Yamaha SG-3C #5606

Picture credit: 

Photos from online auction May 2010

Owner: 

Southside Guitars, New York

Brand name: 

Model name: 

Serial number: 

5606

The unusual shape of the Yamaha SG-3C has been described as an eggplant, an earlobe or even a flying banana. It was part of a small group of original designs introduced by Yamaha in 1968, these included the Yamaha SG-5.

The SG-3C has a bolt-on maple neck, rosewood fingerboard and samurai sword type headstock finished to match the body. It is almost impossible to play sitting down, due to the curved shape of the underneath. But this was not unusual for guitars of this era - for example the Vox teardrop shaped guitars.

Pickups look like two closely spaced single coils (probably combined as a humbucker) at the bridge and a single coil at the neck. These are controlled by volume and tone knobs and a three-way selector switch. All are mounted on a white plastic pick-guard.

This one sold for $1900 in May 2010

2 Comments

I have one for sale

Hi there, I have the exact same one for sale at my dad's music shop in Cape Town, South Africa. Mint condition, also orange in colour... all original. I have a matching 4str bass as well, also orange and mint condition. Just not sure what the model of the bass is, but I'm pretty sure its the exact '68 range . Should I go to Ebay with this? Daniel dwhvn(at)hotmail.com

Yamaha SG-3C Electric Bass

I also have a bass guitar version.  I think the bass guitar version is more rare since there is few if any information on it.  I would like to sell it, just don't know how to go about it, ebay, maybe?