This a beautiful Burns-Baldwin Split Sound Jazz Guitar. It's in near-mint condition with all tremolo parts & original case. The are a couple of minor dings but nothing significant. All the electronics work perfectly. Made in England at the original Burns London factory.
The Split Sound Jazz Guitars came into the Burns line in 1962. They were Jim Burn's answer to the Stratocaster. This is a solid body guitar with a double-cut-away similar to the Bison. This model is a 1965. It's one of the last original Burns guitars. You can tell that because the Burns logo was cut out of the pickguard and replaced with a Baldwin during the first year. They used the remaining Burns inventory before beginning their own/joint production.
The Split Sound has three pickups which are controlled by the standard tone and volume controls along with a four position, pickup switch that varies from the tone from Split-sound, Jazz, Treble, and Wild Dog. All the control knob are heavy metal; which you don't find on most Burns guitars. You can hear all the variations on tone in the sound sample below. The pick ups are Burns Split Sounds which have six poles and are divided between the bass and treble sides. They attain their characteristic sound by splitting the pickups to upper and lower strings when set to Split Sound. The Wild Dog setting gives an out-of-phase sound. It's one of the earliest guitars to offer this feature.
Burns guitars were made famous by The Shadows which included Cliff Richards and Hank Marvin. Jim Burns designed a guitar for Hank Marvin and named it the Hank Marvin. The company went through many hands over the years and are still in production today as Burns of London. But this guitar came from the last stock of the original Burns company and was modified on the pick guard to be a Baldwin. Baldwin (the piano company) bought Ormston Burns Ltd. in 1965 for approximately $380,000 after failing to win Fender from CBS. James Ormston Burns took the offer to pay off the company debt. He stayed with Baldwin through 1966 and then moved on to other endeavor. You can also find quite a bit of information on the Burns Guitar Museum site.
For more information or to place an order please call Mike Ross in our Secondhand/Vintage section on 01273 665425/01273 672977 or email mike.ross@gak.co.uk
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