Hello Ken Wood,
Thank you very much for your very interesting post...
As you probably know, I wrote an article about this guitar, mainly thanks to the fact that I got a guitar like that one, an Elpico AC-52, FUMA type pickup + German cable, a 'black plastic strip', Selmer RL2 microphone and even three piano strings. You can see the photos at several posts on this forum...
Now, a few comments:
...The initial guitar had the pick-ups including the controls mounted on the scratch-board...
It's a Royal PP-2 assembly made by Egmond. In fact, is the first model of the Royal PP-2 assembly, discontinued in 1961 for the second one, i.e., the one with two pickups, but now with only two knobs plus two slides...
The pickups and the "plastic strip" are one-in-a-piece. The plastic strip on my Rosetti Solid 7 is white, while the one on McCartney's Solid 7 is black. That is why looks like a "hole" on top of guitar once lose the pickups, seen at The Casbah photos dated February 1961, and those Top Ten photos dated Spring 1961. I don't know if I have rightly explained myself...
...Thus this once electric guitar has become an acoustic one. Except that Paul has added the Roger/Höfner Pick-up that has been identified in this thread...
Correct. With a German type cable. So..., was the guitar on that session really plugued into an amp?? Some witnesses from their gigs in Merseyside area during end December 1960 and January 1961, confirmed that McCartney's guitar was not plugued at all into an amp. Why?? Perhaps that German plug was the reason...
...BWT this article here http://www.liverpoolbeat.com/articles/index.php/the-beatles/paul-mccartney/250-paul-mccartney-and-the-piano-guitar claims that Paul fitted a small Selmer microphone by the bridge and even shows a photo of one, even though it is clearly not the item in the photo of Paul with his Solid 7. Maybe there is some truth about the Selmer microphone story and one like it WAS used by Paul on a guitar, just not this one at this time...
I think there is a mistake in that story. Had McCartney a small pickup fitted by the bridge at those Casbah photos?? Yes, he had. Had McCartney a Selmer microphone at those Casbah photos?? Yes, he had. But the pickup fitted by the bridge was a FUMA type one -with German cable, this is important- and the Selmer -RL2 model- was in front of his mouth... to sing... I think the confussion comes from this fact...
..Also noteable is the dark strip underneath the strings between the neck and the bridge. What is this? Without the scratch-board (or is it called pick-guard?) we should see the plain wood of the guitar body here, not this! Is it a hole or something put ON the body?...
Cfr. supra. That dark strip is the "black plastic strip" of the Royal PP-2 pickup assembly -white plastic strip in my Rosetti Solid 7. You can even see the "lines" left by the pickups once unglued...
...Then in April 1961 Paul uses the Solid 7 again for a photo session. But the pick-up seems to have changed yet again!...
Correct: DeArmond type pickup. And the guitar is fitted with six strings again, i.e., a regular guitar. No more a three -piano- strings bass...
There are still a few misteries about this guitar, but I recently found what I suspected two years ago: McCartney didn't get the guitar by 30 June 1960, as his HP contract states, but by beginning-middle June. What does this mean?? Amongst other facts, this means that McCartney's Solid 7 was firstly played by him at Grosvenor and/or Neston gigs...
I hope you can understand me as my English is very bad!!!
Best wishes,
Xosé