Courtney’s green Mercury guitar.
This is a hugely detailed back story so bear with me. Less than 100 of these guitars were ever made – some even say as little as 30.
Tim George and Danny Babbitt were the original creators and designers behind Mercury Guitars – based in Atlanta, Georgia.
They started on the aesthetic development of the Mercury in early ’92. The actual shape was inspired by the smaller Rickenbackers.
It was originally called the “Gemini” – they wanted a name which was timeless and somehow they settled on ‘Mercury’.
The guitars were designed to be mass produced. This is the reason for the string through body design, it was a bunch cheaper - they actually got the parts from the hardware store.
The first Mercury prototype had a brown sunburst body. At this point, things started to go fast for Tim & Danny.
The original ones built were of various colours. Danny worked during the day at a huge store in Atlanta called Rhythm City and they allowed him to put the guitars in the store. They sold one to the band Collective Soul, they sold one to a guy in a band called Head Hunter. Another one was sold to the guitar player for Porno For Pyros. One was sold to Guy Picciatto of Fugazi.
They built a metallic green Mercury (a special vintage General Motors paint colour, a paint typically used for cars) for Tim personally. One night, Danny saw Nirvana was in town and he wanted to try and get it in front of Kurt. Somehow he got backstage and he met Courtney Love and she fell in love with the vintage green Mercury guitar and asked if he could sell it to her. Of course they could! They were now on cloud 9. This was huge. Soon after they sold Courtney the guitar, they went to another Nirvana show (they think Mississippi) and got back stage again. They met the band (minus Kurt) and pre-sold a guitar to Pat Smear and somehow got the go ahead to build one for Kurt. This was “off the charts” (according to Tim) and they went home in a daze. Pretty soon after this, Kurt passed away and Courtney went on tour.
Things after that got pretty tough for Tim & Danny – life became tumultuous due to some personal happenings (bad landlords, getting kicked out of their share house and having to get rid of their guitar making tools) and they grew apart emotionally and lost their passion for making guitars together.
Right before they left their home in Georgia, Courtney had called to ask for more guitars for the tour. This was not possible. “I don’t think we even replied. This was foolish because she probably would have paid for us to build a shop or at least bought us the tools we needed.” – Tim.
Some time passed.
“I saw the Hole “Violet” video one night at a bar and got to see our guitar make music video history. You will notice the Mercury 3+3 headstock in the video and the Mercury pick-ups. I went to see Hole play at Lollapalooza and saw our design on the big stage and cried. A Rolling Stone magazine image of her with the guitar was next. I was happy to have given something back to music/guitar history.” – Tim
The first time she used the Mercury was at Reading Festival in August 1994.
She adorned the guitar with 4 four leaf clover stickers at the bottom of the guitar (sometime between December 1994 and January 1995). One of them peeled off and she stuck it to the top. And the volume and tone knobs were eventually gaffa taped down to stick them in place because Craig Montgomery (Court’s guitar tech) was sick of her fucking with the sound (lol).
The Mercury was absolutely trashed and thrashed on stage during 1994 and 1995. You’ve seen the videos. It was roughed up pretty badly.
By July 1995, Courtney had added a new guitar to her touring repertoire (alongside the Mercury, a Univox among others): the Fender Venus. Seeing her play both the Mercury and Venus interchangeably, it was very evident that the Fender Custom Shop had directly copied the body shape of the Mercury with their normal hockey stick headstock.
I am unsure if this was sheer laziness on Fender’s part but the guys from Mercury didn’t appreciate this – as you can imagine. I think they wanted to sue, but two guys going up against a global giant probably wouldn’t bode well for them. Plus there’s some weird law that says you cannot patent guitar body shapes or something.
By the end of the 95 Hole tour, the Mercury was officially retired. When Hole started touring in 98/99, the Fender Venus was her go-to, alongside the occasional Telecaster or her vintage Gretsch.
Tim and Danny are still friends to this very day and are in constant search for one of the original guitars to come up for sale. They have have no complete Mercury’s left. Let me know if you run across one. They are planning on building the Mercury’s again one day when they get older just for the fun of it.
See below for some other photos: Tim & Danny with one of their Mercury guitars (these examples look like they are semi hollowbody’s rather than the solid body Courtney owned.) The bottom guitar in the stack of guitars picture is an example of a guitars they were in the midst of making for Kurt.
I wish I knew where the Mercury was.
