This is how my three Lucky 7 looks like. But before we take a closer look at them, we will look in some Egmond catalogs to see how the Lucky 7 (and its predecessors as well as its successors) looked like in there. It is not that easy to determine the period of time when they were called Lucky 7 but a well reasoned guess is, approximately 1958-1964. Along the way, the conventional name has varied, as the catalog information shows here:


In the 1955 catalog, the two models JG113/5 and JG113/5CA are shown. JG=JazzGuitar and CA=CutAway. Based on it, they made the body sides a little lower (50-60mm instead of 70-80mm) and attached a Royal pickguard with an integrated pickup, and it became the ES113/21CA.


In the 1961 catalog, the JG113/5CA has got the same headstock, f-holes and body side hight, as the ES113/21CA.




In the 1965 catalog, the stockhead has got a new shape and the model names are 36 and 36CA. The model 36 has a body side hight of 70-80mm and the model 36CA has a body side hight of 50-60mm. It is not that the body side hight varied, but in the catalogs they mention the hight to be 2" (50mm) but I measure my guitars to be 60mm high.


In the 1969 catalog, the necks has got truss-rods and the model name is Kansas.


It was possible to get the Kansas in a lavish and expensive design. It was the Kansas L1, that had the top made of Antiaris Africana, both the back and the sides made of Mahogany, the bridge and the fretboard made of Rosewood, the neck made of Maple. It costed more than twice the price of a standard Kansas S1.

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And now my three Lucky 7. My guess is that they are made during the time period of 1960-1963. Today they look a bit different from each other, but in the beginning they all had the same Sunburst finish as the the one in the middle. The necks were painted in black, but I have sanded two of them and clear varnished them instead, so now you can see that they are made of beech wood.


I have bought all my Lucky 7 guitars at flea markets. They have cost from €2 to €20 each and has been broken in one way or another. Parts, such as bridges, etc. has mostly been missing. Then I have restored and improved them.

The one that now is in wine red color, is the first Egmond I got and it was back in 1990. It cost €2. The top and the back were loose from the body sides, the finger board was loose from the neck, some tuning keys were broken, the bridge was missing and there were no strings and no pickups. I.e, it was a junk guitar. These guitars from Egmond were simple designed and made. They differ slightly from one year to another. Unfortunately, I have not taken any photographs of my restorations, so I refer to a Lucky 7 restoration made by someone else, right here. My guitar was just too scratched, so I had to repaint it after I repaired it. Then I chose this wine red color.


I attached a Höfner 510 pickup and a black painted piece of aluminum sheet metal and on that I placed a volume control and a connection jack. Later I added another pickup and a switch for the pickups. Then it was like that for about 20 years.


In 2010 I bought another two Egmond Lucky 7, only a few weeks apart. The one that still has the Sunburst painting, looked like this when I bought it:


It did not have the pickguard with integrated pickup as it has today. That pickguard came with the guitar that is painted in white color. Also this guitar was in a bad condition but not as bad as the first one. The fingerboard was loose from the neck and the top was partly loose from the body sides. The top and back were not too scratched, so I could keep the Sunburst color. Only dots, here and there, on the top and back are painted. I did repaint the body sides, though.


The original plastic bridge is replaced with a wooden bridge. The pickguard with integrated pickup, was an accessory from Royal. For Lucky 7 they normally used this single pickup version (PP 1) but versions with two and three pickups was also available. They were typically used for the Solid 7 and the Scout.


I resembled the pickguard with two pickups (PP 2) by adding a pickup at the bridge and a switch by the volume and tone controls.

Also the white guitar had originally the Sunburst painting. It was in as bad condition as the other ones. The top was cracked because of the pressure from the neck, which was caused by the use of too thick strings. That was the reason why the neck was more bent on this guitar than on the other two. The finger board was loose from the neck. I straightened the neck and glued the finger board to it. and made it playable again. The bridge was missing an I really bought the guitar only to get the pickguard with integrated pickup, which is now on the Sunburst guitar.


I removed the back of the guitar body and repaired the cracked top, but I also reinforced the top where I planned to mount the pickups and also where the bridge should be fastened.


I painted the guitar in a white color and I mounted three pickups, but also the original bridge that used to be on the Sunburst guitar. I made a pickguard from a piece of red colored fiber-glass reinforced plastic board.


I have reinforced the edge of the top with sheet metal where the neck is attached to the top.



The original Egmond bridge is adjustable in the height aspect only, so to intone the guitar the bridge has to be placed in a fixed position and then it can not be adjusted. To improve the possibility to intone the guitar, I made a new bridge from a piece of aluminum. It is continuously adjustable and a lot better than the original bridge.



Even though the aluminum bridge is an improvement over the original bridge, the intonation still is a compromise. That is because every single string can not be intoned separately. That is why I have made another bridge, where every single string can be intoned separately. It is made of six M12 nuts, drilled through and threaded for M4 screws.


With the M12 bridge in place, the intonation of the guitar can be done correctly. Because of the pickguard and pickups attached directly to the top and because of the reinforced parts of the top, the guitar has lost most of its acoustic abilities, so it should be regarded as an electric guitar only.

Then the wine red colored guitar has gone through another modification. I have made a pickguard, with about the same size and shape as the red pickguard, from an ordinary cutting board, found in most kitchen. The cutting board is not as rigid as the red fiber glass plastic, so it need supports to the body sides, which the red pickguard doesn't. I kept the Höfner pickup but placed a new pickup at the bridge, just like I did on the Sunburst colored guitar.

I have improved the guitar even further. The Höfner pickup is replaced by a humbucking pickup, the knobs are the same Stratocaster kind of knobs as on the white guitar, but these are black. The fastening of the bridge is modified to improve the intonation.


All three guitars are nice to play on, and it is simple to make a cheap guitar sound expensive.