Framus is a German guitar, bass, lap steel guitars and banjo manufacturing company, that existed from 1946 until going bankrupt in 1975. The Framus brand was revived in 1995 as part of Warwick GmbH & Co Music Equipment KG in Markneukirchen (Germany).
Framus started solid body guitar manufacturing in 1958. The Hollywood model, with which the history of the Frankish solid body guitar began, was actually still a hollow body construction and consisted of the sides frame with the top and back glued on. But out of this quickly developed a simple, massive construction.
Then starting in the sixties the solid body guitars were developed featuring pickups, more knobs, more switches. as well as diverse and sometimes active electronics; the most famous being the half-mechanical organ effect. Later in the seventies came the Nashville series, specially designed in Nashville, USA, which was a high-quality guitar and bass line that is considered a Framus highlight for that type of instrument.
This guitar survives in a nearly perfect state. This model has a floating/sliding pickup which allows an individual placement of the pickup between bridge and neck. This innovative floating/sliding pickup inspired Dan Amstrong in the early 1970’s to create instruments shaped like his Ampeg acrylic guitars, but made of wood and with set-in necks. Although they lacked the interchangeable pickup design of the acrylic models, they are capable of numerous tonal combinations as they employ a a similar sliding pickup design that allows one to slid the pickup on the instrument anywhere from the end of the fingerboard to back by the bridge. These instruments are referred to as the Dan Armstrong 'London' series instruments (see TYS Collection: Dan Armstrong, Model 341 "London Woody", 1974).
