Retro lives! – ECSįifteen Reasons to Own a National Glenwood 99ġ Something old. But the concept was cool enough that all-wood copies emerged in the mid ’90s. Though today considered one of the must-haves amongst cheap/cool collectible guitars (expect to pay $800 to $900 for a Westwood in all-original, excellent condition), in its time, high production costs and retail prices (the Glenwood retailed for $25 to $30 more than a Fender Stratocaster at the time) combined to knock the Westwood and its Reso-O brethren out of existence by 1965. Other National electrics had more pickups, and some had fancier trim, but they all have a similar playability that takes a little adjustment. But hidden in the bridge is a contact pickup – more than 10 years before tranducers entered the mainstream on acoustic guitars, and 30 years before the emergence of electric/acoustic hybrids like the Parker!
This Westwood appears to be a single-pickup model with a neck-position humbucker. “German carve”) of the top, which adds an element of surface tension to the design and helps avoid the “slab” look. Voila! – the continental United States (sort of) in an electric guitar, 15 years before the limited edition Gibson/Epiphone “map” guitar! The rest of the body is generically rounded, but an interesting feature is the relief (a.k.a. The Westwood’s treble horn is neatly curved down while the upper horn is flattened and stretched to accommodate a selector switch. The 1964 Westwood 75 shown here was technically part of the line, but different for a couple reasons 1.) it was made of wood, and 2.) it was the only model offered in a sunburst finish (its Res-O kin were available in Duco Seafoam Green, red, white, or black). And for the record, these were not planned as “map guitars,” rather their shape and design merely grew out of the aesthetics of early-’60s solidbody guitar gestalt. Ultimately, there were nine map-shaped Res-O-Glas guitars in the Valco line, all carrying the National name and ranging from the basic Newport to the overly sophisticated Glenwood 99.
And arguably it did when it dubbed the material used in its early-’60s line of single-cutaway map-shaped electric guitars “Res-O-Glas.” Uh huh. Valco, who could hype with the best of its peers, certainly wouldn’t settle for saying it was using “fiberglass.” No, it could do better. And one of the first companies to venture away from wood construction was Valco, which in 1962 introduced the National and Supro lines (as well as contract brand names like Airline) of fiberglass-bodied electrics. Ken Parker’s Fly line), electric guitars made of things other than wood go way back. Rainsong acoustics) and wood/glass/carbon fiber/epoxy composites (i.e. While the mantra for 21st century “alternative material” guitars focuses on carbon fiber (i.e.
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