IYG’s The Fool replica guitar debuts

After two years of delays, our latest road-ready replica, The Fool, is ready to rock!

Rocco and I signed the control cavity of this guitar when we glued the neck to the body, back in December 2017. It’s taken us over two years (with some very long breaks) to complete this instrument, but here it is — IYG’s Fool!

The Fool is an icon guitar played by Eric Clapton during his prime Cream years, 1967-1969. In 1967, Clapton gave his ’64 Gibson SG Standard to Dutch artists Marijke Koger and Simon Posthuma. They gave the guitar a custom psychedelic paint job featuring the character of The Fool from a deck of tarot cards. (The artists made a matching bass for Jack Bruce but he didn’t like the way the painted neck felt, so he didn’t play it.)

Clapton, however, loved The Fool, and played it on many of Cream’s classic compositions. This instrument was an essential part of Clapton’s famed “woman tone” — crank the volume and turn down the tone knob on the neck pickup and wail away. 

• Sunshine Of Your Love
• I Feel Free
• Spoonful

After passing through the hands of several rock ‘n’ roll luminaries, The Fool ended up with Todd Rundgren who refurbished the battered instrument and used it on several live tours and studio recordings in the 1970s and ’80s. Watch Todd play the Fool during “Black Maria” on the Midnight Special 1973. 

The original Fool currently resides with a private collector who paid approximately $500,000.

Here’s you’re chance to own a “Fool” road-ready replica at a fraction of the price!

The IYG fool features:

• Solid mahogany body and neck
• Genuine Gibson USA pickups (A 490T in the bridge and a 489R in the neck position. I was told these came from a Gibson Explorer, but I can’t verify that.)
• Stop tailpiece and tune-a-matic bridge.
• Ships with form-fitted custom hardshell case!

The IYG Fool has a chunky neck but low action. It plays great and sounds great. And it looks…like the Fool! We finished this guitar with a combination of machine printing and hand-drawn artwork, and we finished it with a thick, acrylic glaze. The result is a brighter, more vibrant guitar finish than Clapton’s original fool.  I can’t lie — the IYG Fool has a slightly uneven “textured” finished, not the smooth, mirrored finish you’d get from a factory. But you can’t get the Fool from a factory! You can only get it here, a unique, one-of-a-kind musical gem!

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