A Lefty Guitar From the Electric Guitar Company

[OldStrummer]

Regulars here know my predilection for unusual guitars (see my thread about Hot Or Not here). We have a fair number of lefty players here, so when I saw this I immediately thought of them. And, in full confession mode, I admit to having never heard of the Electric Guitar Company.

This is a lefty model EGC1000A (which does not appear on their web site). What makes this guitar interesting? EGC makes aluminum guitars. Even the neck is aluminum, in a "neck through neck" design.

Speaking as one who has an aluminum-bodied Stratocaster (but with a maple wood neck), I can tell you that the sound produced is every bit the equal of a wood-bodied guitar.

[DanTheBluesMan]

Weren't the Messenger guitars Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad aluminun necked and maybe bodied?

[ch willie]

The ones I saw online are going for a bit shy of $2500. I wouldn't pay over $700 for one.

Aluminum guitars don't sound metallic, cold, and tinny. Not at all. My best friend in Germany bought an aluminum AmStd Strat. That guitar sounded to me no different from any other great sounding AmStd. His belt buckle had worn through the paint. Odd to see aluminum, but there it was.

In the 70s and beyond, oodles of stars played Travis Bean guitars and basses with aluminum necks--Keef, Ron Wood, and Bill Wyman played them at one points, as did Jerry Garcia and so John Meyer on his Dead tours. I read an interview with some player who complained that the necks were heavy and had lots of dive. Could that be true with an aluminum neck?

[DanTheBluesMan]

Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad played Messenger guitars, which were the first to have an aluminum/magnesium alloy neck. Before Travis Bean and Veleno.