Thanksgiving Night Guitar Mystery - Solved!

[slowhand84]

So last month I bought a really neat older Japanese LP copy from GC for a measly $150, supposedly a D'Agostino. The info I found indicated these were Matsumoku-made, and were some of the nicer MIJ LPs between the set neck construction, fret nibs, and (as digging in the cavities confirmed) a mahogany neck and body with a plain maple top versus many others that were basically plywood and bolt-ons. The neck pickup was stock/unlabeled, bridge pickup when I pulled it turned out to be a Dimarzio Air Classic. Guitar felt, played, and sounded terrific. Really sweet grab for such a cheap price!

Earlier today when I was jammin' on it I noticed something that had for some reason escaped my glance up until now...a little bit of a mother of pearl headstock inlay peeking out from beneath the "D'Agostino of New York" decal. Curiouser and curiouser...

I was concerned about damaging whatever may be underneath as I couldn't really tell for sure if the decal was lacquered over or not, but I really wanted to get to the bottom of this. A little bit of scraping with my fingernail did nothing, but when I tried a trusty Dunlop Jazz III pick it did the trick beautifully. I've heard that many of these guitars were made in the Matsumoku factory and brands just slapped their decals on there, but I've never seen a brand just straight up paste their decal atop another brand's inlaid pearl logo...and it turns out this is not an 80s D'Agostino like I thought but a Cortez, still Japanese but likely from the 70s. Little bit of Goo Gone and everything cleaned up beautifully, leaving me with a much nicer lookin' headstock than before and a fun little story.

Thanks for reading and hope everyone is having a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Here's the guitar in question, a close-up of what I noticed, the work in progress, and lastly the finished product:

[uwmcscott]

Very cool...a satisfying feeling to solve the mystery too I bet. I think it looks like a killer guitar no matter what the name is on the headstock but nice to have it back to original condition for sure.

[slowhand84]

Very cool...a satisfying feeling to solve the mystery too I bet. I think it looks like a killer guitar no matter what the name is on the headstock but nice to have it back to original condition for sure.

Honestly I was about ready to go find someone to x-ray this thing for me because I was so sure I wouldn't be able to get under that decal without damaging things, so it's a relief! And yeah I feel it looks much nicer this way, the decal was beat up and really cheap looking but this is a nice real mother of pearl inlay that a guitar of this quality deserves.

Here's another snap of it where you can really see the colors:

[golem]

Interesting. I'd never heard of Cortex and then read this: https://www.vintageguitar.com/1933/jack-westheimer/

[slowhand84]

Interesting. I'd never heard of Cortex and then read this: https://www.vintageguitar.com/1933/jack-westheimer/

Neat, I've never actually come across that article. Thanks for sharing, some cool info in there!

[fullonshred]

@slowhand84 Very Cool, and congratulations. It does indeed look much better with the MOP Inlay Cortez logo.

[slowhand84]

@slowhand84 Very Cool, and congratulations. It does indeed look much better with the MOP Inlay Cortez logo.

Thanks! It really does. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around why D'Agostino would just take a Cortez guitar and slap their decal on, but makes for a fun story!

[mickey]

Maybe D'Agostino didn't? Perhaps someone else did?

[BatUtilityBelt]

Yup, if it had been me, that MOP inlay would have been driving me nuts as soon as I noticed it. Nice catch & discovery!

[Houblues]

Maybe D'Agostino didn't? Perhaps someone else did?

Given this line from the article mentioned above - Over the years, the main output of the Cort factory has been devoted to producing entry-level lines for established brand-name manufacturers, so you may see many Cort-made guitars which are not identified as such. Some early ’80s D’Agostinos were Cort Products.
it seems more likely it was at least semi- original.

Perhaps a last minute marketing decision. Perhaps this was one of the first guitars after that decision, before they implemented more formal changes at the factory. Or perhaps the same guitar was sold in two markets under different names.

If that were my guitar I would retain the original picture and the documentation referenced here for historical purposes.

[OMB]

Cool treasure hunt story! The new HS looks much nicer.

[mozz]

From the 10 year old guitar price guide. Don't feel like typing.

[slowhand84]

Maybe D'Agostino didn't? Perhaps someone else did?

I'm almost positive it was the company, there's no reason someone who owned it would do that...replacing a little known Japanese brand logo with an even lesser known one doesn't seem like something any customer would do but I know for a fact that they did "relabel" a lot of guitars in that factory at that time so that story seems to make the most sense.

Maybe D'Agostino didn't? Perhaps someone else did?

Given this line from the article mentioned above - Over the years, the main output of the Cort factory has been devoted to producing entry-level lines for established brand-name manufacturers, so you may see many Cort-made guitars which are not identified as such. Some early ’80s D’Agostinos were Cort Products.
it seems more likely it was at least semi- original.

Perhaps a last minute marketing decision. Perhaps this was one of the first guitars after that decision, before they implemented more formal changes at the factory. Or perhaps the same guitar was sold in two markets under different names.

If that were my guitar I would retain the original picture and the documentation referenced here for historical purposes.

Yeah I'll definitely keep the photos with the old logo, even though this is definitely one I will never sell.

From the 10 year old guitar price guide. Don't feel like typing.

20201127_110436_resized.jpg

Sweet! This one interestingly turned out not to be a D'Agostino at all, but they do have a few guitars that are definitely theirs (inlaid D'Agostino logos, etc) like this one: https://reverb.com/item/1812495-d-agost ... ric-guitar

[Mossman]

Maybe D'Agostino didn't? Perhaps someone else did?

I'm almost positive it was the company, there's no reason someone who owned it would do that...replacing a little known Japanese brand logo with an even lesser known one doesn't seem like something any customer would do but I know for a fact that they did "relabel" a lot of guitars in that factory at that time so that story seems to make the most sense.

Yeah, back in the '70s, Japanese guitar factories offered a selection of stock guitar models to choose from, and they would just slap your logo on the headstock. That's why Epiphone archtops from the '70s don't look anything like they're supposed to. For example; here's a picture of a "Casino" from the '70s, which is wrong on so many levels, I won't even start to get into it:



Matsomoku probably made that exact same LP for a number of different companies, and in this case, they probably just repurposed surplus necks, or entire guitars left over from another client's order.

[Tonray's Ghost]

The old chrome badge fell off my Subaru once....it didn't say anything underneath

[chimi42]

Wow,

I feel like I’ve done a lot of reading about older mij guitars and can’t recall hearing about anyone actually covering one brand with another logo.

Neat story and cool guitar!

[Tonray's Ghost]

Soon you'll everyone scratching off their Harley Benton logos in search of Glen Burton decals.

[slowhand84]

Soon you'll everyone scratching off their Harley Benton logos in search of Glen Burton decals.

Haha, if only. Now if anything I’ve got this brand on my
radar (the actual one, not the cover up!).

[nomadh]

Neat story and interesting history. Maybe keep the label in the control cavity in a baggie

[slowhand84]

Neat story and interesting history. Maybe keep the label in the control cavity in a baggie

Unfortunately not possible, it's like 40 years old so there was no way to remove it intact, only by literally scratching it off like a lottery ticket. But it's OK, I have the pic of the decal on there and this isn't a guitar I'm ever going to sell anyway.

[slowhand84]

In another fun update here I was restringing it tonight and noticed the bridge is a Faber...$105 new. Gift that keeps on giving, this thing...