subject: Where to go for lefty guitars & basses? Part Four – left handed Randy Rhoads V guitar [print this page] Where to go for lefty guitars & basses? Part Four left handed Randy Rhoads V guitar
These days, with more and more major guitar manufacturers ceasing to make their products in left hand, one might well ask the question "where do I go for left-handed guitars and left-handed bass guitars these days?"
In actual fact, there are guitar and bass models that are popular with guitarists that you cannot get left handed at all. Some have never been available in left hand.
Fortunately there is one guitar brand in the world that makes high quality left handed guitars and left-handed bass guitars only: Gaskell Guitars.
Gaskell Guitars was started in 2006 by New Zealand-born left-handed guitarist Kevin Gaskell. Since then the brand has become international renowned for "lefty guitars and basses, designed by a lefty, for lefties only."
Gaskell makes guitars and basses that are otherwise not available in left hand option by original manufacturers. Here is another one in our series of articles on this subject:
Randy Rhoads V guitar.
Before the plane crash that ended his life in 1982, Randy Rhoads had been working with Grover Jackson, from Charvel Guitars, an American guitar repairer that also had a line of guitars, to design a new type of V guitar. It became the guitar that apparently inspired Grover Jackson to start up his own company and brand, and was the first ever Jackson model!
When Jackson Guitars was bought out by Fender in 2002, a number of their endorsed artists who played Randy Rhoads V guitars defected to ESP Guitars who also made the same style Randy Rhoads V model.
Both companies are still making Randy Rhoads V guitars today.
Jackson do offer theirs in left hand, but only in their USA made series which go for around the $3000 mark, per the Jackson Guitars 2010 Price List.
The lefty models are not available at Australian and New Zealand guitar stores.
ESP Guitars do not make their Randy Rhoads V in left hand at all, so they are not currently a resource for lefty guitarists for this model.
This was the reason I designed the Gaskell KORU. The Gaskell Koru is a left handed Randy Rhoads style V guitar, primarily for the Australian and New Zealand market.
"Koru" is a native New Zealand fern. A stylized picture of it is the symbol for Air New Zealand. The shape of this Koru resembles the V shape of the Randy Rhoads guitar.
The Koru is based on Randy's original specs, when it was still being called the "Concord." The body shape of ours is slightly different to the Jackson, as is the ESP version. It is like the ESP version, slightly longer in the points. The headstock is our own.
Aussie and Kiwi lefty guitarists, now you can get that guitar you never ever could before.
I suggest you look at the website for more info. It is worth it! You will be surprised!
Left-handed guitars and left-handed basses only. Designed by a lefty, for lefties. How much more better than that can you get it? http://www.gaskellguitars.com/models
