So here's the latest addition to my collection. It's an early 70s Mann I got off craigslist a couple weeks ago. I wasn't even really looking at buying another guitar, although I've drooled over the selection over at Rondo Music for a while. I've been looking for a cab for my Traynor head, and just for shits n gigs I typed in guitar to see what was for sale and immediately saw this one.

It was made in Japan and is from the early 70s. There's no serial number on it, but you can roughly date it as pre-1974, because after or during that year is when they started applying serial numbers and they follow the same system as vintage Ibanez, if I remember right. Another indicator is the headstock is inlaid and not a decal, which they started doing I believe late 70s into the 80s. By the 80s I think they changed their designs due to the lawsuit, which saw shipments of the guitars seized and the headstocks cut off because they featured the Gibson "mustache" style.

I've always wanted a vintage guitar and figured this was a good place to start, so I looked up the brand name to find out more about it. There isn't too much out there concerning Mann guitars other than there were made by Ibanez and branded as Mann for the Canadian market, distributed through West Coast Music in western Canada. They were made at the time of the "lawsuit" guitars, where companies were ripping off Fender and Gibson designs and selling them at a more affordable price, often using comparable materials and craftsmanship.

There were of course still the lower models and it would appear this is one of them. I say this because it's not a solid body. If you look at the bottom right photo, you can see the body is a series of blocks glued together. This is because it is mostly hollow. Tapping on the top makes it very clear by the sound it makes as you move around the body. Areas where hardware and pickups are mounted are solid, but it's mostly hollow. I actually didn't realise this til after I got it home and was inspecting the top piece further. I thought the blocking was just something bizarre, but figured out it's true nature. That's alright with me though. It's also a bolt-on, adding to the lower end of the spectrum assumption.

It's action is pretty good, a little buzzy, but that can be fixed. The fret are also super low, which I like. There's a bit of wear on the back, obviously from a belt buckle, some very little chips here and there, and one good sized one on the back of the headstock. The clear coat has some cracking running through it, but nothing too too major. What I will be swapping out is the tuning machines, as one is not original and is in fact a classical tuner someone put in. I'll probably go with Grover or Kluson. (Edit: got the Grovers). I've heard bad things about Gibsons, but I'll look into it further when the time comes. That and a new nut, change it to bone or a graphtec/tusq nut.

Edit: Apparently it was bone, so I just had it re-cut.

The pickguard for it is long gone, but I like it better without. The maple fretboard is nice, all my guitars are rosewood, with the exception of my Kramer which hasn't been assembled yet, waiting on painting it, which has a maple fretboard. The neck appears to be mohagany too, not sure what the blocky body is. I like the top though, different than my Epi's bookended flame maple. And the colour too, dig it. Love the mustache headstock too.

The pickups are quite different than my Epiphone. The bridge is quite cold and the neck is more balanced and I seem to favour it for regular playing, switching to the bridge for lead work sometimes. With my Epi, I rely solely on the bridge pup and more or less use the toggle switch as a kill switch with the neck set to 0.

Overall I quite like it, probably could've got it for a bit cheaper, paid $400 for it, but I'm not sore about it. In fact, I'm quite glad I own it, despite being a lower model. What's important is it plays nice and feels good. The tone is really nice too, despite being hollow, although it lends to it. I've also read that they are somewhat collectible, but then again what isn't right? If it exists, there's porn of it a market for it.