Custom Avalon Vintage 1960's Bass Guitar (Shaggs) Tobacco Burst

Avalon 4-String 1960s Bass Guitar - Sunburst

Extremely Rare & Collectable

Solid Body

Tobacco Burst Finish Body and Head Stock

Five-Screw Chrome Neck Plate with "Made in JAPAN" engraved

Mother of Pearl Head Stock Inlay

1 Pick-Up, 1 Volume Control, 1 Tone Control

Chrome Plated Steel Pick guard

Pick-Up Ring / Single Pick-Up

Bridge-Plate Assembly (with ding)

Strat-Style Out-Put Jack

Long Scale

Set-Up & Adjusted

Solid and Adjustable Neck

Condition: good with lacquer stress checking, and scratches and dents normal for the age

Screws have replaced the strap buttons


A bass guitar made famous by The Shaggs who played Avalon guitars. The only GOOD thing that came out of the Shaggs was a legendary guitar and bass, the Avalon “Shaggs” models

Meet the Shaggs (1960’s The Shaggs Avalon Guitar)

OCTOBER 1, 2005 BY MICHAEL WRIGHT

The Shaggs. Now there was a band that was baad! No, I’m not talking street slang where you’re supposed to flip over the meaning. They were bad. There may never have been a recorded rock band that was worse. Couldn’t sing, couldn’t play, the songs were awful, and they were terribly produced. There’s a CD of their two albums. Check them out for yourself. BAD! In fact, the only GOOD thing that came out of the Shaggs was a legendary guitar and bass, the Avalon “Shaggs” models!

The Shaggs was a family band, basically the idea of Austin Wiggin, Jr., a poor mill hand whose mother once read his palm and told him he’d have daughters some day and they would be part of a band. The Shaggs were the fulfillment of that prediction, sort of American primitive. Hailing from the small town of Fremont, New Hampshire, the Shaggs was made up of Wiggin’s daughters, Betty (16) on bass, Dorothy (Dot, 19) on guitar, respectively, and Helen (20) on drums. Young sister Rachel sometimes also performed. Dot wrote the lyrics and developed the melodies, while Betty pitched in on working out chords and rhythms. Their primary musical influences were Herman’s Hermits, Ricky Nelson, and Dino, Desi and Billy. Austin was manager and named the band. He got the matching instruments from somewhere and the band took lessons until they recorded their first album in 1969. The guitar and bass were Avalons.

Now, these are known as Shaggs models because they’re what the Shaggs played, not because of some big corporate endorsement deal! Japanese guitarmakers were competing with the Europeans early on in the 1960s and some of the earliest ‘copying’ was of European models. By the mid-’60s the EKO Violin guitar and bass, itself a copy of the Hofner made famous by Paul McCartney, was one of the most popular guitars to be honored with imitation. Another model that got imitated early on was the Burns Bison, with its long, pointy, inturned cutaway horns. The Avalon Shaggs were in the Bison mode.

What can you say about the Avalon Shaggs that one look doesn’t explain. A cool shape, with maybe one of the greatest headstock designs ever, uh, conceived. We like to call the shape Goofy. Flamed maple top and back veneers (over plywood), done up in to-die-for black-to-yellow sunburst! Lots of chrome metal trim. I once claimed that the pickups on my Kent were the worst ever made. I lied. These little ceramic units are just as bad, if not worse! Making the fact that the Shaggs were even able to record with them at all is a miracle!

The Shaggs recorded a follow-up album in 1980, but that was the band’s last gasp. We don’t know what kind of guitars they used. Except for a (demented) cult following, these rare Avalons are all that’s left of their legacy. And they’re so bad, they’re positively baad. Know what I’m sayin’?

see Stebal Drums, a Five-Star Drumshop

Product Specs

Condition:Good Make:Avalon Model:Vintage 1960's Bass Guitar (Shaggs) Finish:Tobacco Burst Categories:4-String Year:1960's Made In:Japan

Listed via the Reverb App