Tiesco Top 20 - vintage guitar review by Gavin Lazarus

[@jonahluster9897]

Robert Smith’s first guitar if I’m not mistaken. He stole the neck pickup and put it in the middle of his Jazzmaster.

[@stephenrutherford8489]

There's a pic of him playing this guitar minus the neck pickup as late as 1984.

[@deadlegs187]

Is that what that pickup is? I always wondered

[@Bobbewhart]

Legend!!!

[@darcyphillips842]

My grandpa just give me this guitar his father had bought it from a band for when he turned sixteen, now I’m just restoring it :)

[@stephenrobinson2401]

I have the canadian market version they sold under the name Silvertone at Sears. 20 years ago when I was given it, I couldn’t find info on it. It’s so cool learning more about these weird vintage guitars.

[@cmdrerniepaul]

Cool! My first guitar! I still own it. Having torn mine apart a few times, I can confirm that the body is a mahogany ply. I've upgraded the tuners and bridge, and replaced those sliders switches with a three way. Probably spent more money on upgrades than it was originally worth. Love the way it sounds though. Nice to finally see another in action!

[@fuchsia5899]

How does it play?

[@paulhancock7670]

My first guitar, branded ‘Zenta’ was a Woolworths special. So many memories … thanks :)

[@markhammer643]

I have one that is quite similar, with a few cosmetic differences in the body shape, pickup covers, angle of the slide switches, etc. The pickups aren't bad, but I had to add a few hundred extra turns on to the bridge pickup to get a suitable bridge/neck balance. The bridges on many such instruments were terrible, and ate sustain for breakfast. I can't see whether this one fits that picture, but on mine, and many others, the bridges were simply sheet aluminum, bent over to form an upside down V. I machined a replacement for mine out of a solid piece of half-round aluminum bar, greatly improving tone, sustain, and vibrato performance (gentler break angle). I also enlarged one of the switch slots and installed a 3-position slide switch for putting the neck pickup in or out of phase with the bridge. I have bought/acquired a number of bodies of guitars like this over the years. I would have turned them into playable instruments, but they require some fairly specific kinds of necks; shorter scale of 24.5" or even a little shorter. They also tend not to have 22 frets. I think the one you're holding has but 21 frets. That makes finding a neck that will simply attached to the body, without modification, and be properly intonated, unlikely. Those bodies are all quite thin, as was often the case for that era.

[@jaynbob42]

Picked one up off Facebook last year for pennies. Fun guitar and although the pickups are very mircophonic, they do go well for a Kinks kinda sound.

[@Lazurini1]

That’s bang on! It does give very much that sound.

[@jaynbob42]

Gavin Lazarus When I first got it I thought I’d be changing out the pickups but I’ve come to love the sound of those cheap old ones. I do need to replace some of the wiring and re-do some of the solder joints. The main problem I’m having is finding some new selector switches though. They need to be changed out but getting hold of new ones is hard work round here. They’ll turn up though :)

[@stuartchapman5171]

Folk has mentioned Rob Smith. Cosy Fanni Tutti from TG had one, they cut the body down to make it lighter. I bought one for £35, Love it, replaced the pots a few strings and I'm using a 20mm spanner for the whammy bar. I copied the wiring but suspect it's wrong. You can only turn the neck pick up on when the bridge pick up is on. I'll change it one day. Oh and it doesn't go out of tune. Maybe the manufacturing tolerances were shoddy. Some were better than others. It's great for the 60"s garage sound as well as proto and post punk. I get a great vintage Americana sound through a crappy tube amp and a spring reverb pedal.

[@neilburton6121]

Stood staring at them in woolworths in leeds,my mother had to drag me away,I was about 7 or 8.....got one when I was 12 from a 2nd hand shop,I worshipped it,even though looking back it was crap,learnt my first chord at least, a C chord owt else was unreachable....the action was terrible....got to 16 and first couple of weeks wages baught me a 2nd hand sumbro strat,thaught I'd hit the big time....lol.

[@pgroove163]

they had these in a Woolworth a few blocks from where I lived in queens,NYC...👍

[@NJPurling]

The machine-heads may be modern replacements. They are producing the six in a strip type again because of the interest in the sixties & 70's Japanese guitars.

[@hifijohn]

I have that exact guitar, paid a whole $10 at my local goodwill store.

[@Lazurini1]

Nice going!

[@Cayres9]

Saw one of these for £90 quid at a charity store today , tried it and the neck is the smoothest ive played in a long time , apparently they were sold in Woolworths back in the old days , also they were not just made in Japan as the one i tried model 70002 it has the 2 single coils and a bigsby style trem and was made in Korea as it had the sticker on the back still but still very good for a cheap instrument , I will have to buy it before someone else realises what it is.

[@philpants44]

If you don't I will

[@Cayres9]

@@philpants44 LOL someone bought it sadly by time i went back a few days later it was gone they knew a good deal when they saw one.

