instruments founded 1959 ; 57 years ago 1959 founder james ormston burns alice louise farrell headquarters london england area served global products electric guitars bass guitars website burns london ltd burns is an english manufacturer of electric guitars and bass guitars founded by alice louise farrell 1908 1993 citation needed and james ormston jim burns 1925 1998 in 1959 . the company was first named burns weill then renamed ormston burns ltd. at its peak in the 1960s it was the most successful guitar company in england . 1 ormston burns ltd. was bought up by baldwin piano company in 1965 and the company was renamed baldwin burns . 2 burns guitars were reintroduced in 1991 1 under the name burns london and the product line now includes a collector s edition of the first model the company produced . contents 1 history 2 burns guitars from 1970 1983 2.1 burns uk 1974 77 2.2 jim burns actualizers ltd. 1979 1983 3 burns london ltd. 4 notes 5 references 6 external links history edit a 1962 burns vista sonic with the wild dog tone setting missing original finish jim burns set out to make in his own words mass produced one offs such as the marvin a radical take on the stratocaster style with many more differences than it is generally credited with . by whom the bison now considered by whom a classic combined fewer fender influences with a shorter scale length of 25 inches and the wild dog electronics allowing the high output tri sonic pickups to be selected in many different and sometimes unusual combinations . citation needed burns had a proprietary vibrato system which was used also on gretsch guitars . 3 shortscale jazz guitar detail of shortscale jazz guitar the original guitars made many showbiz friends and were seen in the hands of some high profile performers of the time such as elvis presley hank marvin 4 and jimmy page 5 and were quite popular since they were much cheaper than us brands such as fender and gibson helped also by import tariffs that made it expensive to buy us made guitars in britain . jim burns first commercial foray into electric guitar making came in 1958 when he designed and built the ike isaacs short scale model for the supersound company . his burns london name and company changed hands several times during the course of the 1960s and 70s all the while retaining the burns london moniker . the timing of the establishment of burns london was perfect according to whom with the british guitar market experiencing a huge boom in part thanks to the popularity of british pop bands like the shadows and again thanks to the high tariffs on us made goods . even ampeg a relatively well known brand bought the license to manufacture guitars under the burns moniker most probably for the us market though these were not a commercial success . 6 burns manufactured guitar amplifiers as well ; the jimi hendrix experience acquired a few small 30 watt amps in 1966 but desired big clout you know big amplifiers according to mitch mitchell . 7 despite the good times for guitar sales ormston burns ltd. was sold in 1965 to the baldwin piano and organ company of cincinnati for the price of 380 000 small money in comparison to the 13 million paid at the time for fender where baldwin were outbid by cbs . 8 the company was renamed baldwin burns and released three amplifiers at the namm show of june 1965 . 2 unfortunately the acquisition didn t see quality levels increase at burns and standards began to slip . the earliest casualties were the pickguards . with huge levels of unsold stock still stored when the burns name was purchased baldwin resorted to cutting out the piece of pickguard bearing the burns name and replaced it with a much lower quality piece of plastic with the baldwin name on . this resulted in colour clashes as the plastic was sometimes slightly the wrong hue or even shrinkage while the rest of the pickguard remained in good condition . a little later baldwin also resorted to using exactly the same necks for all models consisting of a bound fingerboard and much lower quality carved scroll headstock . as the quality fell the earlier popularity declined as well . baldwin eventually closed the doors on the burns guitar line in 1970 . burns guitars from 1970 1983 edit burns flyte a popular glam rock guitar with mach one humbuster pickups while the original burns guitar line ended in 1970 jim burns never quite stopped working on his creations . several attempts were made to revive the burns name in between projects with entirely new companies . in 1966 jim burns unable to use the burns name started a new company called ormston formed initially to market a range of pedal steel guitars made by denley . in 1968 just before ormston shut its doors also jim burns created an original guitar which later became a prototype for the hayman range which came about after being hired by the dallas arbiter organisation to work on a new range of guitars under the name of hayman . the line lasted from 1969 to 1973 and enjoyed a fair share clarification needed of popularity . during the 70s two more attempts were made at resurrecting the burns guitar line . again due to the agreement with baldwin the burns name could not be used so the first attempt was named burns uk and the second called jim burns actualizers ltd. burns uk 1974 77 edit the 1977 release of the simpler lj24 with new mach two pickups came too late to save burns uk burns uk appeared in 1974 and lasted until 1977 . 