Hey Zach, Here’s an oddball for you—an Alvarez 9-string acoustic. This axe came into one of the pawnshops I frequent, and as soon as I saw it I had to pick it up! At first, I thought it was a regular 12-string missing three of the strings, but after looking at the headstock, it is pretty evident that this came from the factory as a 9-string. In fact, this guitar sounds great for playing along to Tom Petty’s “Free Falling.” The label inside the guitar indicates it is a Model 5058, serial number 66563. Can you tell me something about it and give me a value? Thanks! —Rick in Fort Worth, Texas
Hey Rick,
Innovation within the guitar
industry often separates companies
that succeed from those that disappear
after a few years. Developing
a unique guitar is quite a feat in an
industry where so many designs
are standard today. A guitar has to
appeal to a large group of players
in order to be considered successful.
With the popularity of 7- and
8-string guitars, a 9-string seems
like a natural progression for most
guitar builders, but in this case a
9-string is hardly what it seems.
This guitar looks like a 12-string
because it is derived from one,
but has a unique design and
sound all its own.
Probably the most prominent
Japanese manufacturer of acoustics
available in the US, Alvarez
has been around since the mid
1960s. (Yamaha is also quite
popular, but they haven’t had the
wide offering of instruments that
Alvarez has.) The Alvarez-Yairi
brand is Alvarez’s handcrafted
line of acoustics, and these instruments
are built by craftsmen
under the direction of luthier/
designer Kazuo Yairi. While most
regular Alvarez acoustic guitars
are built in China today, the Yairi
line is still handcrafted in Japan.
Alvarez uses a numbering
system to identify its guitars
(although some also have a model
name), and from the 1970s
through the 1990s, this was a
four-digit number—which falls
in line with your guitar model
of 5058. Unfortunately, I haven’t
been unable to find any dating
serialization on Alvarez guitars
regarding their date of production,
but most examples of the 5058 I
found online are from the early
1980s, with serial numbers ranging
between 55,000 and 70,000.
Specifications for this guitar
include a solid spruce top, laminated
rosewood back and sides,
multi-ply body binding, a 20-fret
bound rosewood fretboard with
diamond/snowflake inlays, a
uniquely shaped rosewood headstock
overlay with the Alvarez
logo, chrome tuners arranged
in a 3+6 configuration, a rosewood
bridge, a faux-tortoiseshell
pickguard, and what looks like
a factory-installed piezo pickup
with an endpin jack.
The guitar appears to be in
very good condition, and based
on this and what other Model
5058s are selling for, it is currently
valued between $400 and $500.
This is a unique instrument with
limited applications based on the
string layout (although Alvarez
product literature indicates it can
be played as a 6-string as well),
and they were only produced
for a few years. Some users have
noted that the unbalanced string
layout causes the neck to twist
because of the added tension on
the treble side. Astute readers may
also notice that the same layout of
a 9-string guitar can be achieved
by removing the three bottom
octave strings of a more common
12-string. Alvarez also offered a
Yairi variation called the DY58
that was handbuilt in Japan.
This guitar is often referred
to as the Harry Chapin model
because he used to remove the
bottom three octave strings on
a 12-string and play with only
the top three as pairs. In his
song “Taxi,” you can definitely
hear the 12-string sound on the
upper parts, but this is noticeably
absent on the lower parts.
Some speculate that this could
have been the Chapin signature
model, but Alvarez catalogs do
not confirm this.
In the past decade that I
have been covering the guitar
industry, I do not believe I have
seen another production-model
9-string guitar. Give Alvarez
credit for developing an innovative
guitar, but if they were a
small guitar company trying
to survive solely on this one
design, we might find them in a
museum next to the dodo bird,
Oldsmobile, and Billy Beer.
Although for all those trying to
achieve that Henry Chapin and
Tom Petty sound, you’ll find this
guitar to be quite a treasure!
Zachary R. Fjestad
is author of
Blue Book of
Acoustic Guitars,
Blue Book
of Electric Guitars, and
Blue
Book of Guitar Amplifiers.
For more information, visit
bluebookinc.com or email
Zach at
guitars@bluebookinc.com.