This page is also under construction...please check back as I keep working on this guitar...

First, let me give you a little of the history behind this instrument...this is the very first guitar I ever played. It's a 1967 Baldwin (aka Burns) Hank Marvin model with original hard-shell case, which was the top of the line instrument for Burns and Baldwin in the early 60's. They were all hand-built in London, England at that time. My older brother Michael bought this guitar brand-new in 1967. I still have the orginal hang-tag, showing the price of $468 he paid for it. Pretty steep back in those days. Actually, these guitars gave Fender Strats quite a run for the money for a short time, because they were great instruments, and Fenders were so hard to come by at that time. Anyhow, my brother bought it new, playing it mainly in a gospel group at church. As time went on, he went to work for the auto plants, got married, and began raising a family, and like a lot of us, simply ran out of time for playing music. When I was about 14 I became interested in learning how to play the guitar, so he let me borrow it for a few years, and showed me some basic chords and things to get me started. I messed around with it for a while, but eventually I lost interest in it... you know, girls, high school sports, girls, new driver's liscense, girls, partying, girls...anyhow, I never really did accomplish much, so I gave it back to him when I was about 17. He then loaned the guitar to a "friend" of his, who basically destroyed it. It was beautiful when I gave it back to him, and this other guy just trashed it. He torqued the strings up so tight that it cracked the body where the tremelo screws into it (see the red square on the photo), and the finish was cracked and busted all to hell, with big chunks of it broke right off the guitar. There was also a good bit of damage to the back of the body where the neck bolts on (these guitars did not come with a steel neck-plate, it was a plastic job with the serial number and all on it), not to mention all the dings, dents and bangs this guy put in it. Anyhow, at the time, I knew none of this, and I thought that the guitar remained in the excellent condition it was when I gave it back to him. To make a long story short, Mike and his family died in a terrible tragedy in 1988, and while my family was sorting through some of their belongings I ran across the case in the basement. I knew it contained the guitar by the weight of it, and I wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons. It was a link between my brother and me. But when I opened the case, I was heartbroken. The guitar was literally in pieces, and parts fell out all over the floor. I literally cried. After a few years I began trying to restore the instrument. I repaired the body areas that were cracked, and made the stainless steel neck plate for it to take some of the pressure off the body from the neck bolts (same concept as a Strat neck plate). I stained it with a red mahogany stain and clear-coated it with hardware-store lacquer, because at that time I didn't know squat about refinishing a musical instrument, and it shows in these photos. Remarkably, the neck was unscathed and is in fantastic condition, and mechanically speaking, it's now a very solid and trustworthy instrument, it plays fantastic, and if you've ever heard or played one of these vintage Burns or Baldwin guitars, you know what out-of-this-world TONE they had. Mr. Burns had it right! The Rez-O-Matic pickups, the individual tubes for each string, and the knife-point tremelo system was way ahead of it's time, and you can really hear what a difference it makes. Almost makes a Strat want to tuck it's tail and run. I've even played it at a few gigs, although I'm a little paranoid about taking it to gigs on a regular basis. So to finally get to the point, here's my next project: to strip and refinish this guitar in white nitrocellulose lacquer, restoring it to it's original beautiful condition. It's gonna be a challenge, because of the damage and abuse it's sustained, but in the long run it'll be worth it, and I think Mike will be proud of it again when I'm done.

I will post pictures of this guitar when I get it done. Stay tuned, and Thanks!

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