potential bootleg "mid 70s" Elk Fuzz Sustainars

[joegagan]

not much of a regular here, are people winding me up? the knobs matter not one bit.

[D.o.S.]

The knobs are the most important part.
The same way gold Klons sound better.

[Chankgeez]

not much of a regular here, are people winding me up? the knobs matter not one bit.

D.o.S. is always winding everybody up. Always.

[D.o.S.]

One of the great crimes of my life was that I wasn't born Swiss.

[onyxrhino]

The answer seems pretty obvious to me:

These differed in the portion further.
It was copied to elk and w&c.
Since the persons who returned music to the private life at least were ancient times, w&c did not sell in Japan.
A brown portion is called ceramics.

I mean, come on guys.

[Ro_S]

Yeah, that email correspondence was great.

[Ugly Nora]

Remember Pearl Harbor, guys. Remember Pearl Harbor.

[danieldanger]

found this photo from a japanese blog post from 2009.

[D.o.S.]

On the real, by the way guys, you absolutely should check out DD's artwork. It's fucking awesome.

[Kitrae]

i posted some photos here. let me know what you guys think. i mean, i WANT this to be real. ive just had enough red flags and its selling for enough that i feel its worth questioning.

http://imgur.com/a/6ZSZF

Interesting. This is not the one I saw sold for just under $800, the one I mentioned in my email to you. Everything looks period correct here, including the pcb board, but I have never seen one with so many standing resistors or those green film caps before. Those exact caps and standing resistors are in a few mid1970's Maxon OD-801 D&S, and Ibanez OD-850 Overdrives I own, both made by Nisshin Onpa around 1974. Same coating on the resistor legs too. These are common parts you see in a lot of Japanese pedals from that period. Hoshino Gakki, who made Ibanez guitars and amps, took over the Elk brand at some point in the mid '70s. I wonder if Gakki used Nishhin Onpa to make pcb's at some point. I have seen one of the later Big Muff Sustainars, branded Elk Gakki Co, with the same transistors that are in one of the later Ibanez/Maxon Overdrives, not the typical old NEC A733's found in the Elks. Nothing else about the Elk/Gakki Big Muffs looks like the stuff used in the Maxon/Ibanez pedals though, so perhaps not. I am no expert of Japanese pedals though.

As far as the knobs, I have a large library of photos of the different versions of the Elk Muffs from Japanese websites and auctions. There are plenty of them with those same common knobs, as well as numerous other knob types used.

I did get a message from the original poster last month when he wrote me with a theory about bootleg Elk Fuzz Sustainars. My take is that these are completely legit. The one that I bought from Japan for $950 was sold for $1150 and then resold to Kit Rae. So Kit can ultimately make the call on that unit

The one I have is super squeaky clean, but everything looks original and period correct. I have several 30-40 year old pedals that are so clean they look like they just came of the assembly line, so that is nothing unusual, just rare to find one in good shape.

[D.o.S.]

Glad this is looking legit. Would hate to see good dudes getting ripped off.

NSFW: show

[Derelict78]

Where is dev? I haven't seen him around much. I'm sure he would get a kick out of this thread.

[danieldanger]

im very happy stuff is checking out, and as mentioned what i thought were three identical pedals were the same pedal being bought and sold in a very short amount of time. but im still not entirely convinced somethings not up with this. maybe ive just been soaking in red flags for too long to every truly know or believe (but i want to!). i mean, every single goddamned Civil War muff looks like its been in a house fire, so im gonna be skeptical of a barrage of mint identical mid 70s pedals. i also couldnt find any gut photos with the green caps either, so i dunno.

maybe ill just bring this down to Pawn Stars and that bald dude will call his "friend who knows alot about this stuff" to swing over.

[Scruffie]

I'd actually change my tune for your personal one, although it's still a bit suspicious how clean it is, it was the pictures of the other one that looked less legit to my eye.

And I think we can stop focusing on the knobs I thought they looked more modern for a couple of reasons than the pre MXR ones but i'm not as familiar with them as some people and also... they're not defining as they can be changed as Joe pointed out.

[Kitrae]

i mean, every single goddamned Civil War muff looks like its been in a house fire

Apples and oranges. Those Sovteks started to look like that within a few years of manufacture because the enclosure were not properly cleaned before painting, the lack of primer used, and crappy paint used. Even before those early ones were painted, the cast metal cases were finished terribly.

Re: your Elk - that's a factory made enclosure, pressed and folded using tooling and dies, not something someone made by hand in a garage. I seriously doubt anyone spent the money to make the tooling for those sheet metal parts and the battery cover, managed to get them to come out looking identical in size and shape to the originals, managed to match the surface finish and silk screen art to the T, got a pcb board made with all the pre drilled holes in the right places (I haven't seen your trace side), found all the period correct circuit components, then neglected to age it. None of that would have been worth the expense and effort though, just to make 1 or 2 pedals.