# Late '60's Truetone Hollowbody - sold by Western Auto in their catalogs



## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

Hi all,

Just took delivery of a late '60s Truetone Two pickup hollow-body...a '335' style piece with a couple of nice old Teisco style single coils. I dropped it off at my local Luthier for a cleaning and set-up, as it didn't seem to be doing anything electrically for the previous owner. It came in its OHSC (cheap chipboard of course!).

Here's a photo:


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## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

Just got a call from my guy at the local guitar garage. He tested everything and found that the bridge pup is pretty much dead. Oh well...time to either find a replacement or get a re-wind on that original. Bummer!


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Nice guitar Alex. Too bad about the pick-up.....bummer. Guess you could always put the guitar in a box and send it here.


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## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

Electraglide said:


> Nice guitar Alex. Too bad about the pick-up.....bummer. Guess you could always put the guitar in a box and send it here.


Yeah...instead I'm sending it to a friend of mine as a late birthday gift. He'll like it I think. I played it today...it feels good, but I think it needs a bit of a neck re-set and maybe a bit of a shim to compensate for the many years of tension. I put some 11's on it and they feel OK. The one working (neck) pick-up sounds great!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

There's "dead" and there's "dead". If there is a slight tear on the very outside of the coil, it is a simple matter to find the loose end of the coil and resolder a wire to that loose end. If there is rust on the very inside of the coil, and you have to take most of the coil off to get to the break, that's a horse of a different colour.

I'm happy to talk you or your buddy through the steps of finding out what sort of "dead" it is, and how to rehabilitate if it's one of the not-quite-dead-yet deads.

FWIW, the pickups look exactly like what I have on my Goya lap steel, and those are decent pickups. Not Fenders, obviously, but with their own charm. I added another 500 turns of #43 wire on mine to heat it up a little, and I like it.


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## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

mhammer said:


> There's "dead" and there's "dead". If there is a slight tear on the very outside of the coil, it is a simple matter to find the loose end of the coil and resolder a wire to that loose end. If there is rust on the very inside of the coil, and you have to take most of the coil off to get to the break, that's a horse of a different colour.
> 
> I'm happy to talk you or your buddy through the steps of finding out what sort of "dead" it is, and how to rehabilitate if it's one of the not-quite-dead-yet deads.
> 
> FWIW, the pickups look exactly like what I have on my Goya lap steel, and those are decent pickups. Not Fenders, obviously, but with their own charm. I added another 500 turns of #43 wire on mine to heat it up a little, and I like it.


Thanks! I believe the pups are actually pretty common on many MIJ guitars from the same time period. They come up from time to time on E-Bay. I'll leave it up to my friend who lives in St. Louis to decide what he wants to do. There are a couple of really good luthiers there, so he will probably be able to get a quality repair job. But, I will let him know about your kind offer to help.


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## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

Well, I'm holed-up in a Motel 6, somewhere East of Nashville on I-40 on my way from Charlotte, NC to St. Louis, MO tonight. I'm headed there to get all our stuff packed for the final move from St. Louis to Charlotte. Once that's done, I'll pack a few of my belongings and get my carcass up to Montreal to look for a job in Canada. Anyhow, the Truetone is in the trunk of the car and will be delivered to its new owner sometime this week. I sure hope he likes it!


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## tonydawe (Feb 25, 2009)

if a friend gave this to me as a gift then i would feel lucky to have that friend. the dead pickup wouldnt bother me on the slightest as i prefer the warmth of a neck pickup anyway. if your friend is anything like me then it should go over just fine!


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## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

Thanks Tony! I'm now in St. Louis...and will probably locate my friend on Saturday to give him his gift...and an old Alfa Romeo and a bunch of car parts.


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## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

I gave the guitar to its new owner and he was thrilled! He loves its looks and really enjoyed its feel. I think he also really liked the vintage Truetone T-Shirt I threw in with it as well. He's done great things for me by fixing my small collection of Alfa Romeos over the past couple of years, and he had given me a beautiful limited-edition Alfa Romeo pen for my last birthday, so this was only fair in my view.

I bought the guitar cheap on E-Bay and it only cost me a little bit more to get the T-Shirt, pay for shipping, take care of a set-up, some new strings and a good cleaning, throw in an old soft-shell case I had and send him the down-loaded original 1970 Western Auto catalog pages with the guitar in it. All in all, I think it was a pretty good gift for an older guitarist who now owns and runs a few auto-repair facilities.

I hope he enjoys it for many years to come!


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