Vintage showcase its UK line of the company’s popular ProShop Unique range, individual custom models, at NAMM 2022
The Vintage® ProShop® Series has been fascinating players, collectors and guitar lovers around the world for years and, just as night follows day, one thing is for sure, when the Vintage UK team of highly skilled luthiers get their hands on a Vintage classic, fans of heavily distressed guitars looking like they’ve been played for decades in every juke joint, bar and club on the live circuit, adore the team’s incredibly accurate aging process that emulates a battered and bruised guitar, with garnished battle scars that also define the personality of the Vintage® ProShop® guitars.
Vintage ProShop Unique ‘The Boss’
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Aptly named ‘The Boss’, this beautiful Vintage ProShop guitar is a fine example, featuring an incredibly authentic distressing process, certainly looks like its spent decades being ‘Worn In The USA’.
Starting life as a distressed Vintage ICON™ V52MRBS, a classic model in its own right, this gorgeous guitar maintains all the essential bullet points that have made this iconic model, the archetypal workhorse electric guitar, capable of providing a multitude of musical tones from its simple array of pickups and controls.
For an accurate representation, the original distressed Butterscotch finish has been taken back following the grain, to revealing areas of the ash body, and then a final amber top coat applied, offset with a black Bakelite pickguard and authentically aged bolt-on maple neck, fingerboard, headstock and hardware.
For that massively inspirational, fat, powerful chiming tone, this beautiful guitar features a set of balanced Bare Knuckle, high output ‘The Boss’ pickups in the neck and bridge positions, both with extended bass and treble response, delivering compressed dynamics and excellent sustain, whilst exceptionally rich in harmonic detail.
Additional hardware changes also include, a set of super smooth Wilkinson WJO7CR E-Z Lok machine heads, ensuring accurate tuning stability, whilst a chrome, six-saddle Gotoh GTC201 bridge offers player comfort, and superior intonation with an enhanced low-end response.
Vintage V120 ProShop Unique. Distressed Red/Tobacco Burst
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The Vintage V120 ProShop Unique is based on the very popular V120TB, a classic in itself, from the highly successful Vintage ReIssued™ Series of electric guitars.
The original Tobacco Sunburst finish over the body neck and rear of the headstock, have been re sprayed with a white undercoat, followed by an additional red cellulose top coat.
It’s then all down to the expertise of the Vintage ProShop design team who have spent many hours carefully removing sections of each coat by hand in various stages, revealing areas of each overspray.
The results speak for themselves, with authentic lacquer cracking and well worn areas of the body and neck, that mirror a bona fide replica of a much-loved guitar that’s had years of punishment on the pro circuit.
Fitted with a Bare Knuckle Old Guard P.90 pickup, featuring alnico 2 magnets, cloth wiring and CTS pots, the V120PU001 ProShop has all the magical sonic emotions of the original one-pickup guitar.
Vintage V100 ProShop Unique Vintage Black
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The Vintage V100 solid bodied guitar is one of many from the popular Vintage ReIssued Series, adored by musicians around the world. It’s also another model that’s had the privilege of passing through the hands of the Vintage ProShop team, to emerge as the awesome Vintage V100 ProShop Unique.
Now, after a new black gloss overspray on the solid mahogany body and neck, many hours have been spent hand sanding in friction wear areas to replicate, bracelet and belt buckle abrasions and heavy plectrum use. Like the overspray, the final lacquered coating is also meticulously aged by hand to evoke time-honoured cracking and then finally polished.
The team’s accurate and highly professional approach to guitar aging applies to all hardware, which now includes brass back plates, smooth-geared Grover 502C machine heads, chrome Guitar Tech strap locks, Licensed Bigsby vibrato and, both neck and bridge, Bare Knuckle Old Guard pickup covers.
Wired with vintage CTS logarithmic pots, the Bare Knuckle Old Guard pickups feature alnico 2 magnets, delivering a warm, bright tone with superb dynamics and extended harmonics.
Vintage ProShop Unique – Joe Doe Salty Dog
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The Joe Doe series of guitars are indeed unique in themselves, with their incredibly imaginative, individual themes and custom artwork, which includes the Vintage Joe Doe Salty Dog, based on a Vintage V6, a classic in its own right.
The Joe Doe ProShop Unique Salty Dog, retains the original concept of the guitar owned by the fictional character Bill Downey, a sailor in the USA Navy, a boiler technician and slick guitar player and collector of tattoos from every major port.
After subtle aging and mild distressing which extends to the neck headstock and fingerboard, to blend into the pre-worn picture, this totally unique model effortlessly qualifies as a ProShop electric guitar, with Bill’s array of colourful tattoos lacquered and sealed to emulate his original well-sailed, used and abused…but much loved, Joe Doe, ProShop Salty Dog.
Needless to say, aside from the incredibly unique theme, the Vintage ProShop Unique Salty Dog, like all Vintage guitars, plays like a dream, the neck is sleek, fast and carefully aged for that unmistakable killer look and, along with the headstock, is given a cellulose amber coating.
The Vintage ProShop Joe Doe Salty Dog Unique is like nothing you have seen before, built on a solid foundation of timeless Vintage designs, time-tested Wilkinson hardware and hand-picked tonewoods that have made these guitars themselves, Vintage classics.
Vintage V624 ProShop Unique Raw Knuckle Pink
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Whilst the Vintage ProShop team are indeed masters at ‘the art of aging’, they also have the ability to create pristine one-off custom guitars, like the Vintage V624 ProShop Unique Raw Knuckle Pink, visually stunning, with a beautiful lacquered high gloss black finish that includes the neck and reversed headstock, offset with vibrant pink sides and fine-line body over-spill.
Whilst the Vintage ProShop Raw Knuckle Pink experience starts with the visuals, this gorgeous twin cutaway guitar, which started life as a V6M24BK and regarded as a Vintage classic in itself, is now at the forefront of the metal guitar world.
With an incredibly fast, sleek neck and double-octave hard rock maple fingerboard that encourages a positive playing experience, this guitar has indeed, been designed and engineered to ‘rock out’.
Upgrades include landmark permutations that have set benchmarks in the world of hard rock, including the critically acclaimed Floyd Rose 1984 vibrato system with locking nut, ensuring precision intonation, accurate tuning and return to pitch, from the fiercest whammy wailing, whilst a pair of Bare Knuckle ‘After Math’ open-humbucker pickups with matching black and pink covers, deliver an abundance of output and tonal versatility.
This exquisite guitar is yet another classic from the totally unique line of Vintage ProShop electric guitars, showcasing the incredible talents of the Vintage team of highly skilled luthiers.
All Vintage ProShop Unique’s include:
- Vintage branded luxury gig bag, ProShop leather strap, pick tin, tee-shirt and ProShop certificate of authenticity.
- And Proshop set-up;
Fret-level, crown and polish. - Fingerboard dress and comfort treatment.
- Truss rod adjustment and set.
- Action height, radius, intonation and pickup height adjustment.
- Nut slot regulation.
Vintage UK ‘ProShop Custom’ programme
The UK Vintage ProShop team will shortly be taking orders for ProShop Custom guitars and basses for guitarists wishing to specify their own build.
Follow us on social media to find out when the programme launches.
Facebook @VintageInstruments
Instagram @VintageGuitars_Official
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