I got to thinking about the origins of some of the beautiful guitars that we have at Fat Tone Guitars. TV Yellow, for example. EastwoodGuitars makes the Eastwood P-90 Special in TV Yellow, which we carry. (Fat Tone also carries the P-90 in Black, but that’s beside the point for the moment.)
The Eastwood model is based on an instrument originally made in the 1960’s, but the origin of yellow as a guitar color goes back to the 1950s, the era of the original black and white televisions. The idea was that white guitars would glare too much on black and white TVs, but that yellow guitars would not have the glare. So the color – and it name – were created. TV Yellow as a guitar color has been around for half a century. Eastwood has created a very straightforward design, the P-90 Special, in this historic color, at a very reasonable price.
For trivia buffs–The Eastwood P-90 Special was also the first guitar sold at Fat Tone Guitars when we opened back in August, 2007.
Thanks for a little bit of guitar history.
I’ve been dying to know why they called it “TV Yellow” – plan on making it my third guitar purchase sometime next year – love all the colors but especially the “TV Yellow” – thanks for that bit of trivia!