Novatone guitar on eBay

Just got this in:

Item #: 1400124680
Title: Exotic Scales MULTI-FRETBOARD Guitar Partch
Price: $999.00
Bids: 0
Starts: Dec-23-01 07:24:39 PST
URL: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1400124680

I think the seller is one of our old correspondents, Glen Jones. The description:

Novatone Intonational Systems: In 1978 a guitar designer named Tom Stone began manufacturing a guitar with interchangeable fretboards, allowing for exotic scales, meantone tuning (better in-tune than standard intonation), and more -- something unique at the time and even more unusual today. (Guitarist John Schneider continues to perform and record using this guitar system -- he appears on several LPs and CDs of microtonal music by such composers as Harry Partch and the like.) Novatone went bust I-don't-know-how-many-years ago. I bought the guitar when it was first offered, and continued to buy new fingerboards as Novatone brought them out, right up until the time they closed up shop. Nine fretboards come with the guitar: two equal temperament (i.e.; standard) fretboards (only one is pictured; the other was on the guitar at the time), two A meantones, two G meantones, one aluminum fretless fingerboard, one based on Japanese Koto tuning, and -- one of the coolest -- a fretboard called the "Lou Harrison." Harrison was a close friend of hobo composer / microtonal theorist Harry Partch, and Harrison devised some unusual tuning systems of his own; Novatone based this fretboard on one of Harrison's scale designs. The fretboards can be changed without removing (or even detuning) the strings, and are held rigidly in place (magnetically) the full length of the fingerboard. To change them, you simply slide them sideways from under the strings. It takes all of about 10 seconds. To get an idea of what's being offered here take a gander at the scans -- I've provided lots of them -- and read the literature, which comes from various guitar magazines and newspapers of the time. It really is a remarkable and innovative instrument. I'm not aware of any similar experimenting on a commercial level being done today. The guitar, case and five fretboards sold for $525.00 in the late '70s. I purchased four additional fretboards beyond what came in the "starter kit." (My overall investment was probably around a grand.) The guitar itself is a customized Takamine classical model EC132SC, one that Takamine still makes, apparently, and which retails for around $1300.00 new. With cutaway and active electronic pickup (volume, bass, treble slider controls), it's in fine overall shape; wear from my pinkie finger resting on the face of the guitar is the most notable imperfection. There are a few minor nicks, and the finish on the back of the guitar has taken on a slightly milky appearance as the guitar has aged. I've tried to highlight these imperfections in my scans, but most are so minor they don't show up. The fingerboards are all in excellent shape, showing virtually no fretwear whatsoever (and I played them quite a bit!); the frets have held up every bit as well as conventional fretwire. The design works and the fretboards are tough as nails. The guitar plays fine, the action is low and everything you'd expect from a decent classical guitar. Besides the guitar, its original hardshell case and all the fretboards you see here, the auction includes pages and pages of literature and instruction, and a press kit.

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "Jonathan M. Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Just got this in:

Thanks Jon -- this may be a stroke of good luck for me. I was
seriously looking into Mark Rankin's (former employee of Tom Stone)
Interchangeable Fingerboard System, but I would have had to

(a) purchase a classical electric-acoustic guitar
(b) send lots of measurements and things to Mark Rankin, with
considerable back-and-forth
(c) actually do the carpentry involved in installing the system

This may save me lots of trouble, the only remaining step will be to
get some extra fingerboards from Mark, such as 26-tET and 27-tET.

Thanks!!