eldegas.com

So from time to time I get called in to clean out suite of tenants that have passed away. Now the family usually comes in and clears out what they want, and then leave the rest behind to be donated or thrown out.

Yesterday we go in to this house that's loaded wi items. We take time to search through to see if we find anything that we might like to keep, and yes to see if we find valuables of which we have legal right keep

I climb under the stairs to find a cardboard guitar box, still sealed with the original factory tape around it. I take it down and carefully cut the fragile tape to see what prize I have found. Now sometime people repackage the box with keep sakes, but to my surprise there was really a guitar in the box wrapped in plastic.

I look for marking to tell me what kind and how old the guitar is (by the way, I don't play and know nothing about guitars). I see up at the neck that it's a el Degas. I look in the sound hole to read the following:

el Degas
Model: mt10 (stamped and not written)
serial: no serial number written
Made in Korea

Now I haven't been able to get much info on this guitar, so I was wondering if I may ask the guitar gods her. Would you know more?

Any help or info would be greatly appreciated.
Thank-you for your time.
Samara-Jaye

Definitely an interesting find.

What you have is a Made In Korea, copy of a Martin-style acoustic. We estimate that these MIK copies are from the very late 70's; or, more likely, the 1980's.

It's very common to not find a serial number stamped on the sound hole, as the El Degas brand seemed to have abandoned the idea of numbering pretty early on in the brand's life.

If you have some photos I am sure some of us around here would be very interested to see a shiny new-old-stock El Degas (we are very used to seeing the bumps and scrapes of 30-40 years of play ).

Thank-you for the info, I currently only have pictures of the sound hole so I could do research.
When we return to the house I will take a couple more pix for you guys

Sorry kaiser I don't know anything about guitars, but I'm sure some of the guitar gods here can answer (I split kaiser's post into its own topic -Charles)

Charles: how do I post pictures?
Do I have to upload to a image host then link to them?
If so, can you suggest a good site that I can use without having to join or sign up for?

The guitar has come home with me so if any additional pix are requested ill post the too.

Thank-you

If you host your photos at a place such as photobucket.com or img.ur you can post the IMG links on the forum and they should show up a-ok. See: http://www.eldegas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45
I do believe Imgur does not involve an actual sign-up.

Sorry for the delay, it wasn't easy to get pix to upload via iPad.
Here are the pictures I took and uploaded to photobucket (turned out to be easier)

















This might be for sale if the price is right

Interesting find, for sure. Looks like it may have seen a bit of use according to some light scuff marks, but it looks hardly touched.

Not a model I'm looking for, but you might want to start a forum thread in the "Buy & Sell" section and see if you get any bites. Best of luck!

It may be MIK but it looks to be an extremely good build with good quality woods. Even the strings appear to be top end (Martin's?)...the ball end windings are cloth covered to protect the bridge. Nice attention to detail.