Peter Kellett Interview

by Rick Messock; photos by Michael Shea.

Peter Kellett is an ultimate guitar geek, an uber axe collector, which, in guitar circles, spells C-O-O-L. His exceptional guitar collection ranges from early '50s classics to Fender Custom Shop prototypes and an impressive array of aluminum-bodied instruments. By his own estimate, Kellett has up to 150 guitars - a virtual six-string candy shop.

Kellett is the owner of a company called PK Selective, which is one of the largest full service anodize shops in Northern California. Anodizing is a process that electrolytically coats a metal with a protective or, in the case of some of PK Selective’s work, a decorative coating. As you might expect, PK Selective does a great deal of industrial metal coating, but Kellett has developed some rather unique talents and capabilities, including “splash anodizing” which results in a technicolor protective coating on aluminum.

Peter also does something called anographics, essentially using anodizing techniques to place a single or multicolored image on aluminum. In addition to his more “conventional” work, Kellett is also an artist who has incorporated his metal working skills into his art. Fortunately for Modern Guitars readers, his incredible art also adorns guitars.

Modern Guitars visited Peter at his home in Northern California to talk guitars and to give our readers an inside look at one of the most amazing personal collections of guitars we've ever seen.
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You have quite a guitar collection, something over 100 pieces?

Peter Kellett: At least 100, between 100 and 150. I’d have to go and count the cases.

How did you get started collecting guitars? Are you a player?

PK: I am a guitar player, but I'm more of a songwriter and I’m presently working with Brad Gillis, who replaced Randy Rhoads in Ozzie Osbourne’s band. He’s in Night Ranger right now. I’m working with him on a couple of CDs of my own tunes.

My first collectible guitar was a ’54 Strat that I bought, probably 20 years ago, for $1,500. That was when I first started. The owner was asking $1,500 but said he’d probably sell it for $1,200. It was over at a guitar repair shop and I went and looked at it. It was in pieces. I didn’t know anything about vintage back then—very few people did—and I thought, “I’m not going to buy that piece of crap.” But then he put it together and it looked pretty good. The owner looked at it and said, “I want $1,500.” So, I bought it. It was my first guitar—it was a player—and what a great guitar it is.

Did you start collecting slowly?

PK: It exploded out of control right after I started working with the Fender Custom Shop. That must have been ’91. It just seemed that it was hard to find a Custom Shop guitar because everything was pre-ordered. I remember going to a guitar store—the San Jose Guitar Showcase—and buying my first Custom Shop Telecaster. It was a Telecaster with a big whammy.

After that I just went berserk, buying lots of Custom Shop guitars. I’ve got quite a collection of Custom Shops. My vintage collection is kind of sparse—it’s the smallest part of my collection. I’ve got the ’54 Strat and a Mary Kaye Strat that has gold parts and an anodized pickguard and back plate. The body is '58 the neck is a '59 maple. That’s one of the choice Strats to have.

I’ve got a ’59 slab board rosewood neck Strat with the 10-screw pickguard, which was the transition between the eight and 11-screw. There were just a few of them made for a month or so—it’s really rare. I also have a ’65 sunburst Strat. I also have a Custom Color '73 Strat.

I have an absolutely mint ’67 Epiphone Casino - the John Lennon guitar [photo above]. I was at the Texas Guitar Show and my friend told me to check out three Casinos there. They had 3 Casinos, all different—I wish I’d bought all of them—they had been sitting in some mom and pop music store’s attic for at least 30 years.

They had the original strings on them, and not a nick or dent. Absolutely mint. I wish I had bought more of those. It does need a little work—the frets are kind of rusty. I haven’t played it much. There are some checks in the finish though.

Is that pretty much your vintage collection?

PK: I do have a ’67 red Tele. I also have a ’69 ES-355 Gibson, stereo, with a red finish and a "bowling ball" Strat, an ’83. The rest of my collection is pretty much 1988 and later models. I went crazy trying to get old Custom Shops. Most of my Custom Shops have the old egg-shaped logo, which is pretty neat, before they changed to the V logo. I thought I missed the vintage thing, but prices on the Custom Shop models have gone nuts.

The Custom Shop models are the bulk of your collection?

PK: Yes. I have a lot of prototypes.

You said you became interested in the Custom Shop models when you started working with Fender’s Custom Shop. What were you doing with them?

PK: I do this multi-colored anodized stuff. I knew that Leo Fender liked the aluminum pickguards better than any other, I guess for the grounding reasons. I sent a letter to a guy named George Blanda about an idea for anodized aluminum pickguards. I remember I used some stationary with Blue Meanies on it and they called me back. Blanda said he called back because of the stationary. Anyway, I sent them about 20 panels, all with different multi-colored effects.

