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| My Grandma lived on the top floor of this house. |
When I was a young kid it was a treat to visit my Grandma. She lived in an old apartment above a residence with an amazing staircase that today would be considered antique. In fact the entire house was antique.
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| There is the staircase with the circular window |
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| Mother of Pearl Toilet Seat |
The huge bathtub had claw feet, the ceramic sink was on a pedestal, but the most fascinating thing to a child of that age was her toilet seat. It had pearl-like chips of back, gray, and white embedded in it. The one we had at home was just plain pink.
This same pearl-like design showed up later on some electric and electric steel guitars. Due to the popularity of its use on potty seats of the 1950’s it becamed nicknamed “mother of toilet seat” or MOTS.
I thought about Grandma and her wonderful toilet seat when I recently received a Facebook post from The Bemis Manufacturing Company; an old company from Sheboygan Wisconsin that is best known for manufacturing quality wooden and plastic toilet seats.
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| Bema Seat from The Amsterdam Synagogue |
But I digress.
This Face Book post from the Bemis company was a reminder that at one time the Gibson Guitar Company had contracted with Bemis Manufacturing to produce guitar bodies. Yep, it is hard to believe, but it is true. Gibson actually made a TOILET SEAT guitar.
In 1965 the guitar market was flooded with Japanese imported inexpensive electric guitars because every kid not just the United States, but I dare say much of the world, wanting to be a Beatle.
At that time Gibson’s student guitar was of course The Melody Maker. This instrument was of a much higher quality than any of the imports. The Gibson Melody Maker was first launched in 1959 and in 1971 was discontinued.
The Melody Maker guitar had a thin slab-style solid mahogany body and a one-piece set in mahogany neck. To keep assembly costs down all the electronics, from the small single-coil pickups to the cable jack and controls, were assembled on the pickguard and installed in a rout in the front of the body. The strings ran from a straight-sided simplification of the traditional Gibson headstock at one end to a wraparound bridge/tailpiece unit at the other. Some models came with a budget vibrato unit.
From 1959 until 1961, the Melody Maker had a single cutaway slab body style similar to the early Les Paul Junior model but thinner. Then in 1961 the body style changed to a symmetrical double cutaway.
By 1966 the body style was changed to a style similar to the SG guitar, with pointed "horns", a large white pickguard, and white pickup covers instead of black.
In 1959 the original retail price for a Gibson Melody Maker was $99.50. By 1960 the price for a twin pickup model was $135.50. By 1966 the Melody Maker price was increased to $149.50 and had a $10 price increase each subsequent year.
But in 1965 many Japanese electric guitars were selling for around the $50 to $100 price range. Another competitor was Danelectro/Silvertone who offered electric guitars as cheap as $39.95. In 1965 the average United States income was $6900 a year. It would be very difficult for many families to afford an American made instrument for their beginning guitar student.
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| Vintage Bemis Toilet Seat |
The core of the guitars body was comprised of MDF or medium density fiberboard (Masonite) which was coated with molded thermoplastic material.
Until this time all Gibson guitars were made of solid wood, though some electric models had solid veneer tops, Gibson had never made guitars of composite materials. So involving a company that specialized in Masonite just made practical business sense.
Gibson already had the Epiphone brand which it used to market it's more affordable guitars which in those days were built at their Kalamazoo facility. Epiphone was about to become their mid-level brand, as Gibson desired something truly affordable. The company had retired the Kalamazoo brand name in 1942 due to the war. So in 1965 Gibson decided to revived the Kalamazoo brand for this line of budget electric guitars.
The Kalamazoo electric guitars all had bolt-on necks (something that Gibson, up until this point had never done), a rosewood fingerboard, and the bass guitar was short scale. A decal proclaimed Kalamazoo "USA" on the headstock to set it apart from cheaper, imported guitars.
These guitar had two subtly different headstock shapes, the first has a characteristic 'beak' shape, and is almost identical to that of the non-reverse Thunderbird. The body resembled of Fender Mustang.
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| 1967-69 Kalamazoo Electric Guitars |
The first design, manufactured from 1965 to 1966, was pretty much a copy of the Fender Mustang. The second design, made from 1967 to 1969, resembled Gibson's SG design.
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| Kalamazoo pickguard assembly |
Models were the KG-1, with one single-coil pickup selling at $89.50.
The KG-1A, with a single-coil pickup and tremolo arm retailing at $99.50.
The KG-2 with dual single-coil pickups costing $104.50 .
And KG-2A which came with dual single-coil pickups and a tremolo and retailed at $114.50.
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| 1966 KB -1 |
The Kalamazoo Bass was introduced in 1966 and like the guitar model had two body styles resembling the Mustang and next the SG. The earlier headstocks were, again, reminiscent of Fender models. Later headstocks bore a resemblance to that of the Gibson Thunderbird bass guitar.
Several standard Gibson components were used in the KB, namely a typical EB series humbucker pickup that was used in many Epiphone basses.
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| 1966 and 1968 KB-1's |
Sales were initially good, and during 1966-67 this was by far the best selling bass made at the Gibson plant. Production of the KB ceased in 1969. Gibson sales records show that 23,994 KG models were manufactured from 1965 through 1969 and 6287 KB basses sold from 1966 to 1969. The KB bass retailed at $119.50.
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| 1968-69 Kalamazoo Electrics |
As stated in the 1967 the body design for the Kalamazoo line of guitars and basses changed to the SG shape. So the pickguards were cut differently to reflect the newer body design. The bridge on the KB-1 was slightly modified as an improvement.
For years I knew the Kalamazoo electric guitars bodies were made of compressed fiberboard, but until I recently read the Facebook post from last May I had no idea they were made by a toilet seat manufacturing firm. Most literature suggests that the bodies were made by a factory in Wisconsin that specialized in MDF. The Bemis Manufacturing Company has it's headquarters in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
By 1970 Gibson contracted with the Matsumoka factory in Japan, which had been building guitars under the Aria brand. Gibson first used this company to build inexpensive copies under the Epiphone brand name. So the Kalamazoo electrics were eliminated in 1969.
Click on the links under the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further information.
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