Crucianelli solid bodies: late 1963

by Jack Marchal

1963 Reno 30-V red

One more Reno, with an additional pickup and a vibrato (without bar).

Aside from that, the critical specs for dating the instrument are exactly the same as for the previous Reno: new pickups, old peghead, still no zero-fret. This is a very unusual combination of transitional features, also seen on one of the Supremo shown next page.

As Supremo, Reno was probably a logo choosed by some “one-shot” distributor willing to take advantage of the sparkle celluloid craze that was peaking about mid to late 1963. This popularity declined severely in 1964. All sparkle finishes were discontinued by the end of 1965.

  • Redesigned pickguard with the upper part parallel to body edge.
  • New Crucianelli specific tremolo.
  • Common.

Parte superiore del battipenna ridisegnata per seguire il profilo del corpo.
Appare un nuovo vibrato specifico di Crucianelli. Comune

1963-65 ( ?) Supreme

This Supreme 40-V summarizes the many difficulties to be met when trying to investigate about this series. The old-style neck with a volute and a rounded-off headstock is fitted with a zero-fret that shouldn’t be there — unless it is a transitional configuration before the second style neck (with angled headstock), as suggested by the thin brown nut and the string-tree. However such transition necks are normally not seen with the old style pickups…

Body is silver finished on both sides. Being black, the back of the neck has thus another colour than the body, which is quite unusual. Scratchplate is new style (follows upper body edge) while the tremolo unit is still old style. Compare to the blue Élite 40-V that has still the old pickguard but already the newer tremolo!

Compare also with the other silver Supremo we have here. This two-pickup hardtail version shows a more sensible configuration with its all black back and the white fretboard binding, except that with the second generation pickups (six-slit model of 1964-65) a zero-fret ought to be there.

1963 Super 20 blue

A very interesting one. It marks a further step in the evolution of the species. Still old peghead with new pickups, but now the zero-fret is back – and is going to stay there till the end of the series.

This zero-fret is combined with the chunky white nut so far in use. Both devices together take the place previously occupied by the nut alone. Therefore, due to the slight room available, the zero-fret is inserted in immediate contact to the nut. Really weird! A narrower nut will be introduced in the following versions.

So here we have a very rare transitional configuration (All Crucianellis are transitional in some way but this one is really exceptional). I wasn’t aware of its existence until I saw the pics. I hadn’t heard of the brandname “Super” either. One more! The lettering style closely reminds Tonemaster (as does “Supremo” too, by the way). The black sticker on the back of the headstock is usually specific of Tonemaster. Certainly the distributor Imperial Tonemaster was also reselling guitars to sub-distributors, thus contributing to an exponential growth of the number of circulated brands.

1963 Philharmonic

Philharmonic — one more conjunctural brandname… A large Crucianelli collection could be made by just selecting all possible American distributor or retailer brands (but it would be difficult to tell which is the dumbest one).

Finish is described as being gold though it doesn’t show clearly from the pics. Maybe some yellowed sparkle silver? Routing and screwholes indicate the missing trem assembly used to be the Crucianelli specific model. Other than that, specs and hardware are contemporary to the Super described on previous page.

1963 no-name 40-V red

Old peghead with new pickups once more, and the newly re-introduced zero-fret. This one teams up now with a new nut, a more sensible and narrower one, generally made of some stratified yellow-brownish material. Crucianelli will use it for nearly all its guitars till the end of the decade.

No Crucianelli made before 1965 had an inlaid logo, so that any brandname could thus be glued onto body or headstock even at the last moment, depending of the distributor to serve. Logo is therefore often missing, as is the case here. The original name could have been Elite as well as Tonemaster, this specific configuration has been seen under both brands.

Finding a case where an early Crucianelli can fit in is not easy due to the generous dimensions: 1060 mm in overall length, 350 mm at lower bout. This is 3“ more than a Stratocaster in length and one inch more in width. Most generic rectangular cases are too small. Even standard gigbags are sometimes too short. A form-fit case for 335 style accepts an Eko 500 but not a Crucianelli (waist and shoulders too broad). The extra-large case shown on the pics looks like (and probably is) a generic one made in the 70’s for excentric guitars such as Flying V or Explorer.