Posted 3 days ago
CalicoSkies
(1 item)
Another user posted about one of these in 2011:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/21220-rare-lace-helix-twisted-neck--electric
Lace is a company that makes electric guitar pickups, having made the original Lace Sensor pickups used in Fender's Strat Plus in the late 80s through the 90s. Around 1998 or so, I remember seeing that they had announced they were making a guitar, the Lace Helix, which was designed to be a very ergonomic guitar. It has a unique body design, as well as a neck that's twisted 20 degrees to match how a player's hand is naturally oriented as it moves down the neck. These are very rare, as apparently only 15 were made (though in the other article on this site, he says his is numbered 33).
I know the guitar isn't everyone's cup of tea (I've seen some say they think it's ugly), but I've always thought it was interesting and looked cool. I don't see much information about it now, but looking through the Internet Archive for Lace's old web site (agi-lace.com), I found the following pages about the Lace Helix guitar:
October 10, 1997 - This page has a mention of it and a link to a teaser for the Lace Helix:
https://web.archive.org/web/19971010063600/http://www.agi-lace.com/
The teaser page:
https://web.archive.org/web/19971010064649/http://www.agi-lace.com/helix/
November 10, 1999: https://web.archive.org/web/19991110083103/http://www.agi-lace.com/guitars.html
June 12, 2002: https://web.archive.org/web/20020612073520/http://www.agi-lace.com/helix.html
These pages have some information about the Lace Helix (the 2nd one having some photos).
August 13, 2001 - A list of guitars Lace was making at the time, with a link to an article about the benefits of the Lace Helix guitar:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010813180616/http://www.agi-lace.com/guitars.html
One interesting/odd thing is that the cable jack is on the back of the guitar (rather than on the front or along the edge).
I seem to remember Lace offering the Helix guitar with various pickup options, including one with 3 of their Holy Grail pickups (which I think this has; I once had a set of their Holy Grails), 3 of their Sensor pickups, 3 of their Chrome Dome pickups, or 2 of their humbuckers (and I think they'd offered a few different models of humbucker at the time).
When I saw this guitar on eBay recently, I thought it was a very good price, and I felt like it was too good to pass up for this rare guitar.
