Pawar Turn Of The Century “Stage” 1999 Gold Top. Namm Prototype. Very Rare. Positive Tone System

PAWAR

TURN OF THE CENTURY “STAGE”

SN: 007

PROTOTYPE

Built for NAMM 1999

DRAMA GOLD

GOLDTOP

With Bigsby

CUSTOM GUITAR

HAND BUILT BY

JAY PAWAR

THE ULTIMATE ELECTRIC GUITAR.

REVOLUTIONARY.

POSITIVE TONE SYSTEM

NOTICE:  Over the next few weeks I will be listing for sale on REVERB.COM  some pieces from my “custom” (Boutique) collection.  These guitar represent some of the best guitars being built in the world today by talented and dedicated people IN THE USA.  For them, this is a personal experience.  No mass production found here.  Sadly, some of these builders are no longer creating guitars thanks to the incredible barrier created by the large manufacturers who are importing guitars into the USA at unfairly low trade prices that make it impossible for these independent builders to even make a living.  For those still in business, I hope this is a means to spread the word about their efforts and to bring attention-and sales-to their creations.  Unfortunately, in this instance of this incredibly and innovative builder, Jay Pawar, he is no longer building his superb guitars.

 

FROM MY PERSONAL COLLECTION.

I have a lot of guitars in my collection.  Many are “mass brands” but my favorites are “personal brands”. 

Personal brands are those unique guitars that have been built by the hands of an independent builder, many times working alone, who is building with his/her hands what his/her mind has already created. And as it is being built, the guitar becomes a “personal brand” because it is the person who is building it.  And for me, I just hear more depth in the sound and tone these guitars produce.  They are special.

 

THIS PERSONAL BRAND.

The PAWAR story as told by the PAWAR creators:

RE:  Jim Vickers.  9:380 EDT, July 22, 2002 (associate editor at SBN.)

“Jeff Johnston kicks his foot up onto the bottom rung of his stool and begins to tear through the opening chords of Dire Straits’ ‘Sultans of Swing.’

A few minutes and the flick of a switch later, the silver guitar in his hands delivers the country twang of a Fender Telecaster. Then, it’s on to the snappy Stratocaster sound that defined 1960s’ rock and roll guitar gods like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.

“It was more something we stumbled across,” says Johnston, who has worked beside friend and custom guitar builder Jay Pawar for the last five years, designing and refining the guitar in his hand today. “I think the difference between an entrepreneur and someone who isn’t is not the quality of the idea, it’s that entrepreneurs follow up on it. You hear people all the time saying things like, ‘They should really build a convenience store there’.

“That’s who Jay and I are. We’re ‘they.’”

So when Johnston caught himself telling Pawar in 1995 that “someone” should design a guitar that could deliver all of the classic rock and roll guitar sounds in one package, the two men decided to build one themselves. Their creation was unveiled last summer at an industry trade show in Nashville, where the pair of entrepreneurs showed the world what had, up until that time, only been seen by a few dozen people.

Then, in February, Johnston and Pawar were two of 70,000 people who descended upon Los Angeles for the industry’s second largest trade show. Out of a field of 1,000 eligible guitars makers, including industry heavy hitters such as Gibson and Fender, the newly unveiled Pawar’s “Turn of the Century Player,” was recognized as one of the top three values on the market today.

Industry consumer magazines quickly found their way to the doors of the Willoughby Hills-based guitar manufacturer, but six months, later Johnston and Pawar are hardly an overnight industry sensation. Instead, they are marching ahead with the business plan they drafted two years ago, and their work is paying off with industry visibility and a growing buzz about a guitar that is unlike any other that hangs in music store showrooms across the country.

“Here’s a crazy thought, and it probably makes me sound arrogant,” says Johnston, who is now sitting on an olive couch beneath a row of acoustic guitars in the showroom of the Cleveland Heights music store in which he still shares an ownership stake. “We sat down in 1995 and said, ‘Let’s design the best electric guitar ever made. That was our goal, and every decision we’ve made is guided by that principle.”

The catch was that neither Johnston nor Pawar had any experience in manufacturing. Nevertheless, the entrepreneurs forged ahead, drafted a strategy and learned their new line of business. Along the way, they also figured out how to survive in a market driven by classic companies and pure rock and roll nostalgia.

By July 1998, Johnston and Pawar had a working prototype in hand, which they showed to guitar players they admired, getting plenty of positive feedback. While other manufacturers might have started production on the long-toiled after design, Johnston and Pawar realized there were four or five elements of the guitar they believed needed improvement.

