Shadows memobilia ??

[Jay Bass]

just found this item on ebay , just curious if its genuine or another chancer out to make a few quid.
i have contacted the seller and asked for more info on the venue and date it was used.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155177362086

[Jay Bass]

Got a reply from the seller , not much help im afraid.

Hi, When i bought it i was told that it was on the stage in wembley along with another fender copy of a six string
fender guitar the same size it was in the late 60,s they were each side of the stage when the shadows performed thanks

[JimN]

There is no way that that model would or could have been displayed by The Shadows in the late 1960s.

At that time they had a contract with Baldwin / Burns.

Has anyone ever seen anything like it in use at any Shadows concert? I certainly haven't.

[MeBHank]

Has anyone ever seen anything like it in use at any Shadows concert? I certainly haven't.

I've never seen a picture of the Shads which features any object like it. The closest item to that which I'm aware of would be the giant scale replica Strat as appeared on Hank's 2000 tour (although it was not onstage at Weymouth when I saw him that year).

Funnily enough, I have seen something else quite similar: the 8'6" red Strat from the set of the BBC's music quiz show 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks'. I own that guitar now (I saved it from certain destruction) and have restored it. Although it's an 'artist's impression' of a Stratocaster, and not built perfectly to scale like the 2000 tour Strat, it is ingeniously made... it's handbuilt by the production team's art department, made from various DIY materials. In my restoration of it I was able to improve various features to make it look even more authentic than the BBC managed to do. When I finally have a van I intend to use it as stage dressing for select Shadowing Hank theatre shows (it has only appeared at three shows to date due to the issues with transporting it - it hasn't been out of the house for nearly four years).

Anyway, back to topic... steer well clear of this eBay item. It doesn't appear to be genuine Shadows memorabilia. Judging by the other items in the pictures it doesn't seem to be very big, either, rendering it useless as dressing for large stages (why anyone would need a van to collect it, as suggested by the seller, is beyond me).

[drakula63]

I don't believe there is any chance that this is legit.

When the guy says "Wembley", does he mean Stadium or Arena? The only time the Shads played Wembley Stadium was in 1989 with Cliff, so that could be the only possible occasion such things were used. I was at the first of the two dates, but don't recall seeing those models. And, as someone else has said, there's no way they'd have been making any reference to Fender Strats in the late sixties. Wembley Arena, to my knowledge, they only played in the mid 80s (again with Cliff) and on their final tours. I think there are just too many photos of the Shadows live for these things not to have appeared in at least one of them.

Offer the guy a tenner for it and tell him that it's not worth any more.

[Jay Bass]

Got a further message

I bought this from a music shop in Pwllheli 26 years ago as the shop was closing down and the owner was a fan of the shadows he bought the guitars from wembley

[drakula63]

Got a further message

I bought this from a music shop in Pwllheli 26 years ago as the shop was closing down and the owner was a fan of the shadows he bought the guitars from wembley

Sounds like nonsense to me. I'm pretty sure that if the Shads did have such things, they'd have just had two Strats... one each side. They may well have been from Wembley (Arena, Stadium) but I doubt they had any direct connection to the Shadows. Hank, Brian and Bruce would know, if anyone can ask them.

[jfenn78]

From a pure design perspective, if the Shadows HAD used these, I am fairly sure their management or Polydor or whoever is in charge of these things would have

a) gone for two Stratocasters (maybe a bass in the middle?)
b) had them made out of something other than plywood
c) actually designed them with some consideration to what a Fender guitar looks like

[Iain Purdon]

I guess it’s possible that the person who bought this from the Pwllheli shop may have done so in good faith, not knowing the provenance of what he’d acquired.