1960’s Eston (Eko) 290 Barracuda Hollowbody

This is a great little '60s hollowbody with tonnes of mojo, made in Italy!

This guitar takes you back to 1960s Melbourne, a city with a huge Italian community. The Lamberti brothers were already importing and selling piano accordions and acoustic guitars but needed an electric guitar brand to keep up with the times, so they turned to the Italian manufacturer Eko, a company that became well known for producing guitars for Vox under contract. Unfortunately, Eko already had a distributor in Australia, so the Lambertis decided to import Eko guitars under their own brand "Eston".

Originally called the 290, the Barracuda entered Eko's catalogue in 1963 and stayed in production throughout most of the '60s and '70s. Most likely drawing inspiration from the famous Epiphone Casino, this model features fully hollow construction and a pair of Eko made single coil pickups. To make these guitars more affordable, they were designed with a bolt-on maple neck.

Many older guitars are in poor shape, but thankfully this example has been fully serviced with a new nut and refret; it's playing great and is ready to keep rocking! There are a few cosmetic marks as expected for a 50+ year old guitar, and a couple of small screw holes left from a mounted pickguard. The pickups sound fantastic; the neck is warm and round but with great clarity, and the bridge has lots of bite and twang.

Includes non original hard shell case.

Available at our Wellington store