Guitaripedia

Every guitar has a story.

Danelectro

Longhorn

Garry Tallent worked in the Danelectro plant as a teenager. On Born to Run, he played its Longhorn.

Neptune, New Jersey. Nathan Daniel’s factory builds guitars out of stapled pine, hardboard, and vinyl. In 1958 it puts a showpiece in the catalog: horns cut so deep the body looks like a lyre, a guitar that climbs into mandolin range, and two basses on the same body.

Introduced
1958
Type
Solidbody electric
Class
Production
Read the story · 3 min

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Blueburst Danelectro Longhorn Bass isolated on white background
Photo: emily przybylinski / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0Danelectro Longhorn Bass blueburst isolation; twin-cutaway Longhorn silhouette.

The short version

  1. 1956

    The masonite method

    From the fall, Danelectro bodies are a stapled wood frame with masonite top and back and vinyl sides.

  2. 1958

    The Longhorn

    The Guitarlin, a four-string bass, and a six-string bass, at $150. Some registries say 1959.

  3. 1959

    The pickup moves

    On the basses, the treble pickup moves back from the neck toward the bridge.

  4. 1960

    Bomber jacket

    Link Wray is on an LP cover with a Longhorn, and on TV playing “Trail of the Lonesome Pine.”

  5. 1965

    “My Generation”

    John Entwistle goes through three Longhorn basses on the demos. The master solo is on a Fender.

  6. 1966

    MCA

    MCA buys Danelectro. The Longhorns stay on the price list at $150.

  7. 1969

    Neptune closes

    Or late 1968, when MCA folded the company. The two accounts don’t agree.

  8. 1975

    Born to Run

    Garry Tallent plays a Longhorn bass, with roundwound strings, on the album.

Side A

A1

The plant down the road

Garry Tallent was a teenager when he worked at the Danelectro plant in Neptune, New Jersey. His first bass wasn’t a Longhorn. It was a double-cut guitar body with a six-string bass neck on it. The Longhorn, as he tells it, came later.

Nobody would call the way that plant built guitars precious. From the fall of 1956, a Danelectro body was a frame of poplar or pine, stapled together, with a ⅜" sheet of masonite on the top and back and vinyl covering the unpainted sides. The pickups sat in chrome tubes that look like lipstick cases. The old story says they were cosmetics surplus. Howard Daniel says they weren’t.

It was cheap, and it was clever.

A2

Top of the line for $150

In 1958, Nathan Daniel put a showpiece in the catalog. It used the same body frame as his double-cut shorthorns, but the horns were cut so deep the body looks like a lyre. It listed at $150. That year only one Danelectro cost more: the three-pickup Standard, at $165.

The year isn’t quite settled. The catalog and most histories say 1958, and a first-year six-string bass has pots from the 40th week of 1958. One careful Danelectro registry starts the body in 1959. Both stay.

Cutting away that much wood changed the sound. With less masonite and less air inside, the cavity got smaller, and the guitar got brighter.

There was one shape and three instruments. The Guitarlin had 31 frets, guitar plus mandolin, so far up the neck that a bridge pickup would have landed on the fingerboard. Both pickups sat in toward the neck instead. (One registry dates the Guitarlin to 1963, which makes three dates for one guitar.) The 4423 was a four-string short-scale bass. The 4623 was a six-string bass, E to E. The way Daniel pitched it, you got two extra strings for free.

The first basses borrowed the Guitarlin’s routing, with both pickups up at the neck. In 1959 the treble pickup moved back. Every one came in bronze-to-white sunburst. There was no other color.

A3

Knobs that only switch

Then there’s the wiring, which is why so many of them got rewired. Each pickup had a stacked pot with little wooden flipper pointers: on/off on top, volume underneath. There was no tone control. Big capacitors tuned each pickup before you touched anything. The catalog made it sound like a luxury:

Each feather-touch pointer turns its corresponding pickup on or off.

Most surviving Longhorns have been modified. Graham Nash turned up on a magazine cover with one in the fall of 1965, and its knobs were already missing.

The showpiece didn’t outsell the plain one, either. The Standard shorthorns cost about $50 less, and they sold far more.

Flip the record · By the numbers

  • $150

    List price in the 1958 catalog. Only the three-pickup Standard cost more, at $165.

