Jim Burns' Prototype For 'The Artist'

1975 Burns The Artist (Prototype).

This 'Prototype' 12 1/4-inch-wide, electric solid body guitar weighs 8.90 lbs. Solid mahogany body with beveled edges. One-piece maple neck with a nut width of just over 1 11/16 inches, a scale length of 25 1/2 inches and a very fast thin profile. Aluminium bound maple fretboard with 21 original medium-thin frets and inlaid aluminium dot markers. Specific shaped headstock with dome-shaped metal truss-rod cover with "Jim Burns" signature engraved in black, secured by three screws. Three graphite string-trees. Individual Schaller 'Rotomatic' tuners with hexagonal metal buttons. Four-bolt neck-plate engraved with a black "B". Two Burns "Mach One Humbuster" pickups with outputs of 13.90k and 10.51k. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus a three-way pickup selector switch. Specific aluminium control knobs with black plastic sides, ribbed edges and metal tops. Combined "Dynamic Tension" bridge with six individually adjustable saddles on metal base secured by six screws. Housed in the original black softshell case (8.50).

This is the prototype for "The Artist" inside the neck cavity on the end of the neck, stamped in blind "28" (twice), the pickup cavities are both stamped "29" in blind. The underside of the five-screw plastic control cavity cover is etched with the number "23".

"The Artist 1976-1977. This guitar had a more conventional style, but was still somewhat different and featured very nice woodwork. Rather few of this one were made. The finish was natural mahogany with maple fingerboard (aluminium binding and position dots). The guitar had a bolt-on neck, with a new nut/string guide plate fitted on the head. It had [two] Mach One Humbuster[s] as well as tone and volume controls and 3-way selector.
Retail price: £235." (Per Gjorde. Pearls and Crazy Diamonds, Fifty Years of Burns Guitars 1952-2002).