Japanese Columbus Les Paul

imalrightjack

Hi,

I've recently acquired this very solid old Les Paul.  I imagine it's from the 70s, has an oddly upside down neck plate, and plays pretty well despite some heavy fret wear in places.  Are they worth bothering with to upgrade or generally considered junk?

Just wondered!

richardhomer

They were low-end guitars - the bolt-on neck is a giveaway - and the ‘carved’ tops were usually pressed hardboard. And under those covers - were single-coil pick-ups.

That said, a school friend had one - I think they’re cool. Better pick-ups and pots would certainly improve it.

ICBM

Yes, they're somewhere between firewood and quite cool, depending on who you talk to .

I like them - they're certainly fairly low quality, but they have a bit of a 'vibe' about them even with the original terrible single-coil pickups hidden inside humbucker casings...

The machineheads are crap too, but if they're taken apart and greased they can usually be made functional.

If the frets aren't starting to lift and there's no major unevenness in the neck then it should be possible to make it quite playable. If the neckplate is on upside down it's easy to turn round, but beware that the screw holes in the neck are easily stripped - the wood is softer than the maple you would find on a Fender. Easy enough to fix, but you need to be prepared for this, since if the plate is on backwards the neck has been off at least once before.

The pots are probably OK, although they will certainly need cleaning, from experience - if anything the switch and the jack are the weak points in the electrics. The switches can be fixed, but you need to open them up which isn't that easy.

I've restored and upgraded quite a few of these and related brands now, and I always get good money for them - they have a genuine 'vintage' nostalgic appeal to a lot of people.

imalrightjack

Thanks, both. 

@ICBM How much they worth, upgraded and not? Roughly . 

TTony

My first guitar, way back when ...

Voxman

I remember those Columbus copies very well. But I never knew the pick ups were only single coil. No wonder they sounded so thin. Other Japanese LP copies from that era included Jedson, Antoria and Shaftesbury but I think those all had humbuckers? 

ICBM

imalrightjack said:

@ICBM How much they worth, upgraded and not? Roughly . 

£150-£250 depending on condition, playability and originality - possibly slightly more with an appropriate pickup upgrade.

Some people will laugh at that I’m sure, but I’ve sold several of them at those prices without any difficulty, mostly with the original pickups.

SteveRobinson

I had the Avon equivalent as my first guitar

A few years back I upgraded one for a customer. New tuners, refret, pots, switch, jack and pickups etc., the works. About £350 worth.

When he sold it a few months later he got less than the cost of the Bare Knuckle pickups.

rossi

I got one for a fiver up the recycling centre .It needed cleaning,  hundreds of shiny glittery very old star and lady bird stickers removed, a new  set strings and a tuner.Its neck is very playable  now  though its had a not very good fret level to get the action lower up top end .It stays in tune now .The sound is warm and jazzy on the neck pickup ,think P90 but the bridge is a bit sharp .I wouldnt spend much on it and would prefer to put good money into say a  used Vintage Les Paul  type  if thats what what i wanted.That said its good guitar and pleased I saved it .The great bonus for me was the Morley power volume and  wah  that  got thrown in with it .I sold that for quite a bit so luvvly jubbly .

JezWynd

That's in excellent condition considering its age. Nice score.

ICBM

Voxman said:

I remember those Columbus copies very well. But I never knew the pick ups were only single coil. No wonder they sounded so thin. Other Japanese LP copies from that era included Jedson, Antoria and Shaftesbury but I think those all had humbuckers? 

Some did, but a lot had the 'tin can' pickups with a crude low-wound (about 4K from memory), bent-steel pole, ceramic magnet single coil inside. You can easily tell without taking them apart - if you unscrew one of the polepieces and it comes out as a short screw threaded into a piece of metal just under the cover, it's one of these.

I had a Hondo one as my second electric guitar - I had an Aria Strat copy but wanted something with a fatter Gibson sound... so I was somewhat disappointed to find it was weaker and thinner-sounding than the Strat! And it hummed a lot - which is the other easy way to tell. I thought the pickups might be faulty, so I took them apart and was a bit shocked to find that inside.

