NGD...Two vintage 30 yr old Electra's

[Mikey01]

I picked up two 30 year old Electras. The first is a "Electra X290 Workman". It is a black color bolt on neck and is practically like new looking with no buckle rash. It has the legendary 11.5K humbuckers x2 and not split. Solid Mahogany and plays/sounds perfect. The action, I have witnessed on only a very precious few guitars in my 40 years of playing and is, to say the least,"phanominal". The strings hover just a very few mill thicknesses above the medium frets from one end to the other and no buzz at all. That fact reminds me of the Gibby Les Paul "Frettless Wonder". I paid $216 out the door price with no case.

The second is an "Electra X260 Invicta" model. This is a model up one or two spots up from the X290 Workman. The Invicta has a neck through design with two split coil humbuckers at 11.5K. 11.5K ???, believe it. Great break-up as well as teriffic cleans. A very gutzy, loud, ballzy, in your face, and meaty pick-ups on both guitars. The wood is book matched (ash ???) on the front and plane ash on the back as a faceing, otherwise it is solid mahogany and heavey. It is walnut in color. The finish has a heat wrinkle finish related problem (will repair) on the front and has been played well but is structurally perfect as is the Workman. Action is very good but the action on the Workman is flat out "as perfect as it gets" for low and fast with zero buzz no matter how hard you play. Both have medium thick and wide necks (ugh...small hands) and medium frets. Invicta was a trade for a PRS SE semi hollow and tough for me to do.

The pick-ups are highly sought after, let alone the guitars. Both guitars have outstanding build quality made in Japan at one of there biggest and best manufacturers in 1980/81. If I was presented with an oppertunity to trade the X290 Workman for a 1952,54,or 59 Gibson Les Paul or a 1964 Statocastor, I would, for strict need of the financial differences that would help me and my family with my ailments and forced retirement. But if I were well off I would offer huge sums of money for the oppertunity to own the other guitars but I would never let the Workman go for any price or trade. It is just way too perfect. I L O V E them.

[Todd Lynch]

Cool!

[billstets]

I have 70s Electra. It was my first electric guitar. Come on....

[Mikey01]

I have 70s Electra. It was my first electric guitar. Come on....
I don't understand your post. The pick-up "K" value is taken for the Electra Rivercity site.The ones in mine are MMK45's made by Matsumoku,Japan. All else is true and physically apparent to me and available to any TGP member in this area or elsewhere that wants to come and inspect/play it. I did not and will not claim that ALL "Electra Workman X290" guitars are as good or set up as well as this one is. That is why I will not let this one out of my sight and so important to me. This guitar has overly great carma with me and I woulden't expect it to have that with other people. Nor would the sumations of others add up to mine. But just maybe, maybe they would and in greater numbers than one would think. I do invite all to come see it and play it.

Copied fron Electra Forum:
A) Since you started a new thread here, mine read 11.3K in circuit and sound pretty deacent with nice humbucker tone. I have decided not to refinish the working man for now as "Relics" seem to be the in thing these days!
B) I'll stick with the stock pickups for now and see how they sound. They are both reading around 11.3K with an ohmmeter (Still in the circuit). Is this about right? Couldn't find anything obvious with the electrical connections so I guess I'll touch up the connections and see what I got.

[cugel]

i think the post was not to question the internal resistance of these so-called legendary pickups, but to actually say its on par with a 1959 lp is, well, silly. the electra is probably plywood and in general not considered on par with love rocks, grecos, burnys, ibanez' etc.

[billstets]

i think the post was not to question the internal resistance of these so-called legendary pickups, but to actually say its on par with a 1959 lp is, well, silly. the electra is probably plywood and in general not considered on par with love rocks, grecos, burnys, ibanez' etc.

you got it.

[Mikey01]

It's not plywood. It is solid mahogany. I agree with you. it's not on par with thoes vintage instruments. However you missed what I was implying. It doesn't matter if the whole word thinks thoes LP,s are better, as I really do too, I would not trade this perticular Workman x290 for them, ever, unless my family was becoming financially destitute. Now if I had some other Workman X290, without this ones carma, I dump it in a minuet for a better deal. That fact may make me a crazy dude but I never gave into popular opinion when I felt so strongly about something.

To use an analogy, a very educated, financially secure, handsome man may fall deeply in love with a lesser educated, plain looking, overweight woman. He is viewed by all who know him as making a poor choice knowing he can do much better. But in his eyes, for some unGodly know reason, he sees all that could ever make him happy in a woman and for him no other woman is better. We all would just shake out heads and walk away. I guess ya have to do that here.

I live 5 miles from "Mikes music" in Cincinnati. I have bought there too. He sells vintage guitars and amps in two locations. An old movie theater full of them and I mean loaded. As well as a three story house converted to a business with every room loaded. I bet he has millions of dollars stuck in just the high end models. I have had the opertunity to try some of them. Each one I tried, in good fit repair, was a shear delight to play and I wish I could afford one.

However a trade for this perticular Workman X290 is staying with me. Yeah, I know, Im certifilably nuts. Do you now understand where I am coming from, be it in your eyes, right or wrong? Sometimes love is hard to explain. I got it bad for this one.

