Magnatone Mark III Deluxe Model Solid Body Electric Guitar (1957), made in California, serial # 53424, brown lacquer finish, hardwood body, maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, original brown hard shell case.
The Magnatone company in California had prospered with amplifiers and lap steels by the mid-'50s, but the Mark III was the company's first entry into the emerging 1950s solid-body Spanish guitar stakes. The original 1956 design was sourced from Paul Bigsby, who at the time was phasing out personally building electric Spanish guitars in favor of pedal steels and marketing his signature Bigsby vibrato. This Mark III "Deluxe" was a two-pickup instrument and is both rarer and much more versatile sounding than the standard single pickup model.
By the time this one was built in 1957, the Mark III line had been re-designed from Bigsby's original neck-through body layout to a set-neck instrument, making it easier to build. The small but chunky body is flat-topped with a "belly cut" on the upper back. The twin single coil pickups are mounted into a Formica-topped pickguard that covers the entire face giving a very '50s Populuxe look. They are controlled by a simple one-switch, master tone and volume knob rig; the Switchcraft switch carries the cool 1950s "amber" tip.
The round-backed neck is maple with a bound, large-dot inlaid rosewood fingerboard and an adjustable truss rod, accessed at the headstock under a plastic plate. The nut is aluminum, the tuners "Saf-Ti-Slot Kluson Deluxe. The unique stamped metal bridge/tailpiece unit has "M" cutout on the flange and a "cast Beryllium" saddle hung from above that adjusts for height and intonation with screws mounted through the cover.
This is a great-sounding and good-playing instrument, similar to the early Harmony Stratotones in feel and sound but definitely better designed for ergonomics and more playable (the adjustable bridge and truss rod being a large factor) and built to a higher standard. The early Mark IIIs were only in production for a couple of years and are fairly rare today, this twin-pickup Deluxe even more so. This is a really cool if mostly forgotten early California solidbdy, a hidden gem of the late 1950s era.
Overall length is 36 3/8 in. (92.4 cm.), 11 1/4 in. (28.6 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 1 5/8 in. (4.1 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 11/16 in. (43 mm.).
This guitar has seen some play time but remains all original and unaltered nearly 70 years on. The all-original finish shows some typical checking with numerous mostly small nicks, chips and dings over the entire instrument, with a couple of larger filled-in dinks on the back of the neck. The Formica face remains quite clean, which after all was the proposed advantage of Formica -- in kitchens as well as on guitars!
All the hardware is original and complete with some light scuffing and minimal plating loss. The low E string tuner button was cracked and glued back together. The tuner works fine but that button (or the entire set) could easily be replaced if desired. The frets show some light recrowning but the guitar plays well and sounds great; a nice example of this fairly obscure but very cool little early solid-body Magnatone. It includes the original California HSC, worn on the ends but fully functional. Overall Excellent - Condition.
