When the Vintage guitar brand was founded by the John Hornby Skewes (jhs.co.uk) company in Britain in 1996, it was easy for the public to think that how Vintage? These guitars are not vintage. Well. They are not, but the idea of familiar, reasonably priced and classically styled guitars behind the brand has been well received worldwide, and Vintage guitars are currently sold in around 130 countries.
World-famous designer, inventor and guitar builder Trev Wilkinson, who was a big part of the Vintage design team for 12 years until 2018, is often mentioned in connection with Vintage guitars. Wilkinson's own brand parts are still used in Vintage guitars. Trev Wilkinson continues to work on his own Wilkinson (guitar parts) and Fret King (high end guitars) brands.
With over fifty years of experience in guitars, their parts and electronics, Trev Wilkinson has made a significant contribution to the creation and development of Vintage guitars. One of Trev Wilkinson's important design principles and interest throughout his career has been to make decent guitars for ordinary players, so that they exceed the expectations of the buyer and player who picked up the guitar.
In 2006, Trev Wilkinson, together with JHS Director Dennis Drumm, decided to prove what could be achieved with decades of experience in guitar design, construction and mass production. The experience was combined with a huge amount of knowledge about the design of wooden parts, electric guitar "hardware", microphones and electronics, as well as a burning desire to build guitars that beat themselves in the world. Together with JHS's manufacturing potential, it would be possible to create something remarkable.
From this the "Vintage ReIssued" and "Vintage ICON" projects were born.
Trevi's task was to consult the Vintage brand and design and build a complete range of true player's guitars that, even if the price was reasonable, would clearly exceed the requirements set for their price category and would be able to earn their place on the world's biggest concert stages , satisfying the needs of even an experienced professional guitarist. The price category still had to remain the so-called within the reach of the everyman class.
As part of the design process for the Vintage ReIssued and ICON series, Trev carefully defined the requirements for the Wilkinson hardware and electronics selected and matched to the guitars. A real "magic dust", alchemy was created when the recipe was combined with the production know-how and skill gained over decades of know-how, creation and application, with the sole purpose of achieving Trevi's constant goal; make great guitars.
Of course, vintage guitars are not instruments like their predecessors, Gibson. It should also be mentioned that the aspects related to the Gibson-like design have been agreed with Gibson in 2017 in an agreement, the details of which are not public. In any case, for those looking for an electric guitar from the Les Paul model for around €500-€800, Vintage's V100 series is a very viable option as a first guitar, a spare guitar or, for example, a body for modding and experimenting with different guitar configurations.
As Trev Wilkinson has often been heard to say, “… If you can't make a great guitar for $5000, go make something else. Making a really great guitar for a tenth of that is a challenge. With Vintage, we have achieved just that!”