The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Found this at a pawn shop. (Why is it Skylarks wind up at pawn shops?)

It's got heavy nicks and scratches, much more than I was able to catch with the camera. PO scratched not only his name and his initials with some girl's, but also 'Ozzy Osbourne #1' and a bunch more stuff like that. Doesn't bother me, since it's on the back, kinda adds a little patina of history. (How come those guys doing fake relicking aren't scratching 'Ozzy' in the backs of their guitars??)

I spent a little more time than usual setting this one up, it was problematic at first, had some buzzing in the D and A strings. Didn't look like anyone had ever set it up correctly. It's missing the truss rod cover, and somebody replaced one of the tuners with a Grover. There's corrosion in places, the center tone pot is frozen up completely, and at first you'd get major hum if you touched the toggle switches, like bigtime. Then I pulled off the back cover and noticed the following problem- bonus points for anyone who can spot it in the picture:



A little soldering and it was back in business. I'm hoping I can get the frozen pot cleared up and working, otherwise I'll have to replace it. The toggles activate neck and bridge coil tap, and phase reverse. The pickups are hot hot hot! Man are they hot! Now it's playing quite nicely and is another oddity for my collection of odd Matsumokus.

nice find. how come i never find neat stuff like that at pawn shops? the shops i find always have slightly overpriced uninteresting guitars. best thing i ever got from a pawn shop was a nice case for $10.

very good question.
so i'll admit i love the natural finish/laminated stripe combo. does anyone know who started this style? my guess is alembic. i know kramer had similar models--the ones with the aluminum necks and ibanez made em too but i believe both were a few years after alembic. in any case someone at matsumoku seems to have liked em, god bless em.

and another thing...
i never noticed guitars with heels made like that till i got my aria ts 500, which is built much like the skylark. the neck sits slightly forward, creating a kind of shelf at the joint. is there a reason for this? like i said, i'd never noticed it but since getting my ts i've seen les pauls made like that too. explanation anyone?

My Spectrum FX is the same way. Seems to be the standard way they did a set neck joint on a solidbody guitar.

Is that a broken ground on the bridge volume pot?

ding ding ding! we have a winner! :) Yes indeed! I wish all electrical problems could be found so easily....

That wire was deliberately cut.
The previous owner wasn't satisfied with only defacing the finish.
He had to do something "Punk Rock" and stab the wires after he stabbed
his girlfriend. That is why the memorial to her on the back there.

Looks like that Grover went right in without any extra holes being drilled. Good.
You'll have this puppy up and running in no time just like that Electra Tele you did.

Did you notice all those extra useable frets? What a treat.
Would it be in bad taste to ask what you got it for?

I was lucky to get a Skylark in very good condition but I would have been
happy to find one at all. This one seems to be structurally sound and that is
what really counts. Unless he beat the girlfriend with it too.

You bought my guitar!

Well, not really, I've been looking at that one for a while but the pawn shop had it listed t $900. What did they sell it to you for?

darn, I even pointed the shop to this site to try to gety the price down, oh well, I snooze I loose,

And if you didn't pay $900 for it, your wellcome, good to see some good come of my work.

So, do you live in Reno?

By the way, your Skylark is noticably lighter than mine, I don't know it it was an inconsistent production run or if your has been modified.

I was asking posting about it a while back but got no repiles, I guess not many people have more than 1 of these.

anyway, enjoy

From the way you are talking it must have been a SuperPawn. Yes, they do know this site is here which is why they have such a jacked up price on the Skylarks. They don't refer people here though likely because I rip on them any chance I get. When I got my second PE-R80 I called their main office and tore into a manager there about the idiot packaging and blunders in shipping. Thank goodness the case took all the damage.

Very few people own Skylarks. Everything that is Skylark that ever was is here. Nothing more exists in regards to information.

Do you have the 2588 neck-thru as that model was quite hefty in regards to weight, but built like a tank and sustain for days. Who needs an e-bow?