Wandre BB Model Semi-Hollow Body Electric Guitar (1961)
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Item #13973
Wandre BB Model Model Semi-Hollow Body Electric Guitar (1961), made in Cavriago, Italy, blue and yellow lacquer finish, wood and plastic body, plastic sheathed aluminum neck with rosewood fingerboard, black tolex hard shell case.
There are many titles one could bestow upon Italian guitar-designing artist Mr. Wandre Pioli; "Romantic" is certainly among them. Pioli designed plenty of guitars inspired by pop culture figures of the day including curvaceous female starlets leading many to label him as vintage guitar's pre-eminent "fetishist!" In particular, one of his very first guitar designs was named for (recently deceased) French bombshell Brigitte Bardot; he was known to keep photos of her around in his personal effects. This guitar is a lovingly kept example of an early Wandre "BB" in an electric gradient of lightning yellow and a blue bright as the water in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 Bardot feature "Le Mepris!"
The BB is a semi-hollow archtop first offered in the late 1950's (alongside the less successful Rock'n'Roll) as Pioli moved beyond basses into the world of guitars. Its evocative body design features sinuous asymmetrical curves, puffy black plastic binding trimming the top, back, and a narrow abstract f-hole. Compared to many later Wandre creations it is a far more "normally" shaped instrument, more universally comfortable to play and hold than his more abstract body shapes like the extreme-cutaway Rock'n'Roll (later called the Rock Oval). A hot stamped Wandre logo on the inside back is visible through the single "bikini bra" soundhole.
This two-pickup BB has dual Davoli single coil units nestled in a floating cream plastic pickguard, the entire unit pinned to the neck at the front and adjustable for height on a wooden base at the back end. The company also offered the BB with just a single neck pickup. One can track the chronology of a Wandre by their constant introduction of slightly new headstock, pickup, bridge, and knob designs. This BB for example, was likely assembled in 1961 as the last of the two-dot Davloli branded pickups of the turn of the decade were used up, replaced with Wandre branded chrome Davoli units. The bridge unit is molded to the pickguard with small Hofner-like fretwire saddles and a push-on plastic cover.
The dual pickups are controlled by a single volume and tone knob with a two-way selector and output jack mounted to the stamped metal box lower on the top. The serrated-edge knobs on this one are original and can be found on BBs from the late 50s into the early 60s.
The output goes to an unusual oddly sized "Geloso" jack; Geloso was an Italian consumer electronics manufacturer in the late 50's into the early 60's, and some Italian electronics including this guitar were made with these. However, these jacks were short-lived and pretty quickly replaced even in Italy with the now ubiquitous 1/4" phone jack. It is extremely difficult to find anything today bearing the Geloso jack aside from old Italian microphone and radio technology from this period. With the help of the Wandre book author Marco Ballestri, we were able to track down the correct adapter from an old Italian radio electronic parts shop and craft our own high quality cables to accommodate the Geloso jack with a regular 1/4" on the other end of the cable for easy amplifier use. This is included with the guitar.
The clean, uncracked plastic pickguard also provides a chassis for the fully adjustable bridge leading to the original decorative stamped metal tailpiece. The neck is aluminum with a strip of black vinyl tape along the back, topped with a rosewood fingerboard with shaped multi-colored inlay, one of which reads "Export' indicating the guitar was originally destined to be sold outside of Italy. The flat metal headstock carries the Wandre-branded cream logo veneer to match the tuners with an integral plastic spacer nut above the zero fret rather than Wandre's aluminum nut.
Played acoustically or amplified, This voluptuous "Model BB" has a rich and jazzy timbre and more volume "unplugged" than one might expect. While age-old adages about "feminine-figured" guitars can grow trite and antiquated, the mischievous charm of Wandre's purposefully erotic take on lutherie practice possesses a palpable tenderness for both his subjects and the players who fall in love with these namesake guitars. Instruments crafted with this much joyful mirth are always a delight to see, and the BB is still one of Wandre Pioli's most playable and commercially successful endeavors. This one even has a small color printed portrait of Ms. BB herself added to the headstock face in a glowing tribute to the guitar's namesake inspiration.
