1960s Conqueror (Japan) Hollowbody 330/335-Style Electric Guitar (VIDEO! Work Done, Ready to Go)

Quick notes: 1) This is a shop-owned instrument rather than consigned. 2) It’s all done up and it's ready to go unless otherwise noted! 3) Please read the following text for full details and specs -- it's borrowed from my original blog post on it...

While this fella has a Conqueror brand, it's a Japanese-made guitar model sold under many other brands, too, including Aria and Univox. Word on the street is that they're either Matsumoku or Fujigen-made and it's definitely a model made in the late '60s. It apes the dimensions and vague look of a Gibson ES-335 but the body is hollow with a center soundpost and the neck is bolt-on.

These always need a bit of work to make them good players but this one got that work via a tag-team approach with myself and Ancel, and now it's playing spot-on and is good to go.

Beginning about a year or two ago, every time I see one of these bolt-on neck Japanese electrics come in, I automatically install a 1/2" dowel that's glued and pinned in both the neckblock and endblock through the center of the body. This makes these hollowbody, bolt-on neck instruments much more stable and removes the "fuss" aspect of these cool old hollowbodies -- that being the inward-caving neck and always-drifting setup.

Tone on this guy is bright and snappy for the humbucker-sized pickups but with a good midsy bite.

Repairs included: reinforcement dowel installed, a fret level/dress, bridge modification so it intonates well with modern 3-wound, 3-plain stringing, minor wiring repairs, seam repairs, cleaning, and setup.

Weight: 6 lbs 0 oz

Scale length: 24 3/4"

Nut width: 1 5/8"

Neck shape: slim-med C

Board radius: 14"

Body width: 15 3/4"

Body depth: 1 1/2" + arching

Body wood: ply maple

Bridge: archtop-style rosewood, 3-plain/3-wound stringing

Fretboard: rosewood

Neck wood: mahogany

Pickups: 2x original

Action height at 12th fret: 1/16" overall (fast, spot-on)

String gauges: 46w-10

Truss rod: adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium-wider

Condition notes: the bridge is unoriginal and it's missing its whammy's arm and spring but otherwise it's original throughout. The whammy on these is a terrible design, anyhow, so it's better in this capacity as a "normal" tailpiece. The neck pocket has been shimmed to get better back-angle. There are a few repaired side/back seams and not all of them line up exactly-perfectly but they don't look bad, either. There's, of course, general usewear/small scratches/etc throughout the finish.

It comes with: sorry, no case.