8 burns uk guitars were manufactured close to newcastle upon tyne in jim burns native north east . only one guitar model sold well the flyte which was originally to be named the conchorde after the supersonic plane because of its shape . its design proved popular among glam rock performers of the time such as slade and marc bolan . 9 despite their unconventional design which often added to the production cost the guitars had a rather conventional sound according to whom and again burns ceased to produce guitars but not before of few examples of the burns mirage the successor to the flyte had been produced . citation needed jim burns actualizers ltd. 1979 1983 edit jim burns actualizers ltd. was established in 1979 and lasted a longer four years into 1983 and produced some more recognisably burns guitars such as the steer and the scorpion . 10 the burns steer a semi acoustic altered to reduce feedback was popularized by singer billy bragg . burns london ltd. edit the marvin anniversary guitar 2004 after jim burns ltd no more burns guitars appeared on the market until 1992 when the company was restarted by barry gibson who employed jim burns as a consultant in the company . 11 the original idea was to manufacture handmade replicas of famous burns guitars from previous incarnations such as the marvin and the nu sonic ; gaz coombes of supergrass played a reissue of the bison . 4 later on in 1999 the company began work on a budget line called the club series outsourcing production to korea . the club series became the first burns guitars ever to be manufactured outside of britain but the original burns design ethics construction and style didn t suffer as a result with the range exploding in popularity throughout the following years . the club series expanded quickly many jim burns designed guitars constructed from 1960 to 1983 receiving its own budget model such as the marquee which was a budget version of the marvin the steer most famously played by billy bragg the london steer being a copy of a steer guitar built and given to billy by jim burns many years ago the bison and even the barracuda six string bass baritone model . newer designs have begun to emerge in the last few years usually building upon the designs of the 60s originals such as the batwing a marquee with a bison style headstock . burns also worked with queen guitarist brian may to produce a copy of may s red special guitar which uses burns tri sonic pickups and this model was awarded best electric guitar of the year 2001 by guitarist magazine . 12 an even cheaper range manufactured in china has emerged with two new models the cobra and the nu sonic . the cobra is the closest burns have come to a straight copy in its lifetime . the body is that of a stratocaster but the model retains the sectioned pickguard . tri sonic pickups and shrunken batwing headstock common to other burns guitars . meanwhile the nu sonic borrows the name of an original burns guitar and resembles more the fender telecaster albeit with a distinctly different pickup setup with two tri sonics and a bridge humbucker borrowing directly from the steer . as well as the pickups it also retains the shrunken batwing headstock of its cousin as well as a german carve around the front edge of the guitar . notes edit a b bacon tony 2012 . british makers jim burns . the ultimate guitar sourcebook . mbi . pp. 142 43 . isbn 9781610588423 . a b baldwin buys firm . billboard . 23 october 1965 . p. 6 . retrieved 10 april 2015 . hunter dave 2014 . guitar amps and effects for dummies . wiley . p. 108 . isbn 9781118900000 . a b bennett joe 2002 . guitar facts . hal leonard . p. 25 . isbn 9780634051920 . day pp. 84 87 day p. 33 shapiro harry ; glebbeek caesar 1995 . jimi hendrix electric gypsy . st. martin s press . p. 683 . isbn 9780312130626 . a b gj rde p. 35 gj rde p. 47 gj rde pp. 50 54 gj rde p. 55 gj rde pp. 62 63 references edit day paul 1979 . the burns book . pp publishing . gj rde per 2001 . pearls and crazy diamonds . g teborg sweden addit information ab . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to burns guitars . official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title burns london & oldid 713155194 categories guitar manufacturing companiesmanufacturing companies based in londoncompanies established in 19601960 establishments in englandhidden categories use dmy dates from april 2015use british english from april 2015all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from april 2015articles with specifically marked weasel worded phrases from april 2016all articles with specifically marked weasel worded phraseswikipedia articles needing clarification from april 2016commons category with local link same as on wikidataofficial website different in wikidata and wikipedia navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutschfran aisnederlands edit links this page was last modified on 2 april 2016 at 08 18 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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