Grimshaw Guitars
Grimshaw Guitars was a British manufacturer of guitars and related instruments from the 1930s to the 1980s, known for producing acoustic archtop guitars in the 1930s–1940s, electrified archtop guitars in the 1940s and 1950s, semi-solid electric guitars in the 1950s–1960s, and mainly solidbody guitars from the late 1950s to 1980s, along with smaller quantities of banjos, hawaiian guitars, electric bass guitars, acoustic guitars and nylon string guitars. Their archtop guitars were used by British players from the 1930s to the 1950s, when equivalent U.S.-made instruments were difficult to obtain in Britain, and their early electric thinline instruments such as the "S.S.1" and "S.S.1 deluxe" were popular with British "beat" groups of the early 1960s. Sales declined in the later 1960s and 1970s with easier access by customers to better made U.S. instruments at one end of the scale, and cheaper imported instruments, mostly from Japan, with which the Grimshaw line could not compete on price. The Grimshaw factory closed in the mid 1980s and its junior partner founder, Emile Grimshaw Jnr, died in 1987. Since that time, surviving instruments occasionally appear on the used market but tend to be somewhat overshadowed in favour of better known instruments of similar age by other British manufacturers such as Burns, Vox, etc.
History
Emile Grimshaw, Snr was a noted banjo player and educator from the early 1900s onwards. According to this site, Emile Snr had an association with the British Clifford Essex banjo manufacturing company during which time he had some banjos constructed under his name by Robert Blake of Finchley, London, which bore the mark "E G" or "Hartford" ; a "Grimshaw Hartford" tenor banjo of unspecified date is illustrated here. In 1933, Emile Snr severed his connection with Clifford Essex and set up his own firm "Emile Grimshaw & Son" together with his son, Emile Grimshaw Jnr to manufacture guitars and some related instruments. The firm aimed to capitalise on the growing popularity of dance band music, in which players formerly using the banjo were switching to the guitar on account of its increased sonority and subtlety compared with the somewhat raucous sound of the banjo. Unfortunately, this being before the era of amplification, most guitars of the day – typically of the archtop variety – had trouble competing in volume with the louder instruments of the dance band, and Emile Snr, with his background associated with banjos and their construction, decided that the principle of the banjo "resonator" could be adopted to perform an equivalent function with the archtop guitar..Calling their new-style archtop with resonator back the "Revelation" line, and marketed alongside a range of less expensive "Hartford" archtops which lacked the external resonator, by 1936 the front page of the "Revelation" catalogue showed photographs of almost 40 different players, each presumably happy with their "Revelation" instrument of choice, while inside, text stated that " 'Revelation' guitars are played exclusively by Sonny Farrer; Shirley Holmes of Larry Brennan's Winter Gardens Band, Blackpool; J.D. Llewellyn; Bill Herbert of the Rocky Mountaineers; Thomas Jackson, Musical Director, Wembley Stadium; Steve Gauna of Alfredo's Gipsy Band and hundreds of other well known players", while other endorsees named in the catalogue included Ronnie Genarder of Jack Payne's band, so it can be presumed that the reception of these instruments was at least moderately successful. In the 1936 catalogue, the cheaper instruments appear to have been constructed with flat, not arched, tops and with a round soundhole and were also offered with another Grimshaw innovation, a fully adjustable, multi-component wooden bridge; both were patented, the resonator back being pat. no. 414200, and the adjustable bridge pat. no. 452570. The top "Revelation" models G.4 and G.5, along with the non-resonator "Hartford 12", were being offered with a better quality curved rather than flat top and also with f-holes as an option, as an alternative to the previously standard single round soundhole. Also in the 1940 catalogue, a range of "E.G." banjos were included. The reference previously citedstates that the banjos sold under the "Vivavox" line were initially made by Sidney Young in Houghton's Factory in Birmingham, and from 1942 by Will Mitchell in their own workshop.
Details of instruments offered through the early 1940s are unknown, however by at least 1948 Grimshaw instruments had embraced electrification, with a late 1940s catalogue showing electrified versions of the G.5 and electrified versions of the G.3, G.6, and new "Plectric" and "Plectric de Luxe" models, the latter being full-thickness archtop guitars with extraordinarily deep cutaways, along with 2 electric solidbody "electrahawaiian" instruments somewhat similar to those produced by the Rickenbacker company. Grimshaw also applied for, and later received, a patent for their particular pick-up unit design, which was incorporated into the end of the fingerboard to avoid any structural interference with the acoustical vibrations of the guitar top.
Grimshaw continued to manufacture deep body archtops through the 1950s and later which were used by British players such as Dave Goldberg and Jack Toogood.
Thinline hollowbodies such as the Gibson ES-335, which were more resistant to feedback at higher volumes, started to appear and be used by rock-and-roll musicians in the late 1950s. Grimshaw's entry into this field was the "S.S." line comprising the "S.S.1" and "S.S.1 deluxe", thinline double cutaway instruments of a novel design which found some favour with early British "rock" and "beat" group guitarists including Pete Townshend, Joe Brown, Bruce Welch, Francis Rossi, Spencer Davis, Joe Moretti, Alvin Lee and many more.