  • 31

    Frets on the Guitarlin. Guitar plus mandolin, on one neck.

  • 3

    Models on one body. Guitarlin, four-string bass, six-string bass.

  • 0

    Tone knobs on an original. The stacked pots are on/off and volume.

Side B

B1

Strings like a piano

The players found it anyway. Link Wray had already posed with a Longhorn on the cover of Link Wray and the Wraymen in 1960, in a bomber jacket, and played one on television that year. (It isn’t the “Rumble” guitar.) Pete Townshend was on stage with a Guitarlin in 1965. That lasted until he put it through a Marshall.

John Entwistle bought a bronze sunburst 4423 in London. The strings were so thin, he said,

they sounded just like a piano.

Those thin strings were the sound, and they were also the problem. He went through three of them recording “My Generation.” The last string broke before the master. So the solo you know is a Fender Jazz Bass with La Bella tape-wounds. The Danelectro is on the demos.

Jack Bruce bought one in Dan Armstrong’s shop across from Manny’s in New York. It was “useful for some things, but I didn’t use it much,” he said. “I did use it on some tracks.” That was around Disraeli Gears in 1967, with the bass already rewired by Armstrong. Some tracks. Not the album.

B2

Still $150 at the end

MCA bought Danelectro in 1966. The Longhorns dropped out of one color catalog, came back on the one-sheets, and were still $150 near the end. The plant in Neptune closed in 1969. Another account has MCA folding the company in late 1968. Both are on the record.

The shape outlived the factory. Other factories built it under other names, and Dave Edmunds played a Longhorn six-string bass prominently on Information in the early ’80s and put it on the cover. Danelectro sells a Longhorn Bass today, captioned “First made in 1958,” and calls it “this squawky short scale bass,” which is about right. It has tone knobs now.

But the best Longhorn story is the one that stays home. The teenager who had worked in the plant in Neptune grew up, strung a Longhorn with roundwounds, and played it on Born to Run.

Put this on

You’ve read about it. Now hear it. Here’s what this guitar sounds like, and what to listen for.

  1. Bruce Springsteen · 1975

    Born to Run

    Garry Tallent says the album is on his Longhorn, strung with roundwounds. Listen for a bright, short-scale bass with some bite to it, not a thud.

    Find it on YouTube

  2. Dave Edmunds ·

    Information

    Edmunds used a Longhorn six-string bass prominently on this record, and he’s holding it on the cover.

    Find it on YouTube

  3. Link Wray · 1960

    Trail of the Lonesome Pine (The Jack Spector Show)

    A TV spot with close-ups of the guitar, the same year Wray posed with a Longhorn on the Wraymen LP. Not “Rumble.”

    Watch it on YouTube

The cast

The people, and the specific guitars, that made the legend.

  • 1975

    Garry Tallent

    Longhorn bass

    Worked at the Neptune plant as a teenager. The Longhorn came after his first bass. Played it on Born to Run.

  • 1960

    Link Wray

    Longhorn

    In a bomber jacket with one on the cover of Link Wray and the Wraymen. Used on records and tours in the late ’50s. Don’t pin “Rumble” on it.

  • 1965

    John Entwistle

    Bronze sunburst 4423

    Bought in London. Went through three on the “My Generation” demos. The released solo is a Fender Jazz Bass.

  • 1965

    Pete Townshend

    Guitarlin

    On stage with one in 1965. That ended when he put it through a Marshall.

  • 1967

    Jack Bruce

    Four-string, rewired by Dan Armstrong

    Used it on some Cream tracks around Disraeli Gears. The EB-3 stayed his main bass.

  • Dave Edmunds

    Longhorn six-string bass

    Played it prominently on Information in the early ’80s, and posed with it on the cover.

Liner notes

Specs, construction, rarity, value, and every source we used.

Twin-cutaway masonite horns, two lipsticks — Danelectro’s Longhorn, guitar and bass, not a ’59, and not a Convertible.

