Interesting pickguard

[MAJackson]

I've never seen a pickguard like this before. There's something kidney-esque to the design. It's on a vintage Höfner.

[Tal_175]

I think butterfly might be what they were going for.

[Ol' Fret]

This pickguard shape is one of many original Artur Lang pickguard designs. It's called 'kidney' pickguard.
Lang usually made his pickguards to fit the size and contour of the particular guitar, so you'll find many slight pickguard differences in size and shape. Not too difficult to tell if a later reproduction pickguard was made with the eyes of Lang, or not ...

Btw., that special 'LA' pickguard badge on the pic below was added by Lang himself.






The 'kidney' shape was a special design of the 1950/60's German sense of life. When I find time the next days, I'll say a few words about it.

[Hammertone]

I've never seen a pickguard like this before. There's something kidney-esque to the design. It's on a vintage Höfner.

It's not a Hofner. It's a perfectly good lower-end Hoyer. Someone thought Hofner badging would make it easier to sell/more valuable. It has a Lang pickguard on it, possibly installed by the same rocket scientist.

The description also mentions the body being made of solid spruce, which is, of course, completely wrong. It's made with laminated maple throughout, based on the photos.

The usual chicanery being employed to sell a guitar under false pretences, for more than it's worth. Still, probably works just fine.

[Ol' Fret]

On the popping up of the kidney shape in Germany after the Second World War:

After loss of war, the National Socialist predilection for the colossal and edgy in Germany's apartments had passed.
Also for reasons of necessity, forced flexibility in the event of a shortage of housing, the avant-garde design initially moved in in the form of small objects. Everything was possible, but it could not be symmetrical. Consistently it was rounded, bulged, compressed and chamfered. "Shackled kinetic energies with unmistakable moments of spatial tension" should come to light, the biomorphism triumphed.

The kidney-shaped coffee table became the emblem of the entire epoch, a decorative symbol of denazified living: spindly, provocatively optimistic, asymmetrical, vulnerable and lightheaded, it looked like the travesty of a stable table and thus embodied the opposite of the massive Reich Chancellery style. The "light living" shaped the poor and the rich. Never again did artistic avant-garde and industrial design come as close as they did then.
(analogous to: "Wolfszeit" by Harald Jähner, 2019)



Lang would not be Lang if he hadn't primarily had the pickguard function in mind. The kidney pickguards were always attached with only one pickguard bracket. In this way (possible sideways shift) any pickup can be attached to the neck without mutilating the pickguard.

I initially disagreed with that second pickguard fastening screw on the base of the bridge. One might think that noise of the right hand could be carried over the pickguard to the bridge, or worse, that the portion of the pickguard weight that is on the bridge could result in damping. Like it is the case with the majority of archtop guitars, from an acoustic point of view, the bridges used by Lang (O. Teller) do also benefit from a reduction in weight.
After a long and extensive assessment of Lang guitars, the surprising finding, because physically not easy to answer: this type of attachment does not lead to any noticeable disadvantages for the sound.
Nevertheless, for mechanical decoupling, it is generally advised to place a small O-ring, cork, or similar between the pickguard and the bridge.

[Hammertone]

"The kidney-shaped coffee table became the emblem of the entire epoch, a decorative symbol of denazified living: spindly, provocatively optimistic, asymmetrical, vulnerable and lightheaded, it looked like the travesty of a stable table and thus embodied the opposite of the massive Reich Chancellery style."
Yeah, and you can't bang your shins on any sharp corners either.
Lang owes Isamu Noguchi, as well as A. Conger Goodyear, a debt of gratitude.
Hooray for kidney-bean-shaped stuff!

[Doctor Jeff]

Well, it isn’t guitar related, but it is kidney shaped. My daughter had a kidney transplant in January, and I made this cutting board for her and her donor, who happens to be her uncle.

To my surprise, they said they would never use it for cutting food.

The cutting board woods are maple and walnut, and the inlay is purpleheart and yellowheart.




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