1958 Vintage Swedish Hagstrom Deluxe Sparkle - The Very FIRST Batch from 1958-9

This guitar could have been the launch of 70's glam rock - the only thing is this happened in Sweden in 1958.

This is a hefty 22 fret solid body guitar with no signs of age - apart from it's obvious dated design and construction - it really sounds immense! This is the VERY FIRST BATCH of electric guitars made by Hagstrom and is unlike many of the later Hagstrom sparkle guitars (also under names such as Goya). Many of those later ones really do not come close to this one for sound or playability.

In reality Karl Erik Hagstrom went to USA in 1957 for his annual sales trip, returning six weeks later having only sold about six Accordions.

Yes, Accordions. That's what made the family company's fortune from it's start in the 1920's, but by the end of the 1950's Accordions were 'dead' in sales terms. He declared to the company "we must make guitars"... but don't waste all the materials we have left!

So the glitter or sparkle guitar was born. Almost instantly the Italians and others were copying the idea. Two years later at the NAMM show Hagstrom received an order from Hershman Music of New York.

The order was for the two main versions of sparkle guitars but... because the patented Hi-Fi chassis (later), could be installed by anyone in minutes... Hershman asked for the guitars to be sent hollow bodied, without their pickup units installed. This saved the company a lot in consignment weight. Import duty was also less on 'acoustic' guitars alongside some 'hi-fi chassis' units (whatever the USA customs guys thought they might be!)

There were variations on this sparkle theme, both colours and shape. This initial version is shown with a black covering on the back of the body, neck and the headstock. More common was the imitation Mother of Pearl (Kwinn used to call it Mother of Toilet-seat). Sometimes it was even extended as an all over finish, and occasionally even tinted blue instead of the pearl white.

There were variations that set aside the lucite fretboard in favour of traditional rosewood, there were inset fretmarkings in the form of double rectangles on an enhanced version called EDP and because everything was heavily hand made, you could specifiy almost anything you wanted.

OK, the Hi-Fi Chassis. This was patented in 1958 by Hagstrom. Often wax sealed, these chrome rectangular pickup units came in single pickup, dual or 2 double pickups (very early humbuckers). The units, indeed the pickups themselves were also made by Hagstrom. They were going to change the world.

In 1962 Karl Erik Halgstrom senior came up with a sleek double cutaway sparkle design that has since become a major prize to any vintage collector - now commonly known as the Batman (or duckfoot in Sweden).

These Hi-Fi Chassis' had easy to press ENORMOUS rectangualr buttons to change pickup combinations, tone, solo (lead) and accompaniment (rhythm) which resonated through the mix everytime you pressed one, it wasn't subtle... but it kinda worked. Remember this was 1958!

This example (rare as it is now) seems to have stood the test of time better than many of these old sparkle models. No discolouration, no shrinkage, no cracks or anything that makes you worry about it being fragile!

We took it out of the case, sprayed a bit of Aeroclean in the jacksocket and it just played like a monster!

After a few more small batches of sparkle, Hagstrom moved on to phase two, which was clinically called the PB24G (Plastic Body 2 pickup, 4 switch Guitar) with reverse painted lucite used as the whole front of the body incorporating all the electronics, jack socket and the same pickups - now without the Hi-Fi Chassis - instead set into the front panel itself.

Reverse painting the Dupont Lucite provided a hardwearing lustre finish without any polish needed! Dupont developed Lucite as a strong clear acrylic like material that was even used as windscreens for USA bomber planes in World War II

Having made this video and seen / heard this old axe again, any thoughts of selling her are getting to be unlikely, having toyed with the idea for a while, this is clearly one very special historic guitar. RIP Karl Erik sr.

You can find more at http://www.hagstrom.org.uk

This demo was put together September 2013 by Elixir String endorsee Chris Cox (sadly this guitar doesn't have Elixir Strings on it)
http://www.goldenboulder.org.uk
  / chriscoxguitar