Body
Twin-cutaway Longhorn. Living bass: masonite/hardboard over plywood (Sweetwater; Chicago Music Exchange). Original: masonite over pine/poplar, vinyl sides (RetroFret; guitarhq)
Neck
Bolt-on maple, “C” (living). Original: poplar (guitarhq 1956–69 method; RetroFret)
Fingerboard
Pau ferro, 14" radius, 24 frets, dots (zZounds). Original: Brazilian rosewood. Mix flagged
Scale
Living bass: 29.75". RetroFret vintage: 29 3/4" (756 mm) on a 1958 4423; 29 1/2" (749 mm) on a 1958 4623 and a 1965 4423. Mix flagged
Pickups
Two lipstick-tube single-coils. Living: high-output, high-impedance
Hardware
Living: traditional bridge, rosewood or pau ferro saddle, die-cast tuners. Original: metal plate, sliding rosewood saddle, Kluson then “skate-key” tuners, coke-bottle head
Electronics
Living: two stacked volume/tone sets. Original: stacked on/off (top) with volume underneath; no separate tone. Mix flagged
Finish
Living: copper burst and black typical. Original: bronze-to-white sunburst only (Blue Book; RetroFret; Kohman)
Nut
1.650" aluminum on zZounds / Andy Babiuk living basses. Sims: 1.75". RetroFret vintage: 1 11/16" (43 mm) / 1 5/8" (41 mm) / 1 3/4" (44 mm). Mix flagged
Open the full research fileConstruction details, the complete player record, production numbers, dated value estimates, and sources

Current production typical = living Longhorn Bass (danelectro.com Baritone & Bass tile, “First made in 1958”; Sweetwater, zZounds, fetched 25 September 2026). Factory cart unpublished on the tile; Sweetwater routes the buy. Living Longhorn Guitar (Sweetwater LHGCB, 21 frets) and Longhorn Baritone sit on this silhouette; they are not the Guitarlin. Red Hot Longhorn (2024, f-hole, 3-way) is a later twist, not this table. Classic living example of the original object = 1958–69 4123 Guitarlin / 4423 four-string / 4623 six-string bass (Neptune, N.J.). ’59M NOS+ (danelectro-59) is the two-lipstick shorthorn. Convertible (danelectro-convertible) is a hollow shorthorn with a round hole. Coral Longhorn L2N6 is 1968–69 Kawai laminate. No Gibson SKU. Mixed inch/mm flagged on RetroFret (overall 40" (101.6 cm) / 39 3/4" (101 cm), lower bout 13 1/4" (33.7 cm) / 13 1/8" (33.3 cm), depth 1 5/8" (4.1 cm) / 1 9/16" (4 cm), scale 29 3/4" (756 mm) / 29 1/2" (749 mm)). Do not average the scales or the nuts.

Construction

The job was a showpiece Nathan Daniel could hang next to the shorthorn Standard and still call top of the regular line. Same masonite method. Horns cut so deep the body looks like a lyre. Guitar that reached mandolin. Bass that used the guitar’s body. Vintage Guitar (Peter Stuart Kohman): introduced in the 1958 catalog at $150, four-string and six-string bass matching the Model 4123 Guitarlin. For that year only the three-pickup Standard 3031 listed higher, $165. Historical list, not 2026 street. This plate starts in 1958.

guitarhq files the longhorn body 1959–1969, the 4423/4623 basses the same span, and the Guitarlin 4123 1963–1969. Blue Book, RetroFret, Premier Guitar, MusicRadar, and danelectro.com all print 1958. RetroFret’s first-year 4623 has pots from the 40th week of 1958. Keep 1958, 1959, and guitarhq’s 1963 Guitarlin. Do not pick a winner.

What you get is Danelectro method with more of the middle cut away. guitarhq: from fall 1956, poplar or pine frame, stapled, ⅜" masonite top and back, vinyl on the unpainted sides, lipstick tubes in chrome cosmetics housings. Kohman: same body frame as the double-cut shorthorn, Masonite and air removed, smaller cavity, brighter. RetroFret: body identical on all three Longhorns; the basses take a longer 29 1/2" neck. Coke-bottle head. Bronze-to-white sunburst only. Two lipsticks. Jack on the rim.

Three models, one cut. 4123 Guitarlin: 31 frets, “guitar + mandolin,” both pickups in toward the neck because a bridge pickup would sit on the board. 4423: four-string short-scale bass. 4623: six-string bass, E-to-E; RetroFret has Daniel calling it two extra strings for free. First-year basses share the Guitarlin’s routing — both pickups at the neck. RetroFret: treble pickup moved back in 1959. That is the running change.

