el maya guitars

I have an EM-1300 which was sold to me as "a one-off, hand-made for the 197X Frankfurt Guitar Show"; however, the guy went bust and still owes me £300, so this could be complete bullsh1t!

It has a three-piece (maple/walnut/maple) through neck with rosewood fingerboard, sandwiched b/w a light (walnut or mahogany?) body. Cream purfling with herringbone pattern. MoP dot markers, brass hardware.

It's a well-built, solid guitar, but lacking in character. I replaced the horribly microphonic pickups with a Bill Lawrence rail humbucker at the the neck and Mighty Mite h/b at the bridge; both are cream, so match v. well. Also fitted a GK-2A midi pickup.

Suits me fine, I'm quite fond of it.

Rhino

The earthquake was in 1995. It destroyed the entire Maya factory.

"At 5.46am on January 17th 1995, whilst many of its citizens were still
asleep, the Japanese city of Kobe was hit by largest earthquake in Japan
since 1923. The Hyogo-ken Nanbu earthquake was not only powerful ( magnitude
6.9 ), but with the epicentre only 20km southwest of the city, it resulted
in massive damage to property and loss of life. The worst effected area was
in the central part of Kobe, a region about 5km by 20km alongside the main
docks and port area. This area is built on soft and easily moved rocks,
especially the port itself which is built on reclaimed ground. Here the
ground actually liquefied and acted like thick soup, allowing buildings to
topple sideways, resulting in the huge cranes in the harbour toppling over
into the sea.

On Tuesday, January 17, at 5:46 a.m. local time, an earthquake of magnitude
7.2 (Mj)1 struck the region of Kobe and Osaka in south-central Japan. This
region is Japan's second-most populated and industrialized area, after
Tokyo, with a total population of about 10 million. The shock occurred at a
shallow depth on a fault running from Awaji Island through the city of Kobe,
which in itself has a population of about 1.5 million. Strong ground shaking
lasted for about 20 seconds and caused severe damage over a large area.

Nearly 5,500 deaths have been confirmed, with the number of injured people
reaching about 35,000. Nearly 180,000 buildings were badly damaged or
destroyed, and officials estimate that more than 300,000 people were
homeless on the night of the earthquake.

The life loss caused by the earthquake was the worst in Japan since the 1923
Great Kanto Earthquake, when about 140,000 people were killed, mostly by the
post-earthquake conflagration. The economic loss from the 1995 earthquake
may be the largest ever caused by a natural disaster in modern times. The
direct damage caused by the shaking is estimated at over ¥13 trillion (about
U.S.$147 billion). This does not include indirect economic effects from loss
of life, business interruption, and loss of production."