Link's Supro was purchased in mid-1958 to replace the Les Paul.
It has two single coil pickups that are large enough to have a 'bucking coil in them and are often thought to be humbuckers, but they are not, and the Supro was definitely not used to record the song Rumble in the studio.
I play Link's Dual Tone through a 1959 National Aztec, which has a large bird on the front, and is a Valco amp, from Chicago. They sound awesome together. The Aztec has a silver National raised/chrome logo near the top and looks just like the National logo on my acoustic, which has a Gibson J-45 body, and Gibson neck (1968).

Last edited: Jun 18, 2012 20:41:53

Wow, it's a good thing I missed this auction, as I'm a bigtime Link fan. I remember when Link's SG was up for auction a few years ago (along with Screamin' Red) and the auction claimed he recorded Rumble on it! I contacted the seller (some auction co.) and told them Link's SG was a 1963 according to the serial number, and that Rumble was recorded in 1957 (later released in 1958) on a mid '50s Les Paul. I was told the SG was an early proto-type that Link received. Of course that was totally bogus. He did receive an early Firebird III from Gibson, but not the SG. In any case, had there been a proto-type SG, it would have gone to Les Paul since his name was going to be on the headstock.

Anyway, I'd love to have the Dual Tone, as it probably is the Jack The Ripper guitar (as mentioned by a previous poster). Speaking of JTR, it was actually recorded in 1961 and issued on the Wray brothers "Rumble Records" label ( I have it on 45!), several years before it was re-issued by Swan Records.

I know this is an old thread, anyone got phots from the listing? I’d love to see that supro guitar

Thunderbolt wrote:

Hey Zzeon, how about a pic of Link's Dual Tone? That National amp is pretty cool. What size speaker is in that thing?

Yes, absolutely. I could not get in as Zzeon, thus the new account.
I was told by someone who reached out to me with a substantial bid, that Link's SG2 sold for 16,000 in a recent auction.

When I bought it from John Van Horn's son, he said it was in the attic for his whole life. Then John took it out, posed for the cover art in the exact same pose as Link was photographed in. The CD contains "Rumble" and "Run Chicken Run". The CD was entitled "I've Got the Cure". If you want to get an early look at it until I c an take a few good photos, it is on my site http://barbwires.com. The guitar is a 56, and has a modified PU switch, just like a Les Paul. It also has a locking saddle/bridge the holds depth of the placement with a couple allen screws to hold position for intonation. - Thanks man for asking, The case is the original hardshell case, but not the Plush hardshell one. John Jr. signed his fathers CD, he also plays on it too. Zzeon / Zzeonblue

Hey New Killer Star, welcome to SG101! While you are waiting for a reply on your guitar, you should go over to the Shallow End forum and the "Introductions: New Members" thread and tell us more about yourself and your music!

Patrick

new_killer_star wrote:
It'd be great to see Links Supro guitar and hear the story so far..,welcome to the forum

Sorry for reviving somewhat of an old thread. this guitar found its way to me last week and I've been trying to research it.

It was sold without this history because it couldn't be verified, but it has a print out of the original ebay listing with it and it is the guitar in the ebay listing at least...

Based on past experience we'll never see this poster or any pics again.

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so... I didn't completely vanish. I did however get a new phone and took me a bit to get logged back in. I'll wander over to the shallow end.

I picked this up on reverb not ebay and the ended listing is here.

This listing doesn't mention the ebay listing so I chatted with the person I got it from after I discovered this and he said he couldn't be sure this was Link's guitar so he didn't include that information.

It is however very clearly the same guitar in the listings and there are several pictures of Link and John Van Horn.

This thread has as much information as I could find on it.

I was looking for a cheap dual tone to gut and rebuild clearly not going to do that at this point unless someone says this is definitely not Link's guitar. It plays ok and honestly sounds great. It does have a loose connection so I will open it up and at least see what is going on there.

I put an instagram reel up of it here

As one of the biggest Link Wray fans out there, Ik wouldn't trust this. I hava a Vince Ray signgature version, including the guitarcase, for a price thats unbeleivabl (the guitarstore had to close due to financial promblems.. So I'm close to the the reale thing.
Replaced the neck with a bigsgy and and a nice rollling neck peace. This one sounds awsown!

www.alohasluts.com
Aloha Sluts on BandCamp
www.arnyzona.com (my photography)
Aloha Fest on facebook

I reached out to the seller of the original eBay listing from 2004. They are still a little active.

I also tried to dig up the photos from the eBay listing - it's 28 pages I think... some of them were on the way back machine archive of fenderbenders.com but a bunch didn't appear to be - they're just home photos from the 80s.

I'll probably just Scan the whole thing into a pdf for you guys to look at.

the closest "link" is the john van horn cd for I've got the cure - you can't quite see the broken tuning peg in it because
its not white. I'll try to upsample it or track down a copy of it somewhere.

also I now have 3 dual tones - two of them are the David Bowie editions. I've gutted and rebuilt one of those (for me) and will be doing the same to the other Bowie one. The Link Wray signature was when Eastman licensed the brand IIRC.