The wiring is why players rewired them. Kohman: stacked pots, on/off on top, volume underneath, wooden “flipper” pointers, no tone control; large caps pre-tune each pickup. Catalog: “Each feather-touch pointer turns its corresponding pickup on or off.” RetroFret: most surviving examples have been modified. Living stacked volume/tone is not that circuit.

Not the ’59 (danelectro-59). Two-lipstick shorthorn 3021 — seal guard, shorter horns. Not a Convertible (danelectro-convertible). Fully hollow shorthorn, round hole, one lipstick or none. Not a U2. U1 / U2 are 1956–58 single-cuts (guitarhq). Not the 1956 UB-2, Daniel’s earlier six-string bass on a U body (Howard Daniel, Vintage Guitar). Not the Coral Longhorn. Kohman Part 2: 1968 Coral L2N6 on Kawai arched laminate. Different factory. This plate stays standalone.

MCA bought Danelectro in 1966 (guitarhq; Kohman, Part 1). Kohman: Longhorns $150 on the Dane Line back page; missing from the ’67/’68 color book, restored on one-sheets; still $150 near the end; still in the 1969–’70 catalog with the Convertible and the Baby Sitar. guitarhq: Neptune closed 1969. Kohman: MCA folded the company in late 1968. Keep both.

Kohman: Meazzi Dynelectron in Milan while the original was still in the book; Hondo II in the late 1970s; Jerry Jones later. Evets revived the badge. A 1998–99 Guitarlin reissue exists (31 frets, 25" on a named Reverb listing). Guitar Interactive (3 November 2015) and MusicRadar / Guitarist (Ed Mitchell, January/February 2016): ’58 Longhorn guitar and bass, guitar 635 mm (25"), 21 frets. Those are Koreans, not a Neptune 4123.

The living bass is the object Danelectro still captions 1958. danelectro.com: “this squawky short scale bass.” Sweetwater, zZounds, Chicago Music Exchange: hardboard/plywood, maple “C,” pau ferro, 24 frets, 29.75", two high-output lipsticks, stacked volume/tone. Living Longhorn Guitar: 21-fret copper-burst six-string at Sweetwater, not 31 frets. Living Baritone: Sweetwater 29.72", not the 4623. Red Hot Longhorn (Premier Guitar, 12 March 2024): f-hole, master volume and tone, 3-way, street $599 — a 2024 cousin, not this table. Classic vs current: 1958 4123/4423/4623 — masonite, vinyl, bronze-white sunburst, flipper stacks, 31-fret guitar or short-scale bass — against a living Longhorn Bass that ships 24 frets, stacked volume/tone, copper burst or black.

Players

Do not recruit Jimmy Page. The Met guitar is a 1961 3021, on danelectro-59. Do not hang “Rumble” on this plate. Do not flatten Townshend’s SG, Entwistle’s Jazz Bass master, or Bruce’s EB-3 onto this silhouette. Do not treat Tom Petty’s Wilburys videos as the album bass.

Link Wray. Vintage Guitar (Kohman): pictured in bomber jacket and Longhorn on the cover of the 1960 LP Link Wray and the Wraymen; “Trail of the Lonesome Pine” on The Jack Spector Show the same year, guitar close-ups. Premier Guitar (Dave Rogers, 16 August 2013): used on recordings and tours in the late ’50s. Named pictures. Not “Rumble.”

Pete Townshend. Kohman: pictured with a Guitarlin in 1965–’66; a ’66 Premier drums ad shows the Who with matching Longhorns. MusicRadar (Mitchell, 2016): on stage in 1965; ended when he put it through a Marshall. He used the shorthorn Standard around the same time, then Coral Hornet in 1967–’68 (Kohman). Guitarlin, not an SG.

John Entwistle. His own account, via Whotabs: 4423, bronze sunburst, two lipsticks; bought in London; strings so thin “they sounded just like a piano”; went through three recording “My Generation”; last string broke before the master, so the released solo is a Fender Jazz with La Bella tape-wounds. RetroFret repeats the demo-vs-master split. Named guitar, named trap.

Jack Bruce. Vintage Guitar: bought a Danelectro in Dan Armstrong’s shop opposite Manny’s; “useful for some things, but I didn’t use it much. I did use it on some tracks”; piano-like, twangy; EB-3 remained the Cream bass. RetroFret: the 4-string around Disraeli Gears in New York, 1967, already rewired by Armstrong. Some tracks. Not the whole album.

