Barclay 1203 OOO-Style!! - 1960’s Made in USA 🇺🇸!! - PERFECT player! - Rare Survivor! - Huge Tone! -

This Barclay RULES!! This is a rare survivor and the best acoustic example I've ever seen from it's universe of 1960's department store guitars, it has insane tone and playability for days.  

This Barclay belongs in the shop that Guy Patterson of the Wonders' Dad had in That Thing You Do, hanging next to a matching avocado oven/fridge/washer and dryer while Lenny and Jimmy pitch the idea of Guy playing drums in their band. As I recall he was on board in exchange for the purchase of two record needles and a clock radio. These were sold in family-owned department stores like that across America. Owning an actual Fender or a Gibson was the equivalent of someone from rural Michigan dreaming of going to Disneyland at the time, and a lot of songs were written and performed on guitars from this universe of instruments. They were thought of as being in the shadow of Fender and Gibson, but serious players started to come around to them for their super unique tones. Jack White, Dan Auerbach, Chris Issac, Emmy Lou Harris, Tom Petty, and more modern people like Kurt Vile, Angel Olson, St Vincent, and Sharon Van Etton have all recorded and performed with guitars that were original sold next to couches and televisions.

As an instrument, this guitar is weirdly perfect. I’m used to getting these in as big projects, but this one has the solid bones of a super healthy guitar. The neck is dead straight without a touch of relief on the bass or treble side, it’s completely bizarre how straight it is. The action is literally perfect and it plays like lightning up and down the neck, you could seriously play anything by Chet Atkins or Steve Howe on this guitar. The Body is in fantastic condition, no cracks anywhere and aesthetically it's definitely beautiful to the eye. I love that headstock shape and that loopy Barclay logo! That logo would still have been drawn by hand by artists sitting in rows at the time this was made, it's such a beautiful logo and it's nice and vibrant. The Sunburst is looking awesome, the pickguard looks like it's original shape (not shrunken up), it's a beautiful example through and through! 

I think we've all had an experience with picking up a 60's Harmony/Silvertone/Airline and wanting them to be better players because they looked so cool. Sometimes the vibe is there, but there will be some impossible playability feature that's just too much of a compromise to really get comfortable with. More often than not they will need some cost-prohibitive major repairs like neck resets and fret jobs, and all of a sudden you're talking huge money just to get the guitar up on it's feet. I think the saving grace of this guitar was that it sat without string tension for a big part of it's life and the neck angle is just as it was when it left the factory! Once you apply string tension to a guitar that's kind of the moment where the life of the guitar starts ticking, this one seems to be largely starting it's life right now. The guitar has vintage vibes with modern playability, it won't need a drop of work for a long while (probably 10-15 years of heavy play before it needs frets or a neck reset!) Super rare and amazing guitar, one in a million!