Very Early and Super Rare Sivertone '1357' Standard Model

1955 Silvertone 1357 Standard "Peanut" Style Body

This super-rare 11 3/4 inch-wide, 1 7/16 inch-deep, single-cutaway guitar weighs just 5.10 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 3/4 inches and a scale length of 25  1/4 inches. Masonite top and back over a pine frame with 'solid center' strip. Body covered in tan colored vinyl with ginger edging. Two white plastic strap buttons. Huge, thick profile poplar bolt-on neck (secured by two screws) with 3/4 inch square aluminum tube beginning at the peghead and going through the body to the bridge. No truss rod other than the aluminum neck rod. Brazilian rosewood fretboard with aluminum nut, 20 medium-jumbo aluminum frets and aluminum position dot markers (with double dots at positions seven and twelve). Ginger vinyl faced 'Quarter Bell' shaped headstock with "Silvertone" silk-screened (horizontally) in silver (almost worn away). Open-back Kluson Ideal G-132 three-a-side strip tuners with white oval plastic buttons. One earliest style 'exposed taped' pre-lipstick pickup with alnico bar magnet and an output of 3.18k. The height of the pickup can be adjusted via two screws on the back of the body. Ginger vinyl pickguard glued directly to body. Two controls (one volume, one tone) + three-way metal toggle 'tone' switch. The potentiometers are stamped: 137 504 (CTS, January 1955). Concentric white plastic knobs with ribbed top edges. Combination Brazilian rosewood bar bridge on a four-way adjustable lightweight aluminum tailpiece. There is no visible serial number which is often the case with the earliest Danelectro's/Silvertones. This super little guitar is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition with just a few small marks on the edges of the body and on the edge of the headstock. Housed in a the original three-latch, shaped 'aligator' softshell case with brown felt lining (9.00).

This is a very early '55 'first' model' with the 3/4 inch square aluminum neck rod, the early aluminum fretboard markers and the 'exposed taped' pre-lipstick pickup. This super rare guitar came from the collection of Doug Tulloch and appears in his book Neptune Bound. The Ultimate Danelectro Guitar Guide on pp. 88 & 157.

The original price way back in 1955 was $100 !!  Just about every great guitar player from Jeff Beck to Eric Clapton to Jimi Hendrix to Jimmy Page to Eddie Van Halen - and even Elvis Presley has used a Danelectro or a Silvertone at one time or another…

Before Nathan Daniel started the Danelectro company in 1947, he made amplifiers for Epiphone from 1934 to 1946. Epiphone wanted Daniel to make amps for them exclusively, but he preferred to stay independent. Instead he founded the Danelectro company in 1947 and started making amplifiers for Montgomery Ward. By 1948 Daniel expanded and became the exclusive guitar amplifier producer for Sears & Roebuck. At the same time he was also supplying other jobbers such as Targ & Dinner of Chicago.the Silvertone name. He also produced the same guitars under the Danelectro name, sold to other jobbers. These early models didn't have truss rods but had a 3/4" square aluminum tube beginning at the peghead and through the body to the bridge. The bodies were constructed of solid Poplar wood. The Silvertone models were covered with a dark maroon vinyl covering, while the Danelectro models were covered in a whitish tweed material. Both lines came with either 1 or 2 pickups, concealed under a baked melamine pickguard. Concentric stacked tone and volume knobs were used on the two pickup models only. Notably, when both pickups were used together, the tone was much stronger. This was due to wiring the pickups in series, instead of parallel like most other maker's two pickup guitars. By the fall of 1956, Daniel started making the Silvertone and Danelectro lines using the standard Dano materials: a Poplar wood frame (that comprised the sides, neck and bridge block of the guitar), stapled together and covered with 3/8" thick masonite. The top and back was painted, but the sides were covered in a vinyl material to hide the unpainted poplar wood frame. Also the now infamous "Lipstick tube" pickups were used. These pickups had an alnico bar magnet and coil measuring 4.75k ohms wrapped in brown vinyl tape. The pickup guts were placed inside surplus, chrome plated, lipstick tubes. These pickups were actually the same as previously used and hidden beneath the pickguard. Just now they were adorned in lipstick tubes and mounted in cutouts in the masonite body. Construction methods stayed this way for most models throughout Danelectro's history.