Maton Electric Owners

I thought I'd start a thread to see if there are other owners of these great guitars on TDPRI.

Here's mine:

http://files.me.com/mepstein/r9laco

It's currently my only non Strat, Tele-style, or Jazzmaster guitar . . . nice for when I don't want to play anything that sounds like a Fender. I swapped the stock pickups for SD Phat Cats. I hope to own another one someday -- maybe one of the bolt-on models.

Nice looking guitar. Is that the MS2000 DLX I see on their website?
Hows it play?

I think it's the standard model. The deluxes have a bound fretboard and block inlays, I believe. This one has a better top than the other standards that I've seen -- maybe it was an option.

It plays great. When I first had it set up, the action was actually too (with .11s), so I had to raise it a little. Other than that, it's great; string bending is really easy. I almost always overbend when I switch from my Teles or Jazzmasters to the Maton.

That is a beauty mepst! Congrats of a fine guitar.

I was fortunate to tour the Maton factory and play quite a few Matons while in Melbourne a while back. Spectacular guitars! I was really hoping to come home with an electric and an acoustic, but the local used, pawn shop thing didn't quite work out like it does in my area!

The Maton MS500 the entry level Mastersound has an almost P90 looking single coil at the neck and a humbucker with a coil tap at the bridge with a rotary pickup selector
marked COOL/MIDWAY/HIFI and looks very retro being first introduced in 1957.
Was very interested in the Maton MS500 when the price of the AVRI 62 Telecaster
went up steeply out of reach nearly got one in tobbacco sunburst with a black scratch plate but ended up falling for a Guild Starfire 4 instead.
Maton are best known for their quality acoustics but the electric Mastersounds do have a loyal following and George Harrison played one.

The Factory tour is a great experience and you get to see some great guitars
I've got a couple of acoustics. one classical, plus a CW 80 12 string acoustic
BUT this is my pride and joy, a EG 240 made in 1960. All original except for the Schaller Tuners

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/telemudd/Wiggles.jpg

Sorry I just couldn’t help myself.

But seriously they are great guitars. I don’t have one but a local Mom & Pop store stocks them. You can get a lot of different tones out of them. Wish I could get one.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/telemudd/Wiggles.jpg

Sorry I just couldn’t help myself.

But seriously they are great guitars. I don’t have one but a local Mom & Pop store stocks them. You can get a lot of different tones out of them. Wish I could get one.

Ha another of Australia's great exports ! Maton Guitars and the Wiggles!

Seriously though the basic MS 500 is a great guitar as an entry model.
They do make really good Acoustics and their Jazz Electrics have a good name as do theirs Basses, the JB 4 from the early 80's was a top notch bass.
Their electrics were always a little under cooked, some real weird and wacky designs in the 60's and others that were so close to copy write infringement.
Neville Kitchen, Bill May's son in law, who is one of the people in charge is a great guy, I have been to the factory maybe 5 times in the last 30 years to get some work done on a guitar, each time he greets me like I'm a top Musician, ( I'm just a hack weekend player).

Great Company,

Here's a farily rare Maton electric...

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1052255/Maton1972TelecasterCopy.JPG

I have a Maton acoustic. EBG808 model

Hi

Here's my '93 Custom Cuttaway with an unusual bowlback design.

It Has a solid Spruce top, Rock maple sides and Rockmaple ply back, mainly so they could shape it I guess.

I've had it 13 years now, sounds beautiful. Has an earlier AP4 pickup.

I love this guitar.

Cheers

O

The Factory tour is a great experience and you get to see some great guitars
I've got a couple of acoustics. one classical, plus a CW 80 12 string acoustic
BUT this is my pride and joy, a EG 240 made in 1960. All original except for the Schaller Tuners

I briefly had a guitar exactly like your EG 240 about 10 or 15 years ago. Notwithstanding the cutaway I had the idea I could turn it around and string it left handed but that didn't work out as well as I expected. The staggered polepieces were non-adjustable and consequently the string to string output balance was out of whack when strung left handed. I tried turning the pickups 180 degrees but then they wouldn't sit properly in the mounting holes because the top didn't have a symmetrical contour. So I gave up and sold it.

A shame really because it would have suited the old swing, jump blues and honky tonk music I was playing at that time and I never have found a decent lefty hollowbody at a time when I could afford it.

I do still have a very old Maton Coolibah acoustic (totally different to the modern Coolibahs) with a serial number in the 300s. It was originally a righty that I had converted to lefty back in the 80s. Back then I wrote to Maton and they told me it was made in 1953. The top is a very strange wood with a wide flaring grain instead of the usual straight and narrow grain. Certainly nothing like spruce or cedar. I suspect it's an Australian wood of some sort. It used to sound ok in warm weather and has an excellent neck, but really it's not a very good sounding guitar (lacking bass) and the intonation was never quite right due to a poor lefty conversion job. But it was my main axe for years while I was learning and I've always kept it for sentimental reasons.

I just did a quick search of Google images and it's similar to this except mine has a cool black pickguard with a sailing ship design etched in.

http://johnmayer.yuku.com/topic/8705/1950s-Maton-Acoustic#.ToO2Is2U73U

I've owned lots of early Maton guitars since 1968...probably more than fifty
I thought I'd post some pics of some of the interesting ones

My first Maton Fyrbyrd 1968

http://imageshack.us/a/img829/6602/davefogerty4bt.jpg

My buddy playing the same Fyrbyrd after I sold it to him

http://imageshack.us/a/img203/6595/37390729322842670341258.jpg

Maton DC545 I bought in 1969

http://imageshack.us/a/img829/4532/39867629322375058651258.jpg

At my first gig 1972 with a white Maton Wedgetail

http://imageshack.us/a/img834/4339/39054929322409859521258.jpg

Another Wedgetail identical to one I owned in the 70's (could be my old one - webpic)

http://imageshack.us/a/img827/4308/maton01431x141.png

http://imageshack.us/a/img402/7922/wedgtailbodytop431x351.jpg

Here's another pic I found of my old Maton El Toro - baritone scale 32 frets
(I know it's my old one 'cos of the wear marks & corrosion)

http://imageshack.us/a/img21/2796/59297366.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img15/1060/54228579.jpg

Here's another webpic of a mint Fyrbyrd with tags.
I'm pretty sure this is the one I briefly owned in the 90's, hard to tell.
Can't be many in this condition

http://imageshack.us/a/img29/1604/63matonfyrbyrd.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img651/535/63matonfyrbyrd2.jpg

Will post again soon with more interesting Maton pics including the Baroque bass,
Ibis, Flamingo and 3 different versions of the original 50's MS500 Mastersound!