Dan Armstrong - Man & Guitars

At left, a 1969 black Dan Armstrong model that sold for over $10,000 a few years ago. While prices on these models always fluctuate, one can be expected to part with a great deal of cash in order to obtain one. Seen better in the enlarged view, it's the case that puzzles me. While it is undoubtedly an ESS & ESS case it is of a later make.

A pair of black Dan Armstrong · Ampeg prototypes. Although one would never know it now the bass body was a major eye-sore as it had been etched into, the scratchplate was painted white and equipped with different knobs.

Fortunately the body has been restored to its original luster thanks to the efforts and hard work by Kevin Kisiel. Together with Bill Richardson, who cleaned up the remaining parts and reassembled it all, the bass has been professionally restored to it's original factory condition. Photo at right is courtesy of Bill Richardson.

A former owner had modified the plastic body by etching a design into it (for whatever reason) and can be seen here or by going to the Mods section of this site. As for this photo, and as can be seen better in enlarged view - notice that the bass is fitted with a chrome plated pickup plate to help secure the pickup in place. Also notice how both instruments employ straight head screws to secure the tailpiece to the body.

One myth surrounding the black Armstrong instruments is in regard to actual stage use, and it appears that this is the one myth that is not a myth. It happens to be true. Dan was in England visiting with Keith Richards as the Rolling Stones was set to play a concert. Dan arrived in time to present Keith with a black butyrate guitar to try alongside his clear Armstrong guitar that he normally used. Within a few songs it became apparent that the instrument simply wasn't holding its tune, and Keith had to switch back to the clear model. Afterwards, with both the clear and the black Armstrong still on the stage, Dan reached down and felt the clear guitar, then the black guitar, only to find that the latter instrument was warm to the touch, whereas the clear one was unaffected. Given the high powered light show of the Rolling Stones Dan went on to explain both to Bill Richardson & myself that "while using a black guitar onstage, the black body apparently absorbed the light and heat of the stage lights and the whole thing went out of tune within a couple of songs. The clear guitar apparently lets the light pass". In addition, Dan "didn't feel these instruments had enough zing" to begin with, and the very next day Dan placed a stateside call to Ampeg and told them to cease going any further with the black instruments.

That phone call had to have been quite a blow to Ampeg management, who were not long on innovation when it came to any type of new guitar. They were greatly looking forward to marketing yet another new type of instrument with little or no investment in product developement, as they were, after all, using the same necks and hardware on them. In addition, they had a real public relations problem on their hands. They were afraid what might happen if they announced to the world that these instruments would not stay in tune under stage conditions, fearing that even the owners of the clear instruments would soon start returning their guitars. The only other course of action was to word it as Dan had been saying all along - that was these instruments just did not have enough 'zing' to them compared to the clear models. Since Dan had been fairly vocal about this already, Ampeg decided to exercise the 'better part of valor' and use this story whenever asked about it.

It's hard to know for sure or not what was all said between Ampeg & Dan Armstrong, but after 8 guitars and 8 basses the black butyrate body idea had been scrapped and they returned to manufacturing only the clear instruments. Due to their rarity however, the black Dan Armstrong guitars and basses are highly sought after and very collectable instruments today. Despite their problems, which some claim are "nil", these instruments tend to fetch relatively high prices as a result.

Rumors have since surfaced of other bodies that were made using other colors such as red or blue, but when asked Dan replied "no we only tried the black." As a result, I was always of the opinion that any story regarding a red or blue Dan Armstrong instument was nothing more than an understandable bit of wishful thinking by someone. Just another rumor.

It was quite a surprise, then, when I interviewed Steve Kubica, friend and a former employee of Dan who goes on to state "It was probably about 6 months or so since I had worked for Dan when he visited me at my new job and asked if I could do him a favor. I said 'sure... what is it?' and he said that he would pay me $50.00 just to drive a van from the city to New Jersey. I told him that I would do it for him but he certainly did not need to pay me. He said 'just stop by my shop later tonight when you are off work and I will pay you.'

When I arrived at Dan's shop, and he directed me to a old Ford van parked in back. He handed me directions and then took off. My first stop was to pick up some acrylic blocks and deliver them in New Jersey. I remember my stop at a plastics distributor in the city on Houston Street. I backed up to a freight door where a pallet jack picked up a pallet full of acrylic and loaded it into the back of the van. I remember being nervous as this old van was only a ½ ton, and it had holes in the floors - and the pallet that they loaded into the van was quite heavy, you could actually feel the back end of the van drop down when they loaded it.

It was getting dark but with the dome lights on in the van I looked back to see what was squares of clear acrylic that had been freshly cut as they all had a frosty look on the sides due to the cutting. About then some Puerto Rican man hand loaded a few stacks of other squares on the top of the pallet. They too had a frosty look to them but they were colored. I remember seeing green, red, & yellow or amber frost, and I asked what they were and the man said they are 'samples'.

Upon leaving the city I discovered that the directions did not lead me to the Ampeg factory but to some shop in Elizabeth, NJ. When I arrived they proceeded to unload the pallet there. It looked like some kind of specialty type shop as I saw routers, and routing templates as well as acrylic and wood products both in the background. The routers looked like they were set up in some kind of box type fixtures where you insert a given template, then the acrylic (or wood), and the router floats around across the top as it does the actual routing.

After unloading the acrylic I then left and returned to my job and it was some months later as I was travelling on 48th St. when I saw something that made me look twice. There in Manny's Music - was an orange colored Dan Armstrong guitar. It was still translucent in that you could still see through it, but it was orange colored. It quickly brought to mind those colored 'samples' that I had picked up and delivered, though I never did pick up an orange color that I can remember. What I saw that night was more an amber or yellow color. Anyway, later on I began seeing other Dan Armstrong guitars in other colors hangings on various guitar shop windows on 48th St. I must have seen 6 or 7 colored ones in all. The green was really cool and I fell in love with a red one that hung in the window at WeBuy Guitars, which was owned and run by Larry Friedman. I remember standing and looking for quite some time at that one but it was priced too high for me as it was something like four times the price of a clear model guitar. But it sure looked cool.

The next time I talked to Dan I asked him about what I had seen. Dan informed me that to his knowledge I was only supposed to be delivering clear acrylic only. The idea of using various colors was apparently brought up at Ampeg some time ago but at that time they wanted no part of it. Apparently Dan had even presented them with a colored body and Ampeg totally freaked, and quickly dismissed the idea. Their reasoning was that they felt everyone was going to want a color that they either didn't have, or couldn't get, or didn't have in stock at a given point in time when they would need it the most. No, it was just easier all around to stick with the clear acrylic.

Since there were no colored Dan Armstrongs ever produced, or sanctioned by Ampeg, it soon dawned on me that some type of small specialty shop had to have been turning these things out as in 1971 Dan had split with Ampeg; and with his guitars and basses no longer being produced, necks and parts were readily available everywhere in the city as Ampeg began to purge out their remaining parts. For $150.00 one could get a neck, which was the most expensive part. Eventually Ampeg sold off everything but not until the city was flooded with parts. Throughout the early 70's it was easy to obtain all the hardware necessary to build a Dan Armstrong guitar, less the body. Apparently these specialty shops were producing the necessary colored acrylic bodies and acquiring original parts to make up guitars."