Kay 650

For guitars of the straight waisted variety (or reverse offset).
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Flippersotherguitar
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Kay 650

Post by Flippersotherguitar » Sun May 22, 2022 6:23 pm

Been a minute since I've posted anything but I am always on here lurking haha, figured I should post my favorite guitar I got recently. I've been playing it pretty much nonstop over the last couple of months since I got it. Its a 1966 Kay 650, fully hollow with a melita bridge and kay built bigsby style vibrato. The pickups are built by Kay and basically sound like a dearmond dynasonic, very thick but with a lot of twang. I can't stop playing this sucker, it just has such a nice feel. https://imgur.com/a/xmdVVoO
Last edited by Flippersotherguitar on Sun May 22, 2022 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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MayTheFuzzBeWithYou
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Re: Kay 650

Post by MayTheFuzzBeWithYou » Sun May 22, 2022 6:32 pm

Nice one!

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Telliot
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Re: Kay 650

Post by Telliot » Sun May 22, 2022 6:34 pm

Beautiful. Post more pics when you’ve got time!
The cool thing about fretless is you can hit a note...and then renegotiate.

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Flippersotherguitar
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Re: Kay 650

Post by Flippersotherguitar » Sun May 22, 2022 6:40 pm

I will! That ones just from the reverb listing but I'll take a few of my own real quick. Its a really cool guitar, pretty rare and very well made. I think it sorta looks like a gretsch 6120 and a casino all squashed into one guitar. I love the neck on it, sort of a v towards the nut that turns into a deep c as you go higher up the neck, but a fretboard that stays pretty narrow all the way up like a rickenbacker.

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Flippersotherguitar
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Re: Kay 650

Post by Flippersotherguitar » Sun May 22, 2022 6:55 pm

Here are some pics, its weird how red it looks in these because in person it comes across a little more orange. Sorta like a fiesta red stain I guess. https://imgur.com/a/QteWUOe

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vistavision
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Re: Kay 650

Post by vistavision » Mon May 23, 2022 12:40 pm

God I love that guitar. Every dimension is so comically exaggerated it looks like it's from a 60's Saturday morning cartoon. Congrats!
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I'm sure some Fender dealer in '64 looked at the new Duo-Sonic II and thought, "That's not a Duo-Sonic. That's a Mustang".

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Flippersotherguitar
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Re: Kay 650

Post by Flippersotherguitar » Mon May 23, 2022 11:37 pm

I totally agree, its too pinched in the middle, and slightly too long, but its very elegantly done in its own way

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Sweetfinger
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Re: Kay 650

Post by Sweetfinger » Tue May 24, 2022 5:21 am

That's an odd model you don't see very often. It came towards the end of Kay/Valco. The trem on those was made by Bigsby as an OEM part, just as Gretsch, Fender, Martin, and Guild had OEM Bigsbys made for them.

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fuzzjunkie
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Re: Kay 650

Post by fuzzjunkie » Tue May 24, 2022 8:10 am

I had a ‘60s Kay Speed Demon, which was like your guitar but with sharp Florentine double cutaways. Like a hollow SG, since someone replaced the speed bump pickups with P-90s.

The same orange red stain, same neck profile, but the Speed Demon had triangle markers instead of blocks, and the Bigsby vibrato. It would have had the same control knobs, but they’d been replaced with dice knobs for a Rockabilly look.

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It was my couch guitar for years but since it looked so sharp I was constantly getting offers to buy it, so eventually sold it on.

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