What’s even rarer than a Murph guitar? A crazy-rare Silvertone
12-string Murph Guitar which were made for Sears for a short
while. I've seen exactly "ONE" of these guitars since I've been
collecting... and your looking at that "ONE" on this page.
The Murph Guitar history started as a family-owned business
run by Pat Murphy in the mid-1960's located in San Fernando,
California. In their very short history, they built a varied line
of solidbody, hollow & semi-hollow body guitars, and were
attempting to branch-out even further when bad luck hit.
Murphy Industries was hit in the form of patent litigation...
and went bankrupt in the Spring of 1967. This was a very sad
ending to an innovative guitar company.
But how did the birth of the "RAREST" Silvertone Guitar really
begin? This Murph-Silvertone 12-String Guitar is only "ONE" of
25 that Pat Murphy built "on spec" for Sears in 1966 which carried
the Silvertone logo. Unfortunately, at that point in history, Sears
had exhausted their instrument purchasing budget for fiscal '66...
with the promise of more Murph Guitar orders by early 1967. But
by '67 Murphy Music Industries... was out of business.
These rare Murph-Silvertone models never made it into any
of the Sears catalogs... and it's not clear if any of the 25 guitars
that were produced by Murphy Industries ever made it into any
of the Sears West Coast Department Stores. This Murph-Silvertone
guitar, that's now in my collection, come-out of the hands of a
former instrument buyer who worked for Sears during the 1960's.