittles down a whole tree to make one match, you might see what I mean! Guitar makers then were obviously using a whole tree to make one body and handcarving everything over a period of many weeks = high labour costs! Yes - I AM joking as there wasn't really any justification!

As far as catalogue scanning goes - where do I start? I have quite a few from 1961 to 1964 and odd ones for later dates. I have posted a few pages in the past, such as Vox and Burns. I might try to "catalogue" my catalogues and leaflets and perhaps put them on a "sticky" note somewhere suitable? Then people could request scans of items of interest from that list - within reason!
Cheers, Lionel

[Graylion]

Another thing to remember is that equipment made in the USA was much more expensive here because of import costs and greedy importers! A friend of mine, whose Dad was working In the USA in 1961/62, once told me you could buy a Strat ther for about £20 - £25 trade price - but not bring it over here of course! Here it cost £168! The myth was (and perhaps still is to a certain extent) that if it's expensive and made in the USA, it must be of much higher quality Hopefully, most people with an objective view would realise that it simply wasn't, and still isn't, true!

[cockroach]

Very true Lionel!

An old retired friend of mine used to have a guitar retail/repair shop in the city.

Whilst in the shop one day, I happened to see a wholesaler's invoice for some new guitars which had the wholesale and recommended retail prices listed for a range of guitars supplied with that invoice.- the markup was nearly 100%...

The other thing is that at that time, many of us were either at secondary school or employed as apprentices or junior workers , meaning that we had very little money and it was mum and dad who had to find the scarce cash to buy us a guitar, or we had to laboriously save up from our low wages, at least until HP was possible..and even then , poor old dad had to sign the HP agreement! It was a laugh on Saturday mornings where I lived, to see the queue of lads and/or their dads at the finance company cashier's counter , all making their weekly instalment payments on their gear!

[geoff1711]

I have always worked in door hardware, known as architectural ironmongery, 100% mark up was always the norm, in fact for retail it was 110% and trade got a 10% discount, which probably works out to a 99% mark up.

But don't think it's ancient history, the mark up on most goods at a well known DIY chain, no names but think of orange buckets and a 10% discount to old gits (I'm one of those) on Wednesday, as I say the mark up on many goods would make your eyes water.

But it's not only guitars which have devalued, in 1964 a set of brass Georgian style lever handles would have cost you £20 a set, even contract range levers would only have been around a pound, but these days you can pick up brass Georgian levers for well under £20 and contract levers now £2 or £3 a set, not at the orange bucket company of course.

In the 90's I worked for probably the premier ironmonger, you'll see our levers all over most UK airports, a certain address in Vauxhall, nice building with green windows, the old intenational terminal at Waterloo, and at that time a set of stainless steel levers would have cost around £50.00 a set, but now, thanks to all those high quality Chinese imports (yeah right) you're lucky to get a 1/5 of that.

And in fact the BRITISH manufacturer I work for sell our basic door closer to the trade for around the same price as a similar but well known brand had at it's full list price when launched around 1964, but our sales are slaughtered by Chinese imports, which we know, do not have full CE certification, or tell porkies about it, but under cut us by 50%

The point of this, we should consider ourselves very lucky that the quality of our entry and mid range instruments have improved so much, and the price dropped so far because it certainly bucks the trend.

The losers? the local music shops who, I would think, struggle to make a reasonable living, with slow moving products like an electric guitar or amplifier, I would think, you need a 100% mark up to cover those which don't sell, those which get damaged or stolen, and even the length of time even the fast movers hang on the wall.

But then like everybody I always look for the bargain.

In fact given that so many things are much cheaper, wages and even the state pension higher in real terms than back in the 60's, why are we so much poorer??? perhaps we all just want much more, 1 guitar used to be enough, I bet there's not many of our number with only 1 guitar these days.

Geoff