SteveRobinson said:

A few years back I upgraded one for a customer. New tuners, refret, pots, switch, jack and pickups etc., the works. About £350 worth.

When he sold it a few months later he got less than the cost of the Bare Knuckle pickups.

That was a bit silly of him...

By 'appropriate' pickups I meant something like a pair of old OEM far-east-made DiMarzios (period correct) or a pair of modern Epiphone pickups (price point correct!), or just something else half-decent but cheap. I would certainly not spend over £50 each, and preferably no more than £50 the pair.

midlifecrisis

i remember when as a kid in the 70s, wanting to buy an electric guitar, back then, no ebay,or internet, it was a case of waiting for the weekly local paper or buying a copy of exchange and mart, invariably when guitars were advertised they seemed to be colombus's, avons or kay's.  it took me a few more years before i actually bought something

Grangousier

A couple of years ago I was given two (!) almost identical Shaftesbury LPs from separate sources, much like these - are they all the same apart from the name on the headstock? Fantastically heavy. One has the original pickups, the other was extensively hacked. I've been trying to work out what to do with them - at the very least something to put interesting pickups on. But it would probably be a lot of work. 

(Vintage Japanese guitars, though. I realise that's bullshit, but it's technically true.)

hassleham

I have something very similar to this but it had a plastic logo on the headstock which has come off so I’m not sure what it is. It has Maxon humbuckers though and not hidden single coils!

rossi

I would stick in a pair of Tonerider Rocksongs if I was upgrading they are great pickups and cost little .Donliss  on Aliexpress are getting some love too .The Donliss  p94's I had were  very good .Bear in mind its  in reality  its   a light semi hollow not a solid at least mind isnt .I also had to squander seven quid on a Korean wiring loom as it all went very noisy all of a sudden and i never did trace it .DONT SPEND MUCH is the message just have fun .
There is a whole genre of vintage Japanese guitars but gawd most were crap then and crap now .They certainly learned their trade  well though .

baldy

If, as you say "it plays pretty well", then some budget upgrades may be worth while & need not cost that much, it is up to you.
Just before xmas I bought a Rockburn LP copy for the princely sum of £25.
A cheap Chinese guitar which on the face of it seems a similar spec guitar with a "hard board" cap, crap tuners, crap sounding pick ups (never looked to see if they were HB"s or not) & tone controls that didn"t seem to do anything.
I altered the relief, lowered the action & intonated it.
After advice from on here I fitted Wilkinson EZ-Lok tuners, Vanson 59 Alnico PAF Humbuckers, Alpha pots & a new toggle switch.
I made up a new wiring harness myself.
All the parts came to £70 & totally transformed the guitar.
It is now very playable, stays in tune & sounds great, which it did not before.
The work was very straightforward IMO & well worth it.

guitars4you

I recall selling them in the mid/late 70's - around £69 - similar price to the Avon and Shaftesbury

HarrySeven

I'd generally echo the above comments.

If you're upgrading to make playable, budget accordingly, bearing in mind that:

• They can often be picked up for between £FREE and say, £70.
• They weren't great quality in the first place.

 
Also, there are people who collect pristine original examples of older, low-end MIJ stuff, which are actually (very) slowly becoming more scarce because the majority are upgraded in order to render them usable.

baldy

Mine now owes me £95 & a day of my time.
It plays & sounds better than some much dearer Epiphone"s I have tried.
It is however a very cheap guitar.
Besides the hard board "cap" the body wood is crap, & the "routing"  looks like it was done by a drunk monkey with a blunt chisel.
It is all hidden underneath thick paint though so actually looks ok & as I said plays & sound good.
I am actually thinking of buying another similar one for £30 & upgrading it to give to my stepson as he likes mine so much.
The pick ups really are a revelation for £30 a pair.

blobb

blobb

the brand was one of 3 owned by UK importer/distributor Fletcher,Coppock & Newman (FCN) & was the mid-tier marque alongside the Satellite starter range & high-end Kimbara. Like most other generic copy instruments from that era, they seem to be Chushin Gakki products & are identical to brands like Maya, Avon, Grant, CMI, Sumbro etc. Later examples were Korean-made & these are mostly branded as Columbus Mk 2 or 3.