Ahead Virtual Guitar & Pick Holder, 1995, Made in Canada

Link: ecklunds

It’s an Ahead Virtual Guitar, probably made in 1995 by Ahead, Inc., of Bedford Maine, which has since been purchased by Namco Ltd., renamed to MusicPlayground Inc. and moved to Andover, where it now makes karaoke CDs, virtual drumsticks and a virtual pick. (I’m not making this up.) The guitar is about 35 inches long overall and a little less than 12 inches wide across the lower bout.

Just looking at the control buttons, it appears the thing has all the important functions of a MIDI guitar and might be an interesting thing to play with, if you had the other things it requires to play. It has a fretless fingerboard and six permanently mounted steel wire “strings.” There are two jacks that look like standard telephone or network connectors marked "A" and "B". It is in excellent condition, except for what looks like belt buckle — maybe teeth — marks on the front of the guitar on the strings housings. Go figure. The guitar is made entirely of some sort of very tough plastic with a satin finish, so whoever put those marks there really had to work at it. Another interesting feature is the pick holder at the outer end of the headstock. Nice touch. This might make an interesting wall hanger for some advanced air guitar player. Or maybe you already have one of these and need a backup. It's a little big, but you probably could play air electric ukulele with it, too, if you virtually capo up to the fifth fret.