[@unknownpresences5627]

My dad's first electric was that and I have restored it with only needing the nut needing a replacement so I just use a capo to make a quick cheat code solution to play for now haha 😄 The tuners had the knobs literally molded straight off and missing gears so i replaced it with the standard cheapest Squier tuners style ones that work great and only had to use wd40 on the both vol/tone(×2) knobs to clean up the static/hissy sound from crap over the years and have been wondering why this one has the headstock without the trussrod adjustment like yours but is the vintag fender heel location where it sticks out of the neck slightly from only the older 60s-70s guitars I've seen before and I am curious if it might be from an older model or if it might be cause it was purchased location wise in Canada at the time so if anyone knows something please let me know, I'd love to hear any feedback and also suggestions on the best recommendation for the whammy system setup with the 2 adjustment screws if anyone cares to share their wisdom/knowledge on the subject Coming from someone who is the generation called the millennial who would love to be able to figure out how the hell to get it to stop going quarter of a pitch higher than it was after use!!! Argg lol.. I figure it is sorta like a jaguar/jazzmaster setup almost tho, I have it pretty damn close and assume going up isn't going to work too well so maybe I am just being too big of a perfectionist?? Anyways, nice demo! Thanks for this as it has been able to help me confirm the information on this guitar and with more geek necessities now fed properly to sleep better at night now with this upload lmao! (I also left you a like btw)

[@Lazurini1]

Hey there, thanks for your excellent comment and the like! Sounds like you’re doing a great job on your dad’s guitar. Teisco made guitars for the North American market which differed from the standard ones that reached the UK, there were more models including some that were a lot more sophisticated and better looking. I don’t know if yours is one of those. Many of the ‘American’ ones were branded Teisco Del Rey. The whammy is normally a very basic design with a spring and I find works ok with a downward push but now great if you crank it up… Best of luck! Gavin

[@gordonwebster3809]

ive got one exactly the same nobadges on it still love it

[@tyorbs3680]

I want one

[@Cayres9]

Seen one today at my local charity store for £90 UK money , seems very cheap for soemthing made like 30 years before i was born lol

[@P_Ezi]

My first was a Teisco in a pseudo jaguar style. All the same hardware. I blocked the trem with a short piece of PVC pipe. It's a terrible.guitar but I can never part with it. I pick it up occasionally to make sure it still works.

[@BlackRose369.]

Hi there, How would the output of the teisco pickup be described against the more known humbuckers, stratocaster single coils etc ? Disregarding the effect of the pickup position and width ofcourse.

[@Lazurini1]

Hello, great question. Obviously there are so many different types of pickups used on Strats, and the world of humbuckers is very broad as well, but to speak very generally, the pickups on this are very microphonic compared to your average Fender single coil. They are bright, with a metallic quality, so I’d say that it’s hard to get dark, woody tones with them, even in the neck position. They do have a decent kick and output though. I would say that they are nothing like humbuckers, they don’t have the ‘throat’ or the darkness of any humbuckers that I’ve used. On some of the other Teisco guitars I’ve played they have the gold foil toaster pickups which are a step up from these ones and are really not bad at all with a character not unlike decent Harmony guitars.

[@BlackRose369.]

@@Lazurini1 Maybe a P90 with the same pickup width and same position ? Maybe some eq and more sound of the string acoustically and noise details ?

[@danneyboy1000]

We used to use these as buster upers when I was playing in a Who cover band called the Who La Guns. We raffled the broken peaces and was able to buy 2 or 3 of these after the last song baba O'Riley.

[@SharpMoto]

Got one myself

[@jerbear57]

I had this exact guitar when I was 12.. $29.00 New at JC Penney. It was an absolute out of tune pile of Junk... But it's cool to see it!! that was 51 years ago!!!

[@43audio89]

You and Warren Haurt from produce like a pro are mos def related in some way lol

[@gp85hkg]

Just saw one on FB marketplace for $50... that's why I'm here (".)

[@Lazurini1]

That’s a good price. Recently they have been going for ridiculously inflated prices on eBay.

[@elninjadelaguitarra4794]

Alnic o ceramic..?

[@The.Last.Guitar.Hero.]

Bought one in a junk shop, hated it doubled my money on ebay

[@mikec6733]

Isn't there another company named Telsco ?

[@raymondvaughan6262]

Sorry to say some early 60.s and 70.s cheap guitars are not like the cheap guitars of today this is why a lot of kids stopped learning to play trem system used to go out of tune in no time pickups used to feed back at high volume some with no names on head stock god nows where they where made stings to choke when bending some people trying to sell them on eBay saying vintage for 200 plus these days for 200 you can get a decent guitar hard wear was bad sorry for the comments that's my opinion if you like them great 👍

[@frank1672]

Either it's out off tune or and the intonations out!

[@Lazurini1]

I would say you’re right on both counts.

[@Tcoldsteel]

I had one of these and hated the baseball bat neck

[@tombaker9218]

tie skow

[@DanielWalker-l8q]

Garcia Joseph Taylor Karen Lee Jessica

[@christoguichard4311]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🙄🙄🙄🤔🎸

[@josedealva4205]

sounds like crap hard to believe the prices ppl pay for this.they must be bored or depressed.

[@mikethebloodthirsty]

This top twenty sounds pretty good to me, here's some other players who also get a great sound out of this thing. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qorUgJKLitarhdk kzbin.info/www/bejne/sKacoph4e5x-o80

[@gwendolynpoole2801]

Well the Pickup in this guitar is the same one, Robert Smith from "The Cure" uses for his Jazzmaster... So I don't think it's just because of "boredom" or "depression".

[@philpants44]

I just bought one of these. Believe me, it sounds great.