I ended up doing 20 multi-colored anodized pickguards for them and I ended up trading them for a really nice ’54 Mary Kaye Custom Shop reissue. I ended up meeting John Page and they invited me down to Fender. [Later] I worked with them on an aluminum guitar [body]. They gave me one prototype and told me to go anodize that.

What was the idea behind the aluminum guitars?

PK: I think [the prototypes] were with the Harley Davidson guitar in mind. So I did anodize one. The aluminum guitars were made with three pieces—top, bottom and sides. Later, they gave me 20 guitars and said do them all. They wanted [to choose a design and then do] them all the same, so I did six with a red, black gold, six with green, black and gold and I did the rest with eight completely different looks. Out of those they picked a green, gold, black combination which, I thought, was not the best choice. It was OK for one or two, but I had other effects that I thought were much nicer.

It turns out they stuck them up in the storage attic and when some Japanese buyers came over, they saw them and said, “We want those.” So they made those bodies into guitars and shipped them over to Japan. I made 30 more guitar bodies with the green, black and gold colors. Around this time I did a couple that had “Hollywood” and a sort of sunburst effect. I used a little felt pen with an air canister.

I did a couple of guitars with a photograph of New York, like Bleecker Street, which I thought were really neat, kind of artsy, but to Fender it was like, “We don’t think they’ll sell.” I still have one of the Hollywood guitars.

Were the Japanese buying most of the Custom Shop output at this time?

PK: Yes. What happened was the Japanese ended up taking Fender’s “egg shaped” logo, and that’s why John Page changed the logo, so that no one would confuse the U.S. Custom Shop with the Japanese.

How difficult was it to be a supplier and customer of Fender at the same time?

PK: It wasn’t hard. They were willing to exchange and I got a wholesale price. They gave me one every so often, as an artist. It was kind of neat being on the inside—walking around the shop they would show me something and I would say, “I want that!” That’s what happened when I ended up getting the very first prototype set-neck Stratocaster, which was quite a coup.

Jay Black was showing me around the room where they store all the wood for drying it out, and he comes across this scrap thing, which was a set-neck Stratocaster. It didn’t have any parts and I’m not sure if it even had a finish on it. There it was, a prototype of the very first set-neck Stratocaster being thrown away in the scrap bin. When he pulled it out the neck was all bent. When I said I wanted it, he said OK, and they made it up for me—it’s a fabulous guitar! It had a nice quilted maple top (now its finished like a black see through), and a mahogany neck. I love the guitar.

They had done four—three went to the NAMM show in ’91. I later found one of the NAMM show Strats and so I have two set-neck prototype Strats. Then I bought the very first set-neck Telecaster from John English.

What do you like about the set-neck, that it has less of a heel?

PK: That’s what’s so nice about it. When you’re playing leads up high, you can go straight through. The set-necks are really nice guitars, but I know to purists they don’t count.

Why do you think they made a set-neck prototype and then scrapped it?

PK: I have no idea. At the point I found it, it was a year or so after the NAMM show. I never did ask why it was in the scrap bin. They may have looked at the neck being bent—it looked pretty warped—and didn’t want to bother fixing that.

With your collection, particularly considering the value, do you play your guitars?

PK: The older ones I don’t play very much. I’m not a heavy player anyway. It’s just now that I’m starting to play more. I’ve got some nice amps—about a year ago I had a guy come up and we were playing through Marshall JTM 45’s, with a '65 and '59 Strat, he said, “We’re getting the Hendrix sound.” I wish that I could play all of them, but….

How do you store the guitars?

PK: Right now I have a big safe; Gibson sold them at the NAMM show a couple of years ago. I bought the safe and it supposedly has a controlled environment, so the expensive guitars are in that. But the bulk of them are at my office in a special room. About 100 of them are hanging on the walls, the rest of them are in cases.

You let them hang on the walls?

PK: Yes.

Do you change the strings or just leave them alone?

PK: I pretty much leave them alone.

Have you had any problems with neck warpage?

PK: They've been fine so far. Whenever I check them, there hasn’t been much warpage at all.

Do you ever take your collection to guitar shows, or hold any exhibits?

PK: No.

Are you a trader or seller?

PK: No. I don’t do that; I just started to collect and went a little overboard. At first I found they weren’t hard to come by, so I bought quite a few. I figured, “Well, I can put my money in the bank, or I can put it on my wall.” On some of these guitars, I’ve made a lot of money at this point, if I wanted to sell them.

