Very rare vintage Matsumoku end 60s - early 70s Acoustic Black Widow made by Aria

This guitar shows some ware but is in overall great shape and good overall condition.
These guitars are fairly rare to find !

This guitar was used by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and many others.
It’s an incredible instrument with fantastic pick ups like P90 but more powerfull.

To understand how rare this guitar is, we first have to go back to the original history of Acoustic, an American company who made guitar amps for the likes of Jimi Hendrix. They decided to diversify into guitars (and this was their one and only attempt).
Harvey Gerst, guitarist with the BYRDS, was sponsored by Acoustic and actually owned the very first Black Widow.
Jimi Hendrix had recently taken delivery of 4 Acoustic amplifiers and could not get his head around them, so Harvey Gerst was asked to go along and show Hendrix how to work them.
As he could not get on with Hendrix’s Strats he decided to show him using his own L/H Black Widow. Hendrix loved the sound and when it came time to go Harvey asked for his guitar back from Hendrix to which Hendrix replied “What guitar? This is my guitar, but you can have any of my other guitars”. Harvey Gerst took one of Hendrix’s Strats but could not get on with it and told Acoustic that Hendrix had his Black Widow to which he was told “Don’t worry we will give you another”. Which they did. There were a total of 3 L/H Acoustic Black Widow 6 string guitars made.

Acoustic designed the guitar and then contracted Bartell Guitars to build them but to carry the Acoustic Brand Name. Bartell could not keep up with the numbers required and so they outsourced to Sammy Mosely of Mosrite Guitars. Samy Mosely already had a contract with Matsumoku to produce instruments under the Mosrite brand name. Matsumoku also made at that time Aria-instruments and so only a few Aria “Branded” Black Widow Guitars managed to make it out into circulation.

About 100 Acoustic/Bartell Branded Black Widows were made and a total of 200 Mosrite Black Widow guitars were made and only a few Aria Black Widow guitars made (all right handed). Even the Aria museum does not own one !!

This is the real deal and some are asking great amounts for this Matsumoku made gem.