Guitar Collector Forum

I was an investor and sales manager for this company, Player Instruments, Inc. We manufactured about 300 of these very effective and well crafted interchangeable pick-up guitars. The pick-ups are mounted in plastic modules that snap in securely from the back of the guitar. I've left the corporate world and I'm selling off some stuff to finance my writing habit while living in India. I'm curious to know if these instruments would be collectable as I have two of them and a large assortment of spare parts and over 25 pick-ups (Duncan, DiMarzio, EMG...).

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum.

So... Player Guitars? I have to admit I'd never heard of them. But it sounds like a neat idea, the modulised swappable pickips, so I've been doing a little research.

Firstly, the Blue Book gives us this (click for big version to read it!):



Then I found this from classical guitar teacher and author Harry George Pellegrin's website here: http://www.pellegrinlowend.com/scars.html



I hope you don't mind me publishing this, presumably you will know Harry? I'm guessing that you might be the Steven referred to here? Anyway, this led me to a photo of the Players Guitar MDS-1 2-pickup version....


I was particularly interested to hear that the.. interchangeable pickups that could be quickly removed without tools in mid-song. You'd have to be pretty confident of your setup to do that!

According to Harry's website Player folded in late 1985 and signalled... the end of the interchangeable pickup concept.

Brian May! In 1985, Brian May at NAMM and had this photo taken with the original Red Special. For the record, the neck is very round in profile and extremely small. The guitar wasn't heavy at all, despite the seeming thickness of the body. It is very well balanced.


Finally, here's some brochures of the MDS-1 Players guitars... again from Harry George Pellegrin's website.




Back to your original question Steve, I'm curious to know if these instruments would be collectable , I really don't know. They certainly seem unusual and have a good story behind them and an unique concept with the plugable pickups, so I would have thought that they'd be very desirable to the right collector. One obvious question would be were tehy played or endorsed by any well-known guitarists? This is always a plus!

If you're interested in valuation, then Greg of Gregs Guitars might be able to help you... he may well pop up here in a few days, but if not, you can send him a PM here: memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1959

Good luck, and if you've got any more infor or pictures of the Player Guitars, please do share them with us! It's fantastic to get the inside view from people who were directly involved in building and selling guitars.

Paul

Hi Paul, and thanks for all this. Yes, I know Harry, and all the characters mentioned on Harry's site. I'm not that Steven - I'm not mentioned in Harry's summary perhaps because I entered the picture some months after the company was started but I did invest in it and took on the lead sales position. I also acquired the patents after Players failure gave it another go which unfortunately was interrupted by a severe illness that took me a couple of years to recover from (all better now). After that I gave up. Barry Lipman and I have been friends since the early seventies.

Unfortunately the company was only in production for one year and I think we went to two NAMM shows so it did not get a lot of exposure. Al DiMeloa endorsed the guitar and was a major investor but I'm not sure if he played it during performances. Elliot Randall was also an endorser. There may have been others but these two were solid. Buck was in charge of marketing and promotions so he may know more about this. In short, yes we had some significant endorsements.

Thanks for your interest,

Stephen Johnson

Thanks for the boost here, as for the guitars , I have seen two or three over the years , I know there is an amp company doing the same concept now as far as the interchangeable modules go, As for value or being collectible ?I have no idea, I am certain one would sell and it is interesting enough a piece that I am sure there are some in collections . The guitar would have to be pristine ,have the original case, all paperwork and possibly as many modules as possible in order to create a "stir" . Sorry but that is all I can reasonably say, Greg.

I do have the original case and the guitar in in pristine shape. There is no bill of sale since I was the sales manager and this is the demo guitar I used for the sales effort. The second guitar is not in great shape but could be restored to its original condition. I'm selling both guitars as a package but the second in really just an addon to make the package more interesting and attractive. There are over 25 pickups in modules, a few spare pickups and all most as many module cases, and many spare parts. I have the patent documents and I could easily get a letter from the inventor and former CEO to authenticate the instrument and it progeny.

Hello. This is an old post but I was searching for this guitars in the internet.

Steveubu, do you still have those guitars? What have you done with them?