Hi Guy,
It’s been a while but I hope you’ve been keeping well?
I wondered if you could help with a bit of guitar detective work!? I have received an email from Nate DeMont, who’s just purchased a Guyatone-built guitar, labelled Vox. It looks a bit like an LG-50 but with some discrepancies.
As you know, the Guyatone LG-50 and Antoria LG-50 were both built in Japan, the latter re-branded Antoria for the UK market.
My understanding is that the Vox Shadow (their LG-50 copy) was certainly constructed at Stuart Darkins & Co. in Shoeburyness, around 1962 before outsourcing to the G-Plan factory in Hemel Hempstead in 1963, giving way to the revised Shadow body shaping.
However, Nate’s Vox looks different to the LG-50 in some respects. It was purchased on eBay in the States as a 1958 Guyatone built Vox.
Do you have any information on this particular guitar? I will certainly pass it on, if you have. Is this possibly a Guyatone-built early Vox ‘Shadow; (their LG-50 copy) built at the Guyatone factory prior to the Darkins-built guitar? It’s different from the 1962 Darkins Vox Shadow illustrated here: www.voxshowroom.com/us/guitar/lg50.html
I’ve attached photos of Nate’s guitar.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards
Steve