Mac DeMarco’s 1970s Simpsons-Sears Model 26148

This is one of the early acoustic guitars owned by Mac DeMarco. It was seen in numerous photos taken at his house, and it seems that he started using it around the time he started working on “2”. Most likely, it was his main acoustic guitar on that record.

He also used the guitar occasionally live, for instance on Studio 360 at PRX, which was posted on YouTube on July 16, 2015.

Model

Most of the online sources, including Mac’s subreddit, have the guitar listed as a Kingston Sorrento V2, which indeed looks very similar. However, the rosette design is no the same as on Mac’s guitar, and the pickguard on the Kingston model is shaped very differently than the pickguard that was on Mac’s guitar at some point.

The Simpsons-Sears model 26148 seems to be a much better match. Both of the details mentioned above are exactly the same on that guitar and on Mac’s guitar – as can be seen in the photo below.

The guitar was produced in Japan, and it was sold through Sears Canada, or Simpsons-Sears as it was called back then. There were a lot of guitars that looked almost exactly like this since they were all basically made by the same company in Japan, and then re-branded as they came shipped to Northern America, as Teiscos, Kawais, Kingstons, etc.

As opposed to many of those NA brands, Simpson-Sears did not stamp their brand on the headstock, but they did place a paper sticker inside of the guitar. If you look at the first photo of Mac holding the guitar, you’ll notice that the label almost definitely reads “Sears”.