Given the fact that there are an average of 100 distinct parts of an electric guitar, a few sticking points is a minimal part of the pie, not to mention the fact that thousands of hours and dollars had already been invested in the product with no return. Despite that, the duo agreed not to move forward with the guitar until it was perfected.

Johnston and Pawar went back to work refining the product.

“We had an idea that we were going for, but we had to put that idea in actuality,” explains Johnston. “We thought the prototype would take three or four months. It took 10. With the second prototype, we had something really direct we were going after. That took three months.

“You don’t really necessarily know what you’re going into, because you’re going into this abyss. It’s an unknown.”

“We have a competitive advantage on our competition,” explains Johnston. “We have an electronic system that, with a flip of a switch, moves you in and out of 20 classic guitar tones. What makes us a viable business model is, at the end of the day, it’s a value-added strategy.”

Flexibility is at the core of Pawar Guitar’s business philosophy and, although he may never be able to replace the traditional Fender Stratocaster, Johnston wants Pawar Guitars to be a respected name when it comes to the next generation of industry players.

“You can’t beat the classics, but what we can do is say that, of the guitars being made right, now let’s strive to be the best,” he says “And if somebody beats us in some area, let’s find out why and beat them.”

NOTE:  Unfortunately, the story has faded with time.  PAWAR stopped making guitars a few years ago and concentrated on their “POSITIVE TONE” pickup system but it too has languished at the hands of “MASS BRANDS”.

THE PAWAR COOLNESS FACTOR.

I admit to being a “Scroll Fan”. Put a scroll on anything and I will buy it-chairs, guitars, cars, gourds, et al.  So the scroll is what got my attention the first time I saw a PAWAR back in 1999.  And after finally getting one in 2000, I was taken.  I admit to being a gadget guy but an impatient gadget guy.  For me, I only need an on/off switch and a volume knob.  But I really got into the “Positive Tone” feature of the PAWAR. 

Here are some observations of other PAWAR fans:

(Thu, 01 Jul 1999) PAWAR GUITARS will unveil its Turn of the Century guitar at the NAMM show. This hand-made electric guitar features the Pawar Positive Tone System (P.T.S.). Pawar (rhymes with "guitar") advertises that the system provides guitar players with "all of your favorite tones in one guitar." Jay Pawar, vice-president of research and development, stated, "Our goal was to design a guitar that has great examples of classic humbucking tones and classic single-coil tones in a system that would be very easy to operate." The Pawar P.T.S. features Seymour Duncan pickups.

“I find that the best feature of the tone selection is the ability to go between single-coil and humbucker sounds quickly, and also to be able to get fairly good sounding Gretsch-type sounds. I agree, the deep jazzy sounds are remarkable; but so are the Tele and humbucker sounds. I think that the guitar was not a success partially because many people thought that there were too many sound options available and that too many of them were essentially indistinguishable from each other. It’s true that it is very hard to understand which part of which pickup is working at each setting, whether it is in series or parallel with the other pickup, etc. This put off lots of people. Most guitarists are not like most keyboard players, they like it to be simple and intuitively understandable. For example, the most popular guitar in the world, the Fender Stratocaster, has only five positions, and the next popular one, the Gibson Les Paul, has only three. What was perceived by too many to be over-complication sunk the concept and ultimately the company? Personally, I like the pickup selection concept and find it fascinating; but that’s apparently just me and you and too few others.”

“The electronics are the Pawar Positive Tone System™ with a patent pending so exact details are kept secret for now. Pawar Guitars designed the Seymour Duncan Custom shop pickups and they work in a system with a Strat-like, five-way switch to give you the best of the Fender®/Gibson® tones for one, all-purpose utility machine” 

AND FINALLY:

“I'm a bit of a traditionalist, you know a classicist or maybe, as some people might say, a snob. I love a '55 Thunderbird or that original Corvette lusted after by collectors who all know that sometimes you just can't improve on perfection. They just get it right!! I'm always skeptical about a new guitar company but I have to say these guys at Pawar got it right and beautifully so with this could-be new classic. What I love about the Pawar (rhymes with guitar) Turn of The Century Player guitar is the way the company took a look back at what really works on some of the great classic guitars and incorporated it into their design. At the same time, they also paid attention and used a lot of the worthwhile new innovations of the last twenty years. 

