Baldwin - Burns Baby Bison Solid Body Electric Guitar (1965)
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Item # 8877
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Baldwin - Burns Baby Bison Model Solid Body Electric Guitar (1965), made in London, England, cherry polyester finish, sycamore body, maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, original black hard shell case.
The Baby Bison was Jim Burns' last design for the company that bore his name, initially intended as a less expensive "export" solid-body Bison model for the American market. When the Burns company was sold to Baldwin in September 1965, this guitar was just about to enter production, so "Burns"-labeled examples are almost non-existent.
This particular guitar is one of the very first batch of the early style Baby Bison model with a split "V" headstock, full long "Rezo-Tube" tailpiece, and only two small pickguard segments. All these features would be changed by Baldwin before the summer of 1966. A fairly large batch of these "Babys" was built in late '65 and sent over to the US as Baldwin's first salvo in their new guitar marketing campaign, but that seems to have been the only production run for this initial version.
The Baby Bison is generally a straightforward design...for Jim Burns, anyway. The most advanced feature is the same simple-looking but deceptively elaborate two-pickup circuit shared with the Burns Virginian and Baldwin Vibra-Slim. The pickups look identical from the outside, but the neck pickup is a stacked double coil unit with the second coil blended in via the middle "presence" control knob. The tone control and presence control only work on this forward pickup, while the bridge unit is wired straight out, like a Stratocaster.
This model was offered in both this bright cherry and black Polyester finish and is one of the more familiar Baldwin guitars to US players, as the initial production run was mostly sent here as flag bearers for the Baldwin/Burns line. This example is complete with its almost always missing trem arm for the "Rezo-Tube" trem unit, which works quite well. This is a trim and versatile guitar, once known as a favorite of Doobie Brother and studio ace Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. The "Bar-O-Matic" pickups are quite powerful without losing clarity, and the sound ranges from crisp to raunchy easily. A very cool and underrated 1960s guitar!
Overall length is 38 1/2 in. (97.8 cm.), 14 1/2 in. (36.8 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 1 1/2 in. (3.8 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 5/8 in. (41 mm.).
This is a super clean, completely original guitar. The cherry color is still very strong and there is none of the fading and checking that often plague these Burns/Baldwin finishes. There is some very minor scuffing overall and a couple of finish chips to the top edge of the body, but very little other wear anywhere. The plastic trim piece at the bottom of the vibrato has a small dink in the center and there is some scuffing to the "Baldwin" nameplate. This guitar plays and sounds excellent and is housed in a correct and very clean but enormous Baldwin case; must have been what the dealer had in stock that day in 1965! Quite the nicest of these we have ever had, a real gem of a "baby". Overall Excellent + Condition.
The Baby Bison was Jim Burns' last design for the company that bore his name, initially intended as a less expensive "export" solid-body Bison model for the American market. When the Burns company was sold to Baldwin in September 1965, this guitar was just about to enter production, so "Burns"-labeled examples are almost non-existent.
This particular guitar is one of the very first batch of the early style Baby Bison model with a split "V" headstock, full long "Rezo-Tube" tailpiece, and only two small pickguard segments. All these features would be changed by Baldwin before the summer of 1966. A fairly large batch of these "Babys" was built in late '65 and sent over to the US as Baldwin's first salvo in their new guitar marketing campaign, but that seems to have been the only production run for this initial version.
The Baby Bison is generally a straightforward design...for Jim Burns, anyway. The most advanced feature is the same simple-looking but deceptively elaborate two-pickup circuit shared with the Burns Virginian and Baldwin Vibra-Slim. The pickups look identical from the outside, but the neck pickup is a stacked double coil unit with the second coil blended in via the middle "presence" control knob. The tone control and presence control only work on this forward pickup, while the bridge unit is wired straight out, like a Stratocaster.
This model was offered in both this bright cherry and black Polyester finish and is one of the more familiar Baldwin guitars to US players, as the initial production run was mostly sent here as flag bearers for the Baldwin/Burns line. This example is complete with its almost always missing trem arm for the "Rezo-Tube" trem unit, which works quite well. This is a trim and versatile guitar, once known as a favorite of Doobie Brother and studio ace Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. The "Bar-O-Matic" pickups are quite powerful without losing clarity, and the sound ranges from crisp to raunchy easily. A very cool and underrated 1960s guitar!
Overall length is 38 1/2 in. (97.8 cm.), 14 1/2 in. (36.8 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 1 1/2 in. (3.8 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 5/8 in. (41 mm.).
This is a super clean, completely original guitar. The cherry color is still very strong and there is none of the fading and checking that often plague these Burns/Baldwin finishes. There is some very minor scuffing overall and a couple of finish chips to the top edge of the body, but very little other wear anywhere. The plastic trim piece at the bottom of the vibrato has a small dink in the center and there is some scuffing to the "Baldwin" nameplate. This guitar plays and sounds excellent and is housed in a correct and very clean but enormous Baldwin case; must have been what the dealer had in stock that day in 1965! Quite the nicest of these we have ever had, a real gem of a "baby". Overall Excellent + Condition.