675 :: Brian May interest - artist approved 2001 Burns Brian May Adeson Pickup prototype electric guitar, ser. no. BHM0335, within original Burns hard case *This instrument was used as a test bed/prototype for the Brian May stage/tour/backup guitars and the original Andrew Guyton run of exact replica instruments. This early production instrument is fitted with glued-in oak inserts to the pickup cavities so the pickups can be screwed down, brass pickup posts, aluminium switch plate, original spec wiring, full Perspex etc, essentially the same as the original Red Special. The pickups themselves are the original specification and build as measured at the time by Adeson from the original Red Special guitar. Now over twenty years old, this guitar is the forerunner of most of the later special edition upgraded examples. The guitar features a chambered mahogany body, mahogany neck and polished ebony fingerboard and, unlike most of the later examples, this has the correct scale length. The only standout feature that differs from the original Red Special is the standard Burns bridge. Another interesting feature of this instrument is that the guitar is serial number '335', the model on which Brian May based his Red Special on. Sold with a signed statement of provenance from Adrian Turner of Adeson, stating 'This early Burns Brian May production guitar serial number 335 is fitted with pickups from the Greg Fryers original info/measurements taken while he was restoring the original Red Special in the late 1990s. Greg had not long completed the restoration and also built some backup guitars but was keen to get more accurate pickup sets. Greg contacted me and over a period of eighteen months shared info/opinions and many samples passed backwards and forwards. The pickups which have been fitted to this early Burns guitar for ease of demonstration/testing were eventually approved by all parties including Brian May. Burns and later BMG had contacted me regarding the original type pickups and the guitar was used to showcase not only the finalised pickup set but also other items like switches/wiring/fittings/plastics etc... many of these items would later finally appear on the 'higher end' instruments and even on the standard guitars. All the tolerances/values would be checked again at a later date when Pete Malandrone and myself re-measured everything on the original Red Special under a more temperature controlled environment. The same pickup sets would later be used on most of the Andrew Guyton exact replicas - the Brian May stage/backup guitars and many of the 'We Will Rock You' stage instruments. At the time we all learned a great deal from this instrument and exactly why the Red Special 'does what it does'. For example, the importance of the inserted brass posts, which for some weird reason has marked effect on 'smoothing out the tone'. The effect of the aluminium switch plate, screwed down pickup fixing, Araldite - the list goes on...'