Teisco EP-11
It doesn't get much cooler than this. Behold our 1950's EP-11 'Guiter' from Teisco! This is one of the earliest Electric guitars produced in Japan, built at the legendary Maruha Gakki factory in the mid to late 50's (exact dating impossible). The EP-11 was produced alongside a whole range of Archtops with slightly different specs, some had 2 pickups, some had different hardware, different F holes but they were all pretty similar.
Our EP-11 sports a single Teisco pickup in the neck position with a master volume and tone control, a beautiful tailpiece and a gorgeous tortoiseshell scratchplate. Our EP-11 is (from what I can tell) 100% original bar the 3 small screws on the TRC which are not. Funny thing to call it a TRC as this guitar does not have an adjustable truss rod, it's either a fixed truss rod that isn't adjustable, or a piece of wood inserted into the neck as reinforcement upon construction.
The neck is massive, and I mean massive. the neck depth measures a whopping 28mm at the first fret and the nut measures just under 44mm. The huge heft of the neck has been great in ensuring it stayed put over its 70 years on the planet, it only presents some slight relief and is very playable for this reason. The frets are also original and they've had a fair amount of use over the years, a serious player would probably have it refretted as there's some sprouting to the frets towards the higher register; however we've opted to protect the originality and let the new owner decide what they'd like to do.
The body shows plenty of bumps, scrapes and dings but no big splits or cracks are present. The binding has shrunk and split at the bottom bout. One tuner is bent but still functions. The pickup, pots and wiring all are all original and function perfectly. Complete with original case!
We've set this old Teisco up with D'Addario 11's and have it playing slick with a 2mm action on the bass side and 1.75mm on the treble, the intonation is set and the guitar is a really nice sounding instrument.
The Guitarzilla Promise
All of our guitars benefit from a full in-house set-up which includes neck relief adjustment, nut adjustment, action adjustment, fingerboard oil, fret polish, intonation adjustment, electrical components cleaned/replaced and a good clean! Finally we fit a fresh set of D’Addario strings, so you’re ready to go straight out of the box!
If you have any specific set up requirements please don’t hesitate to contact us and we will happily accommodate you!