As a working musician, who does not have a raft of guitar techs and roadies to relie on, one of the things I appreciate in the Pawar axe is the drilled-through-the-back stringing. This is important for a couple of reasons: you break a string in performance you can still finish the song. With floating bridges and the like you're dead meat with your instrument immediately useless. Stringing through the back also provide much better sustain and tone. Anyone who tells you the wood and it's thickness does not matter much with an electric is blowing smoke. Sure it does!! The heft, feel and balance is reminiscent of the Les Paul Gibson designs from the golden years. It has an "already been played" texture to the neck. The Player features a hand carved maple top, a swamp ash back, a maple neck, and a rosewood fretboard. The scale is 25 1/2 inches with jumbo frets and there are two different neck sizes, both available with Sperzel tuners. The finish on the Player is not translucent and it's not a hot rod, but more of a Cadillac in the sense that you see where the money went...not flashy just classy! 

The electronics are the Pawar Positive Tone System™ with a patent pending so exact details are kept secret for now. Pawar Guitars designed the Seymour Duncan Custom shop pickups and they work in a system with a Strat-like, five-way switch to give you the best of the Fender®/Gibson® tones for one, all-purpose utility machine. 

I can only report that the sound, feel and look of the instrument is breathtaking. One volume and one tone knob plus the five-way switch gives you everything you need and more. You won't need another electric guitar...this one does everything but make coffee. A guitar that will suit the needs of any professional, the Player come in Drama Gold, Sterling Silver Viper Blue and Natural Finishes.”

 

THIS GUITAR.

It is a TURN OF THE CENTURY “STAGE” Model meaning that it features a MAPLE TOP finished in opaque “DRAMA GOLD” metallic finish with “Translucent Ivory” Swamp Ash back and neck.

NOTE:  Color is named “DRAMA GOLD” which appears in photos as strong yellow gold but in daylight is more of a “COPPERTONE”.

The NECK is “V soft” which indicates a “V” profile cut but not as dramatic as a “V”.

Other features:

-has feel and balance of a vintage Les Paul.

-has BRAZILIAN ROSEWOOD fingerboard.

-carved maple top

-Swamp Ash body

-Set Maple Neck

-Scale is 25 ½”

-Jumbo frets

-Sperzel tuners

-Comes with OHSC Green G&G

-Chambered body

-Strings through body tailpiece

-Recessed “quick release” strap buttons

AND THIS ONE WAS THE FIRST TO HAVE A BIGSBY B5 VIBRATO SYSTEM.

 

THE POSITIVE TONE SYSTEM (PTS) PATENT.

Guitar pickup system for selecting from multiple Gibson and Fender tonalities
US 6121537 A

An electric guitar pickup system is provided to generate a plurality of selectable desired Gibson and Fender tonality sounds from a single guitar. The pickup system includes a bridge pickup unit, a neck pickup unit, and a multiple position tonality select switch for selectively connecting the bridge pickup unit and the neck pickup unit in a plurality of desired pickup combinations, thereby selecting from a plurality of desired Fender and Gibson tonality signals. The bridge pickup unit includes a dual coil flat humbucker pickup to produce Gibson tonalities and further includes a dual coil bridge stacked humbucker pickup to produce Fender tonalities. The neck pickup unit similarly includes a dual coil flat humbucker pickup together with a dual coil neck stacked humbucker pickup to produce both Gibson and Fender tonalities.

CONDITION.

Overall, this guitar is in VERY GOOD condition.  The finish and frets show only slight indications of play.  This guitar has been held as a collection piece and not played in many years.

 

TERMS OF THE SALE:

1.    As always, all PayPal rules apply.

2.    Right of inspection allowed.  Once buyer receives this guitar, she/he, has 48 hours to inspect it and report any problems or concerns to us.  If I cannot resolve these problems or concerns to the satisfaction of the buyer, the guitar can be returned to me for a full refund (again in accordance with ebay and PayPal rules and regulations).

3.    Shipping is free in the continental USA.  For shipping outside the USA, please contact me for an estimate prior to buying.

Please look at my other listings for more guitars from my private collection of over 1,500 custom and vintage guitars.  I only bought the best so I only sell the best.  I am always interested in obtaining more guitars so if you have something you would like to offer in exchange for this guitar, please let me know.

I have been a member of the Ebay community since 1999 and currently have 4300+ positive feedbacks. 

I am also on FACEBOOK with a Page titled:  TUNE YOUR SOUND VINTAGE GUITARS AND AMPS. And the website is:  tuneyoursound.com

ALL TRADES OFFERED FOR THIS GUITAR WILL BE CONSIDERED.  THANKS.