Kingston Kawai S1T Late 60s/Early 70s - Sunburst

Up for grabs is a cool psychedelic Kingston, straight out of the Sears catalog! Some quick history: the Kingston name is commonly associated with Jack Westheimer, who was an early pioneer of importing Japanese guitars to the US market. This included early Teisco built guitars, along with the well known “Teisco Del-Ray” brand. By the late 60s he returned the Kingston name with guitars built by Kawai and Guyatone. Production details from this period are scarce, however it’s features point to it being manufactured by Kawai.

It has a single covered pickup which has the signature catalog guitar tone, being closer to the neck it is warm and a bit bluesy. The neat chrome-metal witchhat volume and tone controls work as they should.

It is in good cosmetic condition with a few various marks/nicks from over the years. The frets have been polished up and the fretboard cleaned. The tuners have been replaced with brand new All Parts reproductions - which in addition to appearing identical to the originals, were a drop in replacement with no additional screw holes or drilling. The guitar is fun to play with medium action - like many catalog guitars it does not feature a trussrod, so playability adjustments are limited, however with the current setup fret buzz is fairly minimal. Overall it plays about how you’d expect a Sears guitar to.

These types of guitars are fun and affordable to collect, so don’t miss out on this cool Kingston!