Vintage’s UK ProShop team, (left to right) Nathan Sharp, Neil Robshaw and Chris Sharp, take a break from building
The Vintage brand celebrated its 25th anniversary back in 2020 and today exports its wide range of inspired-by models worldwide. As the company’s success proves, there are an awful lot of us that buy and play budget instruments.
This writer’s V62 was purchased well over a decade ago from Cash Convertors for around £60. It was one of the early Vintage ‘relics’ and far from accurate or believable. But with a considerable amount of modding –including trying to reduce the relicing, stripping the neck finish and oiling and waxing it, plus a fret dress and polish, a lot of fingerboard edge rolling, a steel block Wilkinson vibrato with added titanium saddles, abone nut, oh, and a set of Bare Knuckle ’63 Veneer Board single coils and posh wiring loom –it’s a guitar that’s often gigged and recorded with. What we and many others have done is, in fact, the foundation of the ProShop.