VINTAGE 25TH ANNIVERSARY SERIES V6H‑SVB £419
As ever, Wilkinson logos are everywhere and outnumber the actual Vintage-brand logo three to one… and that doesn’t include those stamped tuner legends.
If the V75 comes across as a generic T-style in smart dress then this V6H appears a little more harder rock-aimed with that zebra-coiled humbucker in the bridge. The cream plastic of that screw bobbin, switch cap and the control knobs is a little visually jarring – keeping things black might have been smarter – but it does have some hot-rod vibe. You can feel a slight edge to the body contouring in places, notably on the rear ribcage cutaway, but you’ll notice a rounded heel and matching neckplate. Interesting, too, is that although the V75’s neck is standard slab-sawn, this one is as near as dammit on the quarter and very straight-grained. It’s very rare to see wood stock like that in this price area.
The vibrato is one of the best low-cost units this writer has used over the years with pressed steel saddles and top plate, a die-cast block with deep-drilled offset string holes – the D and high E are slightly forward of the others. There’s a plastic sleeve for the black-tipped arm and tension adjustment, too. Again, we have those E-Z Lok tuners, though here the top three are lower, bringing the strings down at a steep enough angle – just – to do away with any string trees.
Here, the pickup names excel: a WOHZBb humbucker at bridge and a pair of WOVaS at neck and middle. Ideas on a postcard, please.
Finally, the V100. The silver/black ’burst finish ties in very nicely with what is a credible-looking modern single-cut. It’s a pretty good weight and while only the fingerboard wood is visible, it’s made of the right stuff. Or so we’re told. One obvious change to the hallowed recipe is the radius’d body heel and much sharper treble horn. The headstock tip avoids that classic lip shape and is a little flatter in terms of its back angle than Gibson’s classic 17 degrees. It’s more of a Custom style – inlays aside – and the multiple purfling inside the white binding on both top and back is well done. To our eyes, the silver/black colour is much
Sound wise, there’s little to moan about. Both the V75 and V6H get to the heart of the guitars they imitate
more consistent here, with the rather sloppy exception of the gold rhythm/treble legends on the toggle switch surround. You wonder why they bothered with that at all?
Hardware is different but seems perfectly functional. The tuners are Grover in Rotomatic-style but the buttons are quite sharp-edged, while the stud tailpiece seems a little oversized. The ABR-1-style tune-omatic has a wire retainer for the saddles and handy-to-adjust slot-head posts.
The pickups are covered Wilkinson WOCHB ‘hot ceramic’ humbuckers with a slightly wider polepiece spacing on the bridge unit, again a nice detail at this price.
Feel & Sounds
If we were able to judge what we’re hearing without knowing anything about these guitars – impossible, of course – we’d guess that what we’re feeling and listening to would be costlier than they actually are. You might have played a Vintage guitar a few years back and thought, ‘Well, it’s okay for the money.’ These, and the pair of V100s we looked at back in issue 453, not to mention the Joe Doe by Vintage guitars on review in issue 463, raise the game.
There’s plenty of old-Fender feel to the V75’s neck shape, for example: a fullshouldered feel measuring 22mm in depth at the 1st fret, 23.9mm by the 12th. Not huge but appealingly chunky. The highgloss finish could certainly be improved with a little deglossing, and the edges of the separate fingerboard would benefit from a little more rounding. The fret gauge falls into the medium/low camp (around 2.69mm by 1.1mm), nicely installed with tidy fret ends, and the slots are neatly filled. Setup is excellent with a mainstream 1.6mm string height and very little relief. Only the nut lets it down: while well cut, it could be filed down to meet the strings.