VIKING SUNDAY Sunburst at Sunrise. 1967 GRETSCH VIKING. Model 6187 From the “golden years” of GRETSCH GUITARS before the BALDWIN purchase of the company. In terms of cosmetic appearance this is my favorite Gretsch guitar. It was destined to be a noble guitar from the time it received its name: VIKING. And look at all of the hardware on it. It is a grand sight. A full metal fabrication shop was needed to do the knobs, switch tips, etc. The Model 6187 was finished in sunburst and this guitar is a beautiful example of that finish. Many believe that the VIKING was the alter ego of the WHITE FALCON that was available during the same time period. Whereas the WHITE FALCON is elegant and shouts maturity and elegance more welcomed in a jazz club, the VIKING is a late night honkytonk club rocker. It is clearly a male ego guitar. And the “GRETSCH FLOATING SOUND UNIT” is without doubt, the most innovative, yet misunderstood and misused, feature ever installed on an acoustic bodied guitar. The “mazing GRETSCH FLOATING SOUND UNIT. (FSU) “ is how Gretsch described this overly complicated attempt at “giving the VIKING the fullest sound of any guitar built”. Quite simply the concept was to attach a “floating tuning fork” to the strings to promote sustain. And the tuning fork does actually float only attached to the strings. Using the principle of vibration transference the goal was to resonate the string vibrations to the body of the guitar. Did it work? Mostly no. I know some players have gotten some really cool “echoing sustain” by moving the fork back toward the bridge until it is touching the wood of the top (taking the plastic insert ring away from the hole for the tuning fork). Takes a bit of trial and error but eventually you will come up with a sound like no one else has but you must take a photo and measurements etc. in hopes of repeating it again but only count on playing one song before it goes squirrely on you. Another one of my favorite guitars from my collection. I have several other GRETSCH guitars that I will be posting later. If you want to see more guitars on my timeline and are not a friend, please send me a request and I will add you. NOTE: This guitar really looks better with a tweed amp but since I could not bear putting it in front of one of my Fenders I used a few of my vintage tweed suitcases. Seems to fit quick nicely.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 11:25:39 +0000
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