Hillbilly W60 Acoustic 1975

Kiso Suzuki Violin HillBilly W60 1975

Most acoustic guitar players around the world know that since late 1960s Japanese makers were creating wonderful “copies” of Martin, Gibson and Guild guitars. Many experienced players know that many of these “copies” sound better than the “originals”.

This terrific guitar was made in mid1970s by Kiso Suzuki Violin Co., one of the oldest and highest reputable Japanese musical instrument makers. It was the top-of-the-line model. Even though its construction is based on Martin blueprints it is more of Suzuki's own creation. Its sound makes it tough competitor against many high-priced modern era guitars.

Being priced 60000 yen in 1975 it wasn’t a cheap instrument at all.   

In terms of volume and tonality it certainly is a high-grade instrument, that can easily beat many modern era $ 3500 acoustics. It offers super volume, combined with rich and sparkly tonality, yet with some warmth to it, all magnified by very impressive sustain and its natural reverb. These traits make it very versatile instruments that can be used for all kind of styles. With its current action plays super easy.

An overall condition of this guitar can be described as “excellent+ for its age”. The body of this guitar is practically free from any conspicuous cosmetic imperfections. Very importantly the neck is straight, while excellent condition of fingerboard and frets suggests that this guitar hasn’t been played a lot. With its quite low action it plays super easy.

Specification:

Top: Solid Spruce/Martin style X bracing with not scalloped braces /lacquer

3 pieces Back & Sides: “semi-solid” Brazilian Rosewood/ /urethane

“Laminated” is quite unfortunate term regarding Japanese made guitars. These plates were made from 2 layers of solid wood glued together with natural resins. They were made so well that they performed as good as solid woods while being far less expensive in guitar production and far more resistant to cracking in regular use. In recent years many guitar makers around the world adopted a new term "semi-solid" to describe these plates.

Neck: Mahogany with 2-way truss rod

Fingerboard: Ebonized Rosewood

Nut width: 43mm

Scale: 650 mm

The action is set to 2.50 mm under E6 and 2.00 mm under E1, with very little extra room on the saddle.