[cugel]

It's not plywood. It is solid mahogany. I agree with you. it's not on par with thoes vintage instruments. However you missed what I was implying. It doesn't matter if the whole word thinks thoes LP,s are better, as I really do too, I would not trade this perticular Workman x290 for them, ever, unless my family was becoming financially destitute. Now if I had some other Workman X290, without this ones carma, I dump it in a minuet for a better deal. That fact may make me a crazy dude but I never gave into popular opinion when I felt so strongly about something.

To use an analogy, a very educated, financially secure, handsome man may fall deeply in love with a lesser educated, plain looking, overweight woman. He is viewed by all who know him as making a poor choice knowing he can do much better. But in his eyes, for some unGodly know reason, he sees all that could ever make him happy in a woman and for him no other woman is better. We all would just shake out heads and walk away. I guess ya have to do that here.

I live 5 miles from "Mikes music" in Cincinnati. I have bought there too. He sells vintage guitars and amps in two locations. An old movie theater full of them and I mean loaded. As well as a three story house converted to a business with every room loaded. I bet he has millions of dollars stuck in just the high end models. I have had the opertunity to try some of them. Each one I tried, in good fit repair, was a shear delight to play and I wish I could afford one.

However a trade for this perticular Workman X290 is staying with me. Yeah, I know, Im certifilably nuts. Do you now understand where I am coming from, be it in your eyes, right or wrong? Sometimes love is hard to explain. I got it bad for this one.


hey i think thats great that you love it and thats really all that matters in the end
i dont own any true vintage guitars now anyways
enjoy it and play it

[12guitdown]

Pics?

[gadjet]

I have a Workingman and I had a bunch of electras back in the day... I believe the the Workingman I have has a mahogany/dark walnut stained ash body and a stained maple neck.. the finish is much like the gibson faded series.. St. Louis Music/Electra was way ahead of Gibson in Fender in this concept of a inexpensive playable guitars using a simple finish. The Invicta was basically the same guitar but with a set in neck and maybe some other small refinements. The body on mine is not plywood but it's not mahogany either.. The guitar is still very solid actually plays very well...I currently have it set up for slide just because it's easy to work on and adjust...this guitar has been in my family for awhile so it's not going anywhere. I've used this guitar for a lot of things, backup, testing some Rio Grande Bastard pickups(very cool actually), it's worked exactly as it was marketed. A lot of the Electras were very well made and did use nice woods.... They appear to be the sleepers of the vintage market... Prices do seem to be going up for them.. Try to find a X-910 MPC Explorer...

[Mikey01]

The Electras were short lived for a company name. It is said that, like many others, they copied designs rather than having enough original designs. This fact is said to hurt them in the long run. In the 70's Electra was sourced out to a number of Japanies guitar building companies that were rated fair to great but which gave the Electra's varying quality.

The one shinning note to Electra's career was the original design Workman/Invicta designs. Also they were designed and sourced from only place being one of the best Japanies builders who kept the quality very high useing only the best of woods and components built with strong joints and exacting fit-up, above average electrical components, and strong well machined and plated hardware that doesn't usually rust or pit after 30 years. I think that only recently that players and collectors are starting to take notice of all of this and that is why there cost is now starting to esclate.

The Invicta build also suffers from not having some of the splash of exotic wood facias and bold burst coloration let alone the addition of a lot of mulit lamination bindings or ablone/pearl implimentation. Flash sells and looks good when new but can get tacky and loose when it is old being hard to restore. As collector pieces the Invicta/Workman builds fair as looking much better with less artifacts deteriorating and needing attention. In other words you have a more plain. solid. good looking aged instrument.

With playability, solidness, tone, quality construction. and proven age worthyness, I think they will compare well with all other vintage pieces of the same era without a doubt.

[gadjet]

Actually Electra did have quite a few original design... the Phoenix series with wide degree of variations, Outlaw MPC series... the Workingman/Invicta body style was used on several upscale models... there was a Leslie West Model.. Problem for the Electra name was that St. Louis Music didn't have exclusive rights to the name and their was another "Electra" guitar being sold.. and the Electra we are speaking of became Westone later on..

[Cactusrob]

I've owned the Working Man and the Invicta in the past. They are excellent guitars.
Youth and lack of foresight allowed me to trade these great guitars long ago without batting an eye and I've regretted it for years. I guess the grass was always greener back then. :grin:

Over the years and I have had my eye out for one (or both) to replace them. I just never seem to be financially able to swing it when an opportunity has come up.

I'd have to agree with others on here, I'd never compare them to a 59 LP or a 64 Strat, but as for the notion that they are not "on par with love rocks, grecos, burnys, ibanez", I would have to wonder if anyone who holds this opinion has ever actually played one of the Electras.

They are above the industry standard for their time period by leaps and bounds. This may sounds cheesy but you can almost tell by just holding one and playing it that they were built by people who were passionate about building guitars and NOT about making "cookie cutter" guitars (kinda like the big companies in the US used to be???)

I've always said that if I ever get a chance to snag either one, I'll jump on it in a minute. That's still my opinion.

And that's interesting about the Westone brand. I remember when they made that change but never knew why.

[throwingshadows]

I happen to have a closet x260, got it used 5+ years ago. I remember thinking it was mahogany when I got it, but lots of confusion on the ash (northern)/mahogany specs. It has SD pups, not the originals mentioned above.

I'd need to get it checked out to confirm good condition/specs, but willing to sell to a more worthy owner. If anyone circles back to this thread and is interested, feel free to pm me.

Seems only right to close with

Peace, brothers