A c.1971 Fender LTD electric archtop guitar, #20, finished in sunburst. Owned and played by Randy Bachman, who has sold 40 million records worldwide as a member of The Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and as a solo artist.

A highly skilled and respected luthier from Germany, Roger Rossmeisl was hired by Fender to design and produce a range of archtop electric guitars in the German style, including the technique of carving the edges of a guitar’s top and back so that they are much lower, sloping upward to a raised portion in the middle; this is known as a German Carve.

With the assistance of Phil Kubicki, Rossmeisl would develop the LTD and Montego models, crafting the former by hand while the bodies of the latter would be made in Germany and finished in-house at Fender in California. The jazz-focused electronics were designed by Freddie Tavares, who had a hand in many of Fender’s other designs. Only 36 LTDs were produced, making them extremely rare and valuable to collectors.

The guitar’s interior label is marked “20” and signed by Rossmeisl and dated June 17, 1971. The gold neck plate also bears the number 20.

Unlike the Montego, the bodies of which were made in Germany and imported to the USA to be finished at Fender, the LTDs were all hand-made by Rossmeisl and Kubicki in batches of 6, including the German carved European spruce tops, the curly maple backs (also German Carve), the flamed maple rims, the necks also of maple. Multi-bound ebony fretboards were inlaid in mother-of-pearl, as were the headstocks which featured three “hearts” made up of two Fs from the Fender logo, but mirrored.

The LTD wears brilliant gold hardware, pearl-button tuners, a custom-carved ebony bridge, a distinctive F tailpiece, and pickups and electronics mounted directly to the pickguard, floating above the spruce top so that nothing could get in the way of the spruce top’s vibration.

While the LTD and Montego models never quite took off, probably because Fender “stupidly wanted to get into making Jazz guitars rather than sticking with what they do best,” as Randy puts it, the pair are nonetheless enjoyable as instruments, and as testaments to a risk taken rather than stamped out as a mere idea. We’re all better for it.

Includes non-original brown Gibson hardshell case with purple interior. The rosewood insert from the tailpiece is detached and inside the case compartment.

PROVENANCE From The Collection of Randy Bachman

Guitars & Instruments, Randy Bachman