HW Artist

[BobK1959]

Strolled into a guitar shop over the weekend (you have to!) and they had a HW Artist ‘Les Paul Custom’. Never heard of this brand. Very little on the net.

They wanted £700. That struck me as very expensive for a brand ive never heard of.

Looked well built, sounded decent. Didnt compare favourably with my Greco’s or Orville.

Anyone heard of HW?

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Like this one?

https://guitarvillage.co.uk/product/hw-artist-custom-black-pre-owned-circa-1970s-ec

 

[BobK1959]

The very one!

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Nothing is known about the (importer's) label, much less what it even means... HH? HW? HHW? HHK? Speculations exist that the guitars were made by Yamaki, the one example I could see with pot codes looked like 1980 to give it a time frame.

They look like semi-decent, albeit typical lower mid-budget (50,000JPY) ) guitars that copy Norlin spec Gibbys. So there is no special pedigree to them, no particular property or story to it that would make them collectibles but the price is - of course - as inflated as any other example of random guitar copy import sold nowadays, trying to ride the "vintage MIJ" wave.

Sounds like it didn't spark any passion when you tried it, so it's definitely not cheap enough for you!