Vintage Guitar - July 2016 - Open - 38
1 2 3 4 5 1) This '67 Swept-Wing Pro was refinished by Bill Gruggett when he worked with Shade and is the only solidbody Pro that Shade has seen in-person. 2) '67 Swept-Wing Deluxe. 3 & 4) Swept-Wing semi-hollows in two-tone (left) and three-tone sunburst. 5) An Epcor prototype Swept-Wing from 1967, from Joe Hall's personal collection. who also noted the interesting chronology of their pickups. "Joe designed them in 1966 with alnico magnets running through the top of the cover to the bottom of the pickup," he said. "It was similar to what Fender was doing at the time, but in a very Bakersfield sort of way." But, after being threatened with legal action for the design, in '67 Hall reverted to a design he'd been using since his early days as a builder in the late '50s. "That pickup had adjustable pole pieces and two flat alnico magnets under the coil," said Shade. "Joe had made some of this style when he was commissioned to build several prototypes for Standel. He'd also used the design for the Sterling brand of guitars he made in the early '60s, which were hand-built with fancy scrolls, hand-formed aluminum hardware, and fancy plexiglas pickguards." Swept-Wing guitars were originally marketed as solid-tailpiece "Pro" models and "Deluxe" models with (outsourced) vibrato tail pieces. "Hallmark was not set up in the early days for their own vibrato system," Shade Vintage guitar 38 July 2016 detailed. "The first Swept-Wing guitar with one had a Kapa vibrato and bridge, made in Hyattsville, Maryland. Joe ultimately decided not to use Kapa hardware, and instead went with a Japanese tailpiece that was similar to Fender's design. Later, he had a local machinist replicate the Japanese one, but it was heavier and worked better than the earlier Japanese vibratos." An early black solidbody Swept-Wing in Shade's collection has a '66-style neckposition pickup with non-adjustable pole pieces and a '67-style pickup in the bridge.