Garry Tallent. His own account (Musicians Hall of Fame interview): worked at the Neptune plant as a teenager; first bass was a double-cut guitar body with a six-string bass neck; the Longhorn “came later.” Born to Run (1975) is on the Longhorn, roundwounds. Premier Guitar (Victor Broden, September 2024) has him on one often in that era. Named guitar, named album. Not every E Street cut.

Dave Edmunds. RetroFret: used a Longhorn six-string prominently on Information in the early 1980s, and posed with it on the cover. Named album. Six-string, not the 4423.

Also known to play stays short. Kohman: Graham Nash of the Hollies on the cover of Beat Instrumental, fall 1965, knobs already missing; Steve Marriott of the Small Faces posed with a Guitarlin in ’66. Tom Petty holds a Longhorn in Traveling Wilburys videos (“End of the Line”); Jeff Lynne played bass on the records. Video, not the album. None invented.

Rarity

You can buy a new Longhorn. The living bass and the 21-fret guitar are regular production, backordered at Sweetwater this pass, not scarce. Original Neptune 4123 / 4423 / 4623 examples are finite. RetroFret: Longhorns were heavily outsold by the Standard shorthorns at about $50 less. Danelectro did not publish Longhorn totals. None invented. Premier Guitar’s Guitarlin note — “only about 200 were made between 1958 and 1968” — is that article’s figure, not a factory census. Neck-pocket serials date a guitar (guitarhq: week / unknown digit / year). They don’t count a year. That is why a first-year census is unknown, not the chapter.

What is actually thinner: 1958 basses with both pickups still at the neck; original flipper stacks; Guitarlins that still have 31 frets. Wray’s Wraymen guitar, Entwistle’s London 4423s, Edmunds’s Information 4623 are unique objects. They are not a vintage Longhorn. Coral L2N6, Jerry Jones, Hondo, and Dynelectron are other factories on this outline.

Value

Informal estimate, 25 September 2026. Not an appraisal.

Ask vs sold labeled. Celebrity lots are not-comps. No invented medians or factory counts. Period $150 (1958 catalog, Kohman; RetroFret) is 1950s money, not 2026 street. Case $25 more (Premier Guitar, 2013).

New street. Living typical. Sweetwater Longhorn Bass Black $629, estimated February 2027; Copper Burst $629 (fetched 25 September 2026). zZounds $629. Dealer asks at $569 (Motor City Guitar; Sims Music) and $569.99 (Andy Babiuk’s Fab Gear). Living Longhorn Guitar Copper Burst $639 (Sweetwater; estimated November 2026). Factory MAP unpublished on the danelectro.com tile. Red Hot Longhorn street $599 (Premier Guitar, March 2024) is that SKU, not this table.

Used modern. 1998–99 Guitarlin reissues, 2015-era ’58 Longhorns, and later Korean/Indonesian Longhorn Basses trade used. Reverb Price Guide on Longhorn Bass Copper Burst: $321–$490, 160 orders, 2010s, Good to Mint. Named used ask, not a hammer: 2022 Copperburst $499 (Tone Wolf). Don’t invent a midpoint across guitar and bass.

Vintage / collectible. Flag: thin sold-comp access. Reverb Price Guide widgets on Guitarlin 4123 did not print a clean Good-to-Mint band this pass. Named asks, not hammers: 1962 4423 Excellent $4,250; another 1962 $3,495; 1959 Copper Burst $4,499.99; 1959 4623 $3,400 (Sylvan Music); RetroFret 1958 4623 listed $3,950 (ended). Fretboard Journal, 9 April 2014: 1959 Guitarlin at Olivia’s $2,495. Premier Guitar, 2013: Guitarlin “current value” $2,000 — that article’s figure, not 2026 street. Do not average those asks. Entwistle’s London 4423s and Wray’s Wraymen guitar are not comps.

See also

  • danelectro-59 — the two-lipstick shorthorn 3021; same lipstick idea, not this lyre-cut Longhorn
  • danelectro-convertible — the fully hollow shorthorn with a round hole; same plant, not this silhouette
  • fender-bass-vi — Fender’s 1961 six-string bass; not Danelectro’s 4623 Longhorn

Sources

Guitars this one gets compared to, confused with, or descended from.