The Bench • AceSage Guitar Restoration
The first surprise was hiding under the pickguard. A handwritten date appeared to put this Burns’ birthday on January 1, 1965. There was an initial, too: a small trace of the person who had worked inside it more than sixty years before it reached our bench.
Whether that was an assembly date, an inspection date, or simply the date someone marked the work, it made the guitar feel a little more personal. Serial 9678 was already pointing us toward early 1965. Now there was handwriting to go with it.
This is a Burns London Jazz Split Sound, from Jim Burns’ original company. The name sounds polite. The guitar is less predictable. Three pickups, a rotary selector that includes a setting called Wild Dog, a zero fret, and a vibrato assembly that rewards patience: there is plenty here to keep a curious restorer occupied.
The 1965 catalog listed the three-pickup Split Sound at 113 guineas—roughly $3,550 in today’s money. This was a guitar made for serious musicians, at a price few could afford at the time.
On the bench, the tone control gave us a small victory. It worked when its loose assembly was held together. The casing tabs needed to be secured again. Careful re-crimping brought the control back, keeping the existing pot in service.
The tremolo was another exercise in understanding what was already there. It came apart for cleaning and lubrication. Frank Hughes helped with the arm and its attachment hardware, and provided a more appropriate quarter-inch jack for the project. These are the details that make restoring an uncommon guitar a conversation as much as a repair.
The fingerboard was cleaned and oiled, and the frets were leveled and crowned. Under the yellowed tarnish, the metal came back silver. The zero fret needed attention, too. Measuring the fingerboard along its length reminded us to set up the guitar in front of us: the curve near the nut was tighter than it was toward the body.
Some things stayed exactly as age had left them. The finish checking, the small scars, and the pickguard chip belong to this guitar’s history. A replacement tremolo cover proved elusive. The tempting idea of borrowing knobs from the Vista Sonic also stopped when those knobs refused to come off. There is a point where chasing a cosmetic detail starts asking too much of another old instrument.
There is a nice footnote to the model’s story. Christie’s documented a turquoise-blue Jazz Split Sound from Mark Knopfler’s collection in its 2024 sale. The sale-room notice corrects that instrument’s date to circa 1963. That gives the model some interesting company, although this particular guitar’s story is its own.
The missing cover can remain a parts hunt. The guitar has reached the more interesting part of the restoration: finding the next person who wants to play it.
AceSage Guitar Restoration — Stories worth playing.
The period catalog describes a short-scale Jazz guitar with a nominal 23½-inch scale. Its three-pickup Split Sound version is model 503. These catalog specifications describe the model; they do not establish the originality of every component on this example. Our fretwork, repaired tone control, serviced tremolo, replacement arm and hardware, and the missing tremolo cover are part of this instrument’s separate restoration record.
The apparent 1-1-1965 marking is an observation from the workshop, not an independently authenticated production date.
View the period Burns catalog page
Short-scale Jazz models and the 113-guinea price for model 503 appear on the right. Original catalog: Burns; scan preserved by Black Guitars, which identifies it as February 1965.
View Christie’s auction photographs and lot record
Mark Knopfler’s turquoise-blue Burns Jazz Split Sound, serial 1096, lot 76, The Mark Knopfler Guitar Collection, 2024. Auction photographs: Christie’s. The sale-room notice corrects the dating to circa 1963.
Christie’s records Knopfler’s purchase in May 2004 and occasional home and studio use, and notes its appearance in publicity for Kill To Get Crimson. It is a different instrument. No Knopfler ownership or association is claimed for our guitar, and his artist-owned auction lot is historical context rather than an ordinary pricing comparison.
Catalog note: Model 503 is listed at 113 guineas in the February 1965 Burns catalog, preserved by Black Guitars. The modern equivalent is an approximate purchasing-power comparison.