60's MEAZZI CONTINENTAL Blond Made in Italy code VA90

A very nice historic model from Meazzi Made in Italy, some lines in the glassy polyester of the time reveal the originality of the finish, stable and well-set guitar structure, straight neck, frets in good condition, rosewood fingerboard (Brazilian!?) at the time there were no restrictions..!. totally original circuit with "Lesa" pots, original "Gold Foil" pickups with deadly dynamics, well-functioning mechanics, good tuning even using the vibrato lever, a historic guitar at the price of a Chinese one..!? Comes in correct period Hard Case

https://www.fetishguitars.com/meazzi/meazzi-continental/

With the loss of Wandré, who went to Davoli, the Meazzi catalog needed a semi-acoustic with a large jazz body that was to replace the crazy Waid and BB. With these instruments it seems easier to hazard an evolutionary chronology compared to the solid bodies. We have: a model almost certainly made in Sicily that has a covered headstock, glued neck, pickguard and pick-up with exposed poles, the very first ones still with the jealous three-pole attack. The vibrato is splendidly beaded. A substantially similar model but that takes the neck screwed in the traditional way with four screws, a new toaster-type pick-up grill, a new slender asymmetric headstock. This is evidently the connecting link with the latest version of the 64/65 made by Polverini that respects all its characteristics but mounts the new trapezoidal pick-ups. It would still seem to be a Sicilian production if only for the triple binding on the keyboard and the Calace-style holes Then two strange models that we struggle to attribute to the Sicilians due to the great qualitative leap in the finishes, the differences in hardware and the F-holes.

Meazzi is one of the historic brands of musical instruments in Italy. Lombard entrepreneurs, unlike the Marche tribe of Eko & co, were a giant that also distributed watches, amplifiers, professional equipment and music editions. Meazzi was also and above all synonymous with batteries in Italy and around the world.

Meazzi began distributing guitars by turning to some Sicilian companies. Among the Sicilians we have not yet identified the suppliers except, of course, for the maestro Francesco Abramo who built most of the electrics between 61 and 63.

In the catalog they were accompanied by the production of skilled Lombard craftsmen who we can identify as Giuseppe Panati, Stradella 1925 – 1981, who built guitars on behalf of Meazzi in the very early 60s. Panati began his professional activity at the prestigious Mariano Dallapè accordion factory in Stradella. He set up his own business immediately after the Second World War to build piano keyboards for the numerous accordion factories in the city. The manufacture of guitars began after 1960, the year in which the accordion crisis began. He continued his activity as a lutherie maker until the end of his days, alongside the production of accordions from 1975 onwards, taking over from the Coop company. l’Armonica ceased the same year.

zimmermannAmong the brands of Meazzi there was also the German Zimhermann, but the total lack of information on the brand makes us suspect an internal branding operation as Davoli had done with Krundaal. At the time the Germans had a reputation for greater quality and reliability and the foreign-loving nature of the Italians could guarantee better margins with a foreign brand. Zimhermann is not a German name, and only a few years earlier Meazzi distributed accessories and styluses for Zimmermann gramophones. On the other hand, Framez also copied the Teutonic Framus. https://www.fetishguitars.com/meazzi/le-prime-chitarre/