The Holy Grail for me at the American History Museum was Edward Van Halen’s Frank 2 guitar. It is an exact replica of Van Halen’s Frankenstein guitar that Edward used as his primary instrument during the band’s classic period with David Lee Roth as their lead singer. He called it Frankenstein because the original was a guitar he pieced together from other guitars to get the sound he was looking for.
This guitar was made in 2006 by master guitar maker Chip Ellis at Fender’s Custom Shop. Edward started this project with Fender because his original was wearing out and he wanted another that was true to it. This replica was in fact so close to the original that when Edward first saw it, he could not tell the difference between them.
Edward used this guitar on Van Halen’s 2007-2008 reunion tour mainly during the encore performance of “Jump.”
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