Many "beat" and "pop" players gravitated towards completely solid instruments; Grimshaw's first response was their "Meteor" model, followed later in the 1960s with their "G.S.7" and "G.S.33" models, which had an overall body shape similar to the semi-acoustic "S.S." series; several other semi-acoustic instruments were still made, including the G.S.75, in a more conventional double cutaway style somewhat similar to a Gibson 335. By that time, Grimshaw was also offering their take on an acoustic guitar called the "Troubadour" model, with a cutaway and D-shaped soundhole somewhat like an early Selmer Maccaferri; at least 2 of these were custom ordered in 12-string versions in the late 1950s, by guitarists Cyril Davies and his friend Len Partridge, as documented in Colin Harper's biography of Bert Jansch and illustrated therein; both Davies and Partridge were seeking to emulate the sound of the 12-string guitar as played by Huddie William Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, and no such instruments were otherwise commercially available in Britain at that time. By the mid 1960s with folk revival in full swing, Grimshaw also offered a more conventional, dreadnought shape acoustic, the J.1, "designed specially for vocal accompaniment and C & W ".
As the 1960s progressed into the 1970s and beyond and accessibility of U.S.-made instruments improved, most professional U.K. players gravitated to these while players starting out were presented with options to buy cheap, mainly Japanese made copies of the same, which left British guitar manufacturing in a situation where it was difficult to compete; Vox moved their production to Japan in 1982 and Burns ceased guitar production in 1970. Grimshaw continued at a low level until the mid 1980s, releasing first some Gibson Les Paul copies and latterly, various special order models such as several double-neck solidbody instruments. The main arm of the company ceased operations in ca. 1985, although an ex-Grimshaw employee Frank Lonergan continued working under the Grimshaw name until the end of the decade undertaking repairs and refurbishments.
Current reputation and buyer interest
With almost zero player interest in re-creating the 1930s British dance band style, Grimshaw guitars of this period have little value to either players or collectors, and in particular their cheaper models with flat tops and round soundholes are not considered at all desirable even with their "curiosity" external resonators in some cases. More "conventional" Grimshaw archtop guitars from the 1940s and 1950s rarely come up for sale so no judgement can be made as to their expected value or desirability, however an all-original "Plectric" or "Plectric de Luxe" might be anticipated to command a reasonably high price. There is some "collector" interest in better preserved examples of the interesting and distinctive "S.S." line from the early 1960s, as evidenced by these two advertisements on the "reverb" sale site, while prices for their other solidbody offerings are generally not high.List of known models, years and prices
1936 catalogue
- EG "Hartford" – £7.10.0
- EG "Hartford 12" – 12 guineas
- EG "Revelation" – 16 guineas
- EG "Revelation" De-Luxe – 24 guineas
- EG "Revelation" G.4 – 28 guineas
- EG "Revelation" G.5 – 36 guineas
- EG "Revelation" Hawaiian – 16 guineas
1940 catalogue
Guitar prices and models unchanged, except "Revelation", G.4 and G.5 offered with "f"-holes as option; also includes the following banjos :- EG Vivavox 5 – £7.0.0
- EG Minor – £7.0.0
- EG Vivavox 10 – £12.0.0
- EG Major – £12.0.0
- EG Vivavox 16 – £19.0.0
- EG Superex – £19.5.0
- EG Vivavox – £30.0.0
- EG Grand – £30.0.0
- EG Bass Banjo – £12.12.0
Late 1940s catalogue (at least 1948; prices not shown)
All archtops now have f-holes and a pick-up, optionally can be ordered without; G.5 has resonator, others do not- E.G. "Hartford 10"
- "G.3"
- "G.5 electric"
- "G.6"
- "Plectric"
- "Plectric" de Luxe
- E.G. "Electrawaiian"
- E.G. "Electrawaiian" Model B
1958 price list
As per copy hereAcoustic archtops:
- E.G. Hartford non-cutaway – £26.19.0
- E.G. Hartford with cutaway – £29.15.0
- Hartford 10 non-cutaway – £38.17.0
- Hartford 10 with cutaway – £43.8.0
- G.3 – £48.6.0
- Hartford 12 with cutaway – £52.10.0
- G.6 – £56.7.0
- Supreme – £69.6.0
- E.G. Hartford non-cutaway – £34.6.0
- E.G. Hartford with cutaway – £37.2.0
- Hartford 10 non-cutaway – £46.4.0
- Hartford 10 with cutaway – £50.15.0
- G.3 – £55.13.0
- Plectric – £61.19.0
- G.6 de Luxe – £63.14.0
- Plectric de Luxe – £70.0.0
- Supreme – £70.0.0
- Plectric Supreme – £84.0.0
- S.S.1 – £47.12.0
- S.S.1 Bass guitar – £57.15.0
- E.G. Troubadour non-cutaway – £39.18.0
- E.G. Troubadour with cutaway – £44.2.0
- Grimshaw Troubadour 12-string version
1963 Model range description
Details here- S.S. Supreme
- S.S. De Luxe
- S.S. Bass guitar
- Meteor – Grimshaw's first solidbody, slab construction with 2 humbucking pickups
Late 1960s catalogues
- G.S.30 – also badged as Park ;
- G.B.30 Bass guitar
- G.S.7
- G.S.33
- G.S.75 )
- T.6 E Troubadour – based on previous acoustic-only Troubadour, with added pickup to end of fingerboard, tone and volume controls on soundboard
Unknown dates
- Grimshaw Les Paul style/G.S.30 in 12 string version
- Grimshaw GTC "slab style" twin neck solidbody
- Grimshaw GSG twin neck solidbody
- Grimshaw GSC solidbody, twin single coil pickups