Hallmark 60's Custom

[101Volts]

These are some fine Hallmarks. The custom one is so smooth and fine and the gold one is an oddball but it has an unusual appeal.

[sleeperNY]

This is the last pic my daughter just took of my Hallmark 60 Custom first run. Also my PartsRight Mosrite.


Jim

[dubtrub]

Great photo's. That new sunburst finish looks perfect.

[Dennisthe Menace]

Jim,
Those are GORGEOUS Guitars! What does HALLMARK call their Metal Flake Cherry Sunburst? I LOVE that!

[gplayer]

Jim,
Those are GORGEOUS Guitars! What does HALLMARK call their Metal Flake Cherry Sunburst? I LOVE that!

Fire Sparkle Burst

[sleeperNY]

Yes gpllayer is correct. I just can't say enough good things about that guitar. It plays great. If you look you can see that IO have shortened the tremolo arm some. I am used to playing my Gretsch guitars with the fixed Chet arm right under my fingers. I have thought about doing it to Mosrite but haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet.

Jim

[JimPage]

Hey--

I was over at Hallmark a couple of days ago and Bob let me play one of those fire-sparkle bursts. Man, JIMMY WANTS!!!

What a swell guitar. The fit and finish are just stunning. Someone mentioned in an old post that Bob and John are somewhat like the way Mosrite once was in having a small shop that did a lot of different things well. I have been trying to read all the posts on this forum in the last few weeks, as it is so great, but I sometimes can't remember exactly WHERE I read WHAT.

Point I want to make is that Bob and John have a rightous knowledge of Mosrites and Bob seriously holds his manufacturing partners feet to the fire when it comes to quality. Maybe that is where a small shop can do better than a big corporation.

I may not be the best git-fiddle player in the world but, like my dad used to say about his planes, when it looks right it is right. Bob's guitars are just as clean as a whistle and as straight as a board and he knows just what he is trying to achieve.

Now, I am trying to convince him to document a resurection from the dead of a rare guitar for me. I want to take the photos of Bob at work. I will say no more about it right now, except this is another guitar that JIMMY WANTS.

I got to stop hanging around this Shade guy. My wife is going to give me the skunk eye and she is counting the hardshell cases.

--Jim

[101Volts]

Hey, Where is Hallmark located? Just wondering where they are made, I don't think I read where they were made before.

[GattonFan]

Maryland (Greenbelt??) - But I think the production models are done in Korea - maybe by Samick?

[JimPage]

Hey--

GattonFan is correct in his identification of the city. There have been several electric guitar companies over the years in this area: Kapa Guitars, back in the 1960s, were made less than a mile from my home in Hyattsville, and Microfrets were made in Maryland, too.

Kapas were made by the owner of Veneman's Music (later bought out by Guitar Center), which had a Virginia and Maryland store back in the day. When I first came up to this area, in the mid-1980s, Veneman's house brand was called Bradley, and they were Fenderish instruments made in Japan. Their acoustic guitars were MIJ Martin knockoffs called Nagoyas, and I had a Bradley Jazz bass and a Nagoya 12-string. Both were rather good instruments for their time.

Never saw an original Microfrets, but I hear that they have been recently reborn as a Maryland company. And, of course, there is Paul Reed Smith up near Baltimore.

There are a slough of very good acoustic guitar builders in this area. Steve Carmody, in Silver Spring, Maryland, makes some wonderful ragtime/blues acoustics. Virginia has a lot of great acoustic makers; Huss and Dalton's are wonderful instruments, and Marty Fair and Stuart Orser, in Purcellville, have started Fairbuilt Guitars, which are tone monsters.

Yes; so many guitars; so little time is RIGHT!!! I do believe we are living in a golden age of guitar builders. And that's the way I like it.

--Jim