Overall length is 44 1/4 in. (112.4 cm.), 16 in. (40.6 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 1 7/8 in. (4.8 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 5/8 in. (41 mm.).
This beautiful BB is a delight to hold and behold, largely original and well-preserved for its age. Wandre instruments are notoriously made up of many virtually irreplaceable (often plastic) parts, and this one has held its own over the decades better than most. All components appear original and intact; the fragile molded plastic cream pickguard that houses the pickups and bridge is beautifully preserved with no damage at all. The original plastic Wandre logo headstock veneer with the integral cream plastic nut are intact, with the absolutely charming addition of the very old Brigitte Bardot sticker! There is a small repaired crack off one of the tuner screws and side piece of the spacer nut outside the low E string has cracked off and been re-attached, a very common occurrence.
The extremely eye-catching blue and yellow gradient finish is all original; there are a few long check marks, mostly on the back and sides, but no visible repairs or impact to the body and the lesser-seen black bubble binding is well in tact. The Wandre sticker just above the electronics panel was likely elsewhere on the guitar or on another guitar and was just moved there by a previous owner for whatever aesthetic reason. There is a very small die-stamped "RICHTER" on the back of the headstock; this may be a distributor's marking.
The electronics work as they should and appear untampered with, so untampered with in fact that the original approximately 5mm Geloso jack is still present in the guitar. We opted to leave the instrument untampered with for the sake of originality, but this jack can easily be changed to a regular 1/4" after purchase upon request. The fingerboard appears to have been refretted with larger wire long ago; these have very little wear but there is some light divoting to the fingerboard in the first position.
Overall, it is clear why this model was one of Wandre's biggest commercial successes. This BB is a breeze to play, one of Pioli's nicer sounding instruments as beautiful to behold as its namesake. It lives in a modern HSC with the proprietary Geloso-phone jack cable included. Excellent - Condition.
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There are many titles one could bestow upon Italian guitar-designing artist Mr. Wandre Pioli; "Romantic" is certainly among them. Pioli designed plenty of guitars inspired by pop culture figures of the day including curvaceous female starlets leading many to label him as vintage guitar's pre-eminent "fetishist!" In particular, one of his very first guitar designs was named for (recently deceased) French bombshell Brigitte Bardot; he was known to keep photos of her around in his personal effects. This guitar is a lovingly kept example of an early Wandre "BB" in an electric gradient of lightning yellow and a blue bright as the water in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 Bardot feature "Le Mepris!"
The BB is a semi-hollow archtop first offered in the late 1950's (alongside the less successful Rock'n'Roll) as Pioli moved beyond basses into the world of guitars. Its evocative body design features sinuous asymmetrical curves, puffy black plastic binding trimming the top, back, and a narrow abstract f-hole. Compared to many later Wandre creations it is a far more "normally" shaped instrument, more universally comfortable to play and hold than his more abstract body shapes like the extreme-cutaway Rock'n'Roll (later called the Rock Oval). A hot stamped Wandre logo on the inside back is visible through the single "bikini bra" soundhole.
This two-pickup BB has dual Davoli single coil units nestled in a floating cream plastic pickguard, the entire unit pinned to the neck at the front and adjustable for height on a wooden base at the back end. The company also offered the BB with just a single neck pickup. One can track the chronology of a Wandre by their constant introduction of slightly new headstock, pickup, bridge, and knob designs. This BB for example, was likely assembled in 1961 as the last of the two-dot Davloli branded pickups of the turn of the decade were used up, replaced with Wandre branded chrome Davoli units. The bridge unit is molded to the pickguard with small Hofner-like fretwire saddles and a push-on plastic cover.
