Premier Multivox Royalist Guitar - Maple Neck, Original Finish - Well Padded Gig Bag - 1962

I am selling my Premier Multivox Royalist electric guitar, made in or near New York City by Peter Sorkin’s Premier company around 1961 or 1962. Comes with a vintage pretty well padded gig bag.

This guitar plays very well, with a straight maple neck, clean frets, and low action up and down the fretboard. There is some finger wear in the fretboard around the first three frets. The tailpiece has the often missing cover. The only non original part is the Framus bridge, which is compensated and much higher quality than the original.

The original finish is a rich deep red with a little bit of streaking and obvious nicks and finish wear around the edges, which I have not tried to paint over but they could be touched up. The body and neck are solid with no cracks or seams.

This is the third iteration (of four) in the Premier/Sorkin/Multivox/Marvel solid body guitars. The first, in the mid fifties, were the lovely scroll guitars with Franz pickups, and 3 x 3 headstocks, the second were the double cutaways with two variations of the Franz pickups. This third version (this one) has a single line headstock with a more conventional body shape, and the final style were the plastic topped bodies with the return of the scroll curls. 

I have seen three versions of these thin chrome single coil pickups on Premier guitars and basses. The first were made by Fransch (Franz), the maker of Guild pickups, and were stamped with their name and Woodside, NY on the back. The second, which came into use around 1960, simply said Multivox Corp of America. I suspect these were also made by Franz in Woodside, but could be wrong. These are the pickups on this guitar. From what I have read it was around 1963 that Sorkin began to source the pickups, with the same look, from Japan and they are stamped Japan on the back. The pickups on this guitar read 4.1 Bridge, 4.1 Neck, and 2.0 together on the meter, which is consistent with others I have owned. The middle setting on the knob is both, and the first and third are the individual settings. They sound excellent for a single coil - full, a bit dark, and they crank up nicely. The middle knob is volume and the one closest to the output jack is tone. The tone capacitor is the original brown dot and still works.

I love the chunky neck and the look/feel of maple, which was how most of these guitars and basses came until around 1962/63. The dense wood has kept it almost perfectly straight - it may or may not have a metal bar inside. 

Scale: 24.75 / 25 inches

Frets: 22

Nut Width: 1.75 inches.

Fretboard and Neck: Maple

Truss Rod: No.

Lower Bout: 12.75 inches

Length: 38.5 inches

Depth: 1.5 inches

Pickup Readings: 4.1 Bridge, 4.1 Neck, and 2.0 together

Comes with a very well padded used gig bag. Will be packed professionally and shipped quickly.

0% financing is available - let me know if you want me to set it up...

Let me know if you have any questions.

Some more Premier/Sorkin notes:

Premier began making professional quality tube amps in the late 40’s and from the 50’s until the late 60’s made a number or interesting and very well made electric and acoustic guitars. Among them were Marvel guitars, which were less ornate than other Premier guitars, such as the Bantam, which was more expensive. Many of the fancier Premier guitars were made in Union, New Jersey. I’m pretty sure this guitar, like the solid body Marvel 1950’s guitars, was made in the Multivox factory in Hauppauge, NY, which was established around 1946.

In the early/mid sixties Premier also made and distributed very ornate plastic top scroll guitars, getting most of the parts by then from Japan. Sorkin used a number of other brand names on his guitars, including Strad-O-Lin and Royalist. It can be confusing because there were also Japanese made guitars sold at that time under the Strad-O-Lin name, which Sorkin may have started to import.