I bought a Valeno—the all aluminum guitar. In the early '70s, anybody who was anybody, like Clapton, owned one. They only made 200 of them. I bought it for $1,400, six or seven years ago, and it’s now worth six or seven grand. Another was a PRS Dragon that I bought for $8,000, and the last I heard it would sell for $17 to $20 thousand.

This guitar has appreciated more than a lot of mutual funds.

How do you typically find guitars? Do you have a network of dealers who call you?

PK: No, the way I collected most of them was through Vintage Guitar magazine,. And of course the Custom Shop. I got one of the three aluminum prototypes through Vintage Guitar.

Do you have any acoustics?

PK: I think I have six—a Martin 12-string, Breedlove 6 and 12-string, and five Warrior acoustics. Most of my collection is electric. I do have 13 Fender aluminum bodies. I have the Flamingo Strat, engraved by Ron Chasey, which is on the cover of the Fender Custom Shop book

In the Custom Shop Book, there’s a picture of a Harley Davidson guitar. That is the prototype of the HD guitar. They made two prototypes. It’s got a black anodized pick guard, with an aluminum eagle in it, and a chromed body. I have one of those.

Have you had any of your guitars professionally appraised?

PK: No. I just hear what the going price is.

When you find a guitar, what steps do you take to prove its authenticity?

PK: Most that I’ve bought are from people who are reputable dealers. With one I bought from a dealer, I think it was a mahogany Stratocaster, I called the Custom Shop and asked about it. They had never heard of it but it had the Custom Shop label. I sent it down to Fender and we concluded that it was a counterfeit, somebody must have slipped out a Custom Shop label. So I did get one fake. I thought what the hell, so I still have it.

I have a Custom Shop Jazzmaster guitar that was a prototype with one of my anodized pickguards on it. My friend was looking at it when he said, “Hey what happened to your guitar?” A fine dust of wood powder was coming down from it. There was a perfectly round ¼” hole just above the pickguard and underneath the paint I could see all these little tunnels. I go, “Oh my God! There’s a beetle in this guitar."

I got on the Internet and found it was called a wood-boring beetle. They can last up to 30 years in a piece of wood before they come out. I called the Custom Shop and talked to John Cruz. I told him there was a beetle in my guitar and he said, “Oh yeah, about seven or eight years ago, we had some problems with beetles in the wood.“ So I figured that this one had some special sound chambers.

That’s got to be the strangest story in your collection.

PK: It is. But I was talking to John Page one time and he said he had a Custom Shop Strat with an ant in the paint. I thought that was kind of cool and I’d like to have that—a Custom Shop Strat with an ant in the paint has got to be a collector’s piece.

How did you get rid of the beetle?

PK: I guess he just came out of it. He must have gotten out into the room and I was worried since all my guitars were in there. But we never did find him. Maybe he’s still in there for all I know.

If you could only take one guitar with you to a deserted island, which would it be?

PK: I wouldn’t know what to say to that. I don’t know.

If I can’t get you to pick one favorite guitar, maybe you could tell me your four or five most prized pieces?

PK: That I can do. I think I would take my set-neck Strat, I would take one of my three Warriors. I would take a Gibson SG Custom Shop that I got from a NAMM show, and my ’65 Strat. I like the aluminums; I would take one of the first 20 anodized aluminum Strats. I’d like to take the ‘58 Mary Kaye, but that’s almost too obvious.

One more tidbit—kind of a trivia thing—there’s an item in one of the Fender books, [History of the Stratocaster] in which Bill Carson is talking about the aluminum pickguard. He said they were using anodized aluminum pick guards, but after a player used it for awhile a person’s hand would turn black because the anodized finish would wear through.

I’m an anodizer, and that did not sound right to me. I started checking how thick the old anodized finishes were. When I measured these vintage pick guards, the thicknesses weren’t right for anodizing. I think some of them were alodined. I’m sure they were. It’s gold and it looks almost like anodizing, but it’s a pre-treatment for painting aluminum, used if you want to protect it somewhat from corrosion, but still wanted it to conduct electricity.

By this time, I was doing the aluminum pickguards for Fender, so I took one of them and alodined it. I started rubbing my thumb on it, and sure enough, after about three or four minutes, my thumb turned black. I talked to Bill Carson, and I think what happened is that when they first started doing the anodized pickguards they went out to some shop and asked them to make them look gold, and they got the alodine instead of the anodize. That’s why they started painting them, to prevent them from wearing out so fast.

Bill Carson said, “Yeah I’m sure you’re right.” I called up Tony Bacon and told him the story and that he had a mistake in his book. We kind of went back and forth, but in the end, he agreed with me.

Related Links
Peter Kellett Anographics
Kellett Guitars
Michael Shea Photography

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