1969 Hagström Jimmy sunburst

Very Good condition, 7/10, Made in Sweden, including hardcase, replaced humbuckers (DiMarzio) and replaced bridge (for intonation, Made in Japan, marked LP BRIGE, funny misspelling), otherwise all original parts including the pickup rings.

The serial 743252 shows that this is a Hagström Jimmy from batch 743-, manufactured in Sweden in 1969. It is unit 252 of 480 units in that batch. More info from Michael Wrights article in Vintage Guitar Magazine June 2005:

In the world of archtop guitarmaking, the legendary luthier James L. D’Aquisto (1935-’95) is considered one of the greats. A jazz guitarist, D’Aquisto was an apprentice to perhaps the greatest archtop maker of all time, New York’s John D’Angelico, from 1952 until the luthier’s death in 1964. Toward the end, D’Aquisto was essentially making all D’Angelico guitars and eventually D’Aquisto struck out on his own.

Today, his creations are desirable (and expensive). However, like many another famous luthier, there were some periods in his career when D’Aquisto worked with a large company to design guitars intended to be factory-produced. For D’Aquisto, those companies were Hagstrom and Fender.

D’Aquisto’s first venture into such an arrangement began circa 1968, when the Hagstrom company of Sweden recruited him to design a line of archtop jazz guitars for them. Ironically, most of us associate Hagstrom with those little double-cutaway guitars covered in vinyl with plastic “swimming pool” pickup assemblies. Great necks, but a little goofy. However, below the surface you’ll find some sophisticated and interesting guitars, many of surprisingly good quality. By the early ’60s, the company was making the Corvette and Impala, with some of the first heelless neck joints (and the pastel “vegematic” controls were a definite plus!). Hagstrom struck again in the early ’70s with the ribbon mahogany, single-cutaway Swede that picked up an endorsement by Larry Coryell. But perhaps the piéce de resistance of the Hagstrom run was their electric/acoustic archtop, the Jimmy, designed by D’Aquisto.

The Jimmy debuted in ’69 as a downsized archtop with 16″ body that was narrower and thinner than a full-sized jazzbox. It had an arched (not carved) laminated spruce top, unbound f-holes, birch body and neck, and bound rosewood fingerboard. It also featured the asymmetrical D’Aquisto-style head with a large pearl inlay, twin pickups, a small, thin D’Aquisto-style two-point Florentine pickguard, and a large cast “harp” trapeze. Most models had pearl dot inlays; it’s not clear if some had blocks. They were made in blond and sunburst.

Although 480 Jimmys were produced in the initial run, they were more in the nature of prototypes because Hagstrom intended to farm out production to the Swedish Bjarton factory. But before it could happen, Bjarton closed its doors.

In any case, the late 1960s was not a great era for guitar sales. Valco/Kay went out of business in ’68, followed by Danelectro in ’69. So Hagstrom stopped the project. But it didn’t abandon the dream; D’Aquisto’s headstock was used on the Swede and Hagstrom’s Viking thinlines in the early ’70s.