Maison EAR 443AA-TR guitar ][ Maison EAR443 AA TR guitar - Semi Acoustic Beauty (Gibson Clone?)

Maison EAR 443 AA TR guitar - mission accomplished. While crawling through ebay I found this interesting looking "Meison" guitar for 75€. That sounded somewhat German and I foud the German guitar craftmenship pretty good at some point. After ordering some more pictures I pretty soon realized, the brand name of the guitar was not "Meison" but "Maison". A little less happy I still found the Maison EAR pretty beautiful and from the picture it also looked well (hand)crafted and also seemed to have abalone inlays and bindings. So I decided to buy it and had a ride (1 hour+) and have a look. The condition seemed to be okay. Scratches, rusty frets and strings and a lot of dust and yellowing. So I packed my new treasure and went back on the train home to investigate my finding further. The label reads "Maison EAR 443AA TR"



For now I haven't been digging too deep on informations on the Maison EAR443 AA TR. For what I know, Maison were Korean dudes who handcrafted guitars from very high quality woods by applying a very high craftmenship. It's also said, that Maison was a pretty small company, so there weren't too many pieces produced at all. When Maison was bought by Yoojin (right... you might know that name when you did research about other korean instruments or japanese guitars) the quality of the guitars broke down. Before that, Maison has been building guitars for very highly appreciated brands like "Photogenic" or "Columbus". They also had some Gibson clones which are the best on theire range. If you can trust the informations on WM Guitars the prices for Maison guitars produced before 1982 are kinda exploding. Happy me.... I payed 75€ and I wouldn't give the guitar back for that prive – no way!!! ;)

There seems to be something like a fanclub over HERE

Our aim is to get Maison guitars known for the real beautiful guitars they are!

Uhhhhmmm... Okay...... I read that before on blogs were people try to make they "old" guitars "vintage". But this seems to be legit. Also I stumbled about some informations about the Maison Steatocasters and Maison Semi-Acoustic Guitars.

Maison was a pretty well known brand in the early 70's. For reasons I don't know, they stopped crafting guitars in the early 1990 (1982?). From them there were other Maison brands but they didn't have much in common with the Maison handcraft skills. Anyway, the REVIEWS on Audiofanzine.com ain't that bad.

There also seem to be a special sparepart dealer for Maison guitars. You can find him here:

WM Guitars - 43 Hunters Moon, Dartington, Devon, TQ9 6JT 

Shop: 01803 868040 – Customer Support: 07733367639 or 07596086925 

E-Mail: wmguitarsuk@gmail.com

But beware, I did never ever speak to that people (but wrote an E-Mail). I found that information at http://www.maisonguitars.co.uk/ . There you can find some reviews regarding the following Maison brand guitars:

• Maison Les Paul
• Maison RG470
• Maison 505
• Maison ST-753 Pro
• Maison RE-280
• Maison RE-280 2
• Maison DM8C RoadKing
• Maison ES-335
• Maison SC-333
• Maison SG
• Maison FA-740D

So why I am so carefully? Well I stumbled upon this:

At that point I realized the type of person and business I was dealing with. In addition to wasting a great deal of my time I was then forced to file a claim with Paypal and ship the broken guitar back to Mark(at my expense) in order to get a refund. I recommend avoiding this amateur Mark Holyer at all costs. Considering the guy passes himself off as a guitar expert and yet hasn't a clue about packaging a guitar properly, that should say enough in of itself. Moving forward, the false accusations and suspect behavior coming from Mark simply reveals that while he is probably new to the guitar business, he is NOT decent. 

@ guitarsite.com. Can't say what's going on there but would stay clean on statements about quality from a person that is called a liar. Anyway... Keep in mind that WM guitars is a SELLER.

Back to topic. Another user there gave us a hint for quality of Maison itself:

I haven't found something about Maison Guitars but I bought a Maison Les Paul on a fleamarket. she's like the LP Black beauty. she's great an the sound is verry good!
I payd 200 CHF.
Bye [...]

Unfortunatly there was nothing to read about my Maison EAR 443AA-IR. But I found THIS picture of a Maison EAR, on which is a guitar looking pretty much like mine (but in blue). I think it has to be the same or similar model to my Maison EAR443 AA IR.

You can find that gallery of Maison guitars HERE.
HERE seems to be a facebook site or a facebook-fansite.
You can find even more Informations about other Maison models on Harmony-Central.com

You can find an offer for a (it does at least look so) Maison EAR443 (blue) HERE for 480€. There was also a Maison ES175 / ELG115 acoustic Jazz guitar sold for over 800€. Here was a Maison 620 Hollowbody sold for about 240€. Another hollow body - The Maison 355 - was sold for 400€ HERE on eBay. There is a review of the 355 at Audiofanzine which sounded pretty good. I found this pretty 12-string Maison which looks (and is labeled EAR443 12) like mine HERE on Aufiofanzine. Another Maison review about the FA740D can be read HERE. A SAS335 can be bought HERE for 250€.

There are also reviews about the:

• Stratocaster LH, EAROD45ODW LH, 684 6, WR711, TYPE LES PAUL, re-280, SL Series, CUSTOM ST753MB/FT, ZL330GKA/FR, ZT330GKA/FR, a clone SG, Flying, FA740D, hollow body style 335, EAR344-12, BW7100C/EQ, E40, EA 310, EAR 330 SGB, EAR32SN, EAR330SN, EAR380 SN AB, EAR390BK, EAR55SN, EFA23SN, Electro-acoustique, RT350, RT500, S70C/EQ, W70C/EQ and the W830C/EQ.

This is what mine looks like after the makeover:

to be continued....