Vintage Veillette-Citron Guitar Catalogs, Mint, Hand Crafted Guitars

Brand: Veillette-Citron
;Country/Region of Manufacture: United States

Vintage Veillette-Citron Guitar Catalogs, Mint, Hand Crafted Guitars

Veillettette-Citron was a guitar company founded by Joe Veillette and Harvey Citron that made guitars and basses  between 1976 and 1983 in Brooklyn and Kingston, NY. The craftsmanship of of the instruments was truly amazing! All parts, aside from the tuners, were made in-shop, including features such as an Ebony thumb rail, brass nut, brass back-plate and a two-piece brass bridge. V-C was one of the first, if not THE first, to build neck-thru basses. Premium woods were used and the finishes were beautiful! Everything that came out of V-C carried a lifetime warranty!

 This catalog dates from 1980, when V-C was making the 3 series of guitars mentioned below in the Guitar Shop article from 1997. Catalog is a 6 page fold out, showing all the stock models V-C was making at the time. Catalog is in mint condition.

 I had a hard time getting a good photo. The light wouldn?t cooperate, so I posted 3 of the same pics, with a light flash at the center. The lead pic is good, but a little smaller. Between them all, I hope you can get the idea.

 Most of what is written below comes from a Guitar Shop article from November, 1997.

 Veillette-Citron was a pioneer in neck-thru-body construction with highly-figured maple and exotic hardwoods, sophisticated electronics, and other trend setting features, especially in modern, high-end electric bass design. They also created the first-ever production baritone guitars. Today, their hand crafted instruments are highly sought after by collectors

 For star power, members of Orleans, Blondie, the Waitresses, and the B-52's played Veillette-Citron guitars and baritones, while Talking Heads' Tina Weymouth used a V-C bass, and Kasim Sultan (Utopia), Rutjer Gunnerson (ABBA), and Van Halen's Michael Anthony used their 8-string basses. Carlos Alomar played one of their 8 string basses on David Bowie?s recording of Fame! The bass now resides in the Hard Rock Café?s collection! Eddie Van Halen got a Shark baritone, and other V-C players include Jorma Kaukonen, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, Devo's Robert Mothersbaugh, and James Taylor.

 From the start, most of their instruments were custom-built and came with a variety of configurations and options, like 2- and 3-stage pickups, stereo wiring, and various body woods, including koa, walnut, or East Indian rosewood. Their 8-string bass became one of their most popular instruments. V-C evolved in friendly convergence as an East Coast equivalent of Alembic, with similarities in design and approach.

 In 1979, V-C moved upstate to Kingston, NY, on the Hudson River not far from the Catskill mountain town of Woodstock. By 1980, V-C was making three series of instruments, most with just 22 frets: The Standard (black or sunburst finishes, basic electronics, rosewood finger-boards, chrome hardware), Classic (figured maple, two-stage pickups, ebony boards, gold hardware), and Limited Edition (exotic woods, deluxe electronics with 3-stage pickups, special carving and detailing). 

 Increasing frustration with the business-end and daily grind led V-C to disband in 1983. They never had more than a half-dozen employees, and V-C's insistence on maintaining the integrity of their designs, quality, labor-intensive hardware, and hand-wound pickups was not cost effective. Where other companies moved to mass-production techniques to meet demand, Veillette-Citron emphasized craftsmanship and making each instrument a labor of love. In all, Harvey and Joe built approximately 500 instruments in their seven-year run, about half of them basses.

 Earlier V-C instruments are distinguished by hand- tooled brass knobs and strap buttons, engraved brass control cavity backplates, and intricate details of workmanship too numerous to mention here, while later ones used commercially available endpins, plastic knobs, and plastic backplates. They continued throughout to fashion their own brass tailpieces and fully adjustable bridges. They're scarce today, and are more common on the East Coast and in the Midwest than out West. 

Vintage Veillette-Citron Guitar Catalogs, Mint, Hand Crafted Guitars

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