1974 Jolana Iris - Communist Telecaster?

Jolana Iris was a solidbody produced between 1974 and 1985 (circa) in Krnov, Czechoslovakia. It originally featured two Alnico singles, which were later changed to ceramic blade-style single coil pickups, a Jazzmaster-like vibrato, and the infamous Jolana style archtop bridge, which was held on the body (actually a pickguard) only with string pressure. I finally got my hands on an unmolested example with Alnico pickups and finally got to do a demo. I was very pleasantly surprised! So far, one of the best Jolana necks I’ve ever encountered, and the Alnico pickups sound very nice. It definitely sounds better than I remember it from my childhood :) The twang! When I started playing guitar in the Czech Republic in the 90s, these guitars were basically given away to kids and often ended their miserable lives as firewood. Nobody knew how to set them up properly, and they just couldn’t pull off the Master Of Puppets guitar sound convincingly. However, they definitely are very interesting instruments and interesting relics of their time - a testament to what could be engineered and made in a communist economy.

Recorded using Neural DSP Morgan Amp suite.