1974 Dan Armstrong mod 341 London Series Sliding Pickup ´´London Woody´´

Good condition, 6,5/10, This Dan Armstrong London Guitar is a very rare thing indeed - only 333 guitars and basses were made. Probably better known for his Ampeg Plexi guitar which was famously played by the Rolling Stones in 1969, Dan used a very similar body shape for this wood bodied guitar.

It features a Honduran Mahogany body, which is reminiscent of a ’50s Les Paul Jr.—Dan’s favorite guitar. The neck is also Honduran Mahogany, while the fretboard is Rosewood. The solid, fat Mahogany body gives the guitar a thick, raw sound much like a ’57 Les Paul Jr. The cast-aluminium wraparound bridge looks like a ’50s-style tailpiece, but is fully adjustable and is connected to an aluminium ramp running from the bridge to where the fretboard meets the body.

The ramp houses a Kent Armstrong humbucker, which can be moved all the way from the bridge to the neck and anywhere in between. The guitars were wired so that when the tone control was all the way up, it would short-circuit half of the pickup, making it essentially a single-coil and brightening the sound beyond the 10-setting on the tone control. The low-impedance pickup uses a transformer housed in the guitar’s control cavity to adapt the signal to high impedance for use with an amp. To keep the pickup lean and mean, the Armstrongs created thin pickups by using 38-gauge wire. Made famous by David Bowie on his album Station to Station with a moveable pickup designed by Kent Armstrong.

Production numbers on the London Series guitars and basses were low, very low, with only 333 total guitars and basses produced, sliding humbucker pickup on a rail, aluminium pickguard, including worn case, wraparound bridge, 2 knobs, a stress crack in the neckpocket on the back, all mahogany construction, 6-string version, 3 strap buttons, 644mm scale, including square black original hardcase with grey lining