The dual pickups are controlled by a single volume and tone knob with a two-way selector and output jack mounted to the stamped metal box lower on the top. The serrated-edge knobs on this one are original and can be found on BBs from the late 50s into the early 60s.
The output goes to an unusual oddly sized "Geloso" jack; Geloso was an Italian consumer electronics manufacturer in the late 50's into the early 60's, and some Italian electronics including this guitar were made with these. However, these jacks were short-lived and pretty quickly replaced even in Italy with the now ubiquitous 1/4" phone jack. It is extremely difficult to find anything today bearing the Geloso jack aside from old Italian microphone and radio technology from this period. With the help of the Wandre book author Marco Ballestri, we were able to track down the correct adapter from an old Italian radio electronic parts shop and craft our own high quality cables to accommodate the Geloso jack with a regular 1/4" on the other end of the cable for easy amplifier use. This is included with the guitar.
The clean, uncracked plastic pickguard also provides a chassis for the fully adjustable bridge leading to the original decorative stamped metal tailpiece. The neck is aluminum with a strip of black vinyl tape along the back, topped with a rosewood fingerboard with shaped multi-colored inlay, one of which reads "Export' indicating the guitar was originally destined to be sold outside of Italy. The flat metal headstock carries the Wandre-branded cream logo veneer to match the tuners with an integral plastic spacer nut above the zero fret rather than Wandre's aluminum nut.
Played acoustically or amplified, This voluptuous "Model BB" has a rich and jazzy timbre and more volume "unplugged" than one might expect. While age-old adages about "feminine-figured" guitars can grow trite and antiquated, the mischievous charm of Wandre's purposefully erotic take on lutherie practice possesses a palpable tenderness for both his subjects and the players who fall in love with these namesake guitars. Instruments crafted with this much joyful mirth are always a delight to see, and the BB is still one of Wandre Pioli's most playable and commercially successful endeavors. This one even has a small color printed portrait of Ms. BB herself added to the headstock face in a glowing tribute to the guitar's namesake inspiration.
Overall length is 44 1/4 in. (112.4 cm.), 16 in. (40.6 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 1 7/8 in. (4.8 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 5/8 in. (41 mm.).
This beautiful BB is a delight to hold and behold, largely original and well-preserved for its age. Wandre instruments are notoriously made up of many virtually irreplaceable (often plastic) parts, and this one has held its own over the decades better than most. All components appear original and intact; the fragile molded plastic cream pickguard that houses the pickups and bridge is beautifully preserved with no damage at all. The original plastic Wandre logo headstock veneer with the integral cream plastic nut are intact, with the absolutely charming addition of the very old Brigitte Bardot sticker! There is a small repaired crack off one of the tuner screws and side piece of the spacer nut outside the low E string has cracked off and been re-attached, a very common occurrence.
The extremely eye-catching blue and yellow gradient finish is all original; there are a few long check marks, mostly on the back and sides, but no visible repairs or impact to the body and the lesser-seen black bubble binding is well in tact. The Wandre sticker just above the electronics panel was likely elsewhere on the guitar or on another guitar and was just moved there by a previous owner for whatever aesthetic reason. There is a very small die-stamped "RICHTER" on the back of the headstock; this may be a distributor's marking.
The electronics work as they should and appear untampered with, so untampered with in fact that the original approximately 5mm Geloso jack is still present in the guitar. We opted to leave the instrument untampered with for the sake of originality, but this jack can easily be changed to a regular 1/4" after purchase upon request. The fingerboard appears to have been refretted with larger wire long ago; these have very little wear but there is some light divoting to the fingerboard in the first position.
Overall, it is clear why this model was one of Wandre's biggest commercial successes. This BB is a breeze to play, one of Pioli's nicer sounding instruments as beautiful to behold as its namesake. It lives in a modern HSC with the proprietary Geloso-phone jack cable included. Excellent - Condition.
