I've been playing guitar since the early 90s. Around 1993, I became aware of the Lace Music company, who created some electric guitar pickups in the 80s they called the "Lace Sensor" pickups, which were designed to block electrical noise and have reduced magnetic pull. Those pickups were used by Fender on their Strat Plus series of guitars from the late 80s to late 90s. Since then, Lace Music has created various other electric guitar pickups, and for a while, they made their own electric guitars too.

Around 1998, I saw an announcement from Lace that they were going to start making an electric guitar they called the "Helix" - It was designed to be a very ergonomic guitar, with a comfortable body and a neck that was twisted 20 degrees to match the position of the player's wrist as it moved along the neck (and I think it was only made for right-handed players, using the left hand on the neck).

I always thought it was a cool guitar, conceptually. Some people don't really like how it looks, but I don't really mind how it looks (I think it looks kinda cool). Also, they naturally use their own pickups in it, and I know they make good pickups. I thought it would be cool to have one of them, but they were a bit expensive - I remember them being close to $3,000 or so when new, and I didn't really want to spend that much on a guitar at the time.

It turned out that Lace didn't make many of them, as they were difficult to produce, so they became fairly rare. I've heard they only made 15 of them.. Lace revived the "Helix" name some years later and made a series of Helix guitars and basses, but I believe those later ones didn't have the twisted neck. It seems Lace has since stopped making guitars entirely.

A couple years ago, I was curious and searched eBay for Lace Helix guitars, and there happened to be one that someone was selling, and for what I think was a very good price, of $900 (plus $100 for shipping). I decided to buy it. It turned out to be in fairly good condition - and it has a serial number and the number "99", which I think means it was made in 1999. I feel lucky I stumbled on this guitar.. And I'm pretty sure the one I have has Lace's "Holy Grail" pickups, which are hum-canceling pickups, and they have great tone.

I made a post about this on a guitar forum, and I suppose I don't mind sharing a link to that post:
https://strat-talk.com/threads/ngd-lace-helix.620470/

I had gathered some old web pages about this guitar from the Internet Archive Wayback machine.
This page is from November 10, 1999: https://web.archive.org/web/19991110083103/http://www.agi-lace.com/guitars.html

August 13, 2001: https://web.archive.org/web/20010813180616/http://www.agi-lace.com/guitars.html

June 12, 2002: https://web.archive.org/web/20020612073520/http://www.agi-lace.com/helix.html

An article about the benefits of this guitar: https://web.archive.org/web/20010818061643/http://www.agi-lace.com/dr_dale.html

Lace made versions of this guitar with some of their other pickups too. This one has their Chrome Dome pickups:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010817232736/http://www.agi-lace.com/pics/helix/0 19.jpg

This one has a couple of their humbuckers: https://web.archive.org/web/20020612214657im_/http://agi-lace.com/pics/helix3.j pg

Nightfox

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Re: Lace Helix electric guitar from 1999
By: Nightfox to All on Tue Aug 18 2026 08:59 am

electrical noise and have reduced magnetic pull. Those pickups were used by Fender on their Strat Plus series of guitars from the late 80s to late 90s.

Several of my Strats had those Lace pickups... including my favorite one. I have sold all of those now as I don't play as much as I used to when I was in the band. I still have a '68 Tele, an '06 Tele, an Epiphone Les Paul and a '90 PRS Custom 24... I won't sell any of those... (maybe).

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Re: Lace Helix electric guitar from 1999
By: Bf2k+ to Nightfox on Wed Aug 19 2026 07:00 am

Several of my Strats had those Lace pickups... including my favorite one. I have sold all of those now as I don't play as much as I used to when I was in the band. I still have a '68 Tele, an '06 Tele, an Epiphone Les Paul and a '90 PRS Custom 24... I won't sell any of those... (maybe).

Yeah, I have multiple guitars myself, and the ones I have, I'm not sure if I'd want to sell. I've never played in a band, although I've thought that would be fun - but I'm not sure if that would happen.

Nightfox

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Re: Lace Helix electric guitar from 1999
By: Nightfox to Bf2k+ on Wed Aug 19 2026 09:01 am

Yeah, I have multiple guitars myself, and the ones I have, I'm not sure if I'd want to sell. I've never played in a band, although I've thought that would be fun - but I'm not sure if that would happen.

I played in the same band for almost 30 years... time of my life. I miss it terribly.

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Re: Lace Helix electric guitar from 1999
By: Nightfox to All on Tue Aug 18 2026 08:59 am

Around 1998, I saw an announcement from Lace that they were going to start making an electric guitar they called the
"Helix" - It was designed to be a very ergonomic guitar, with a comfortable body and a neck that was twisted 20
degrees to match the position of the player's wrist as it moved along the neck (and I think it was only made for
right-handed players, using the left hand on the neck).
I feel lucky I stumbled on this guitar.. And I'm pretty sure the one I have has Lace's "Holy
Grail" pickups, which are hum-canceling pickups, and they have great tone.

Really cool find. My lucky find was not as neat, but I like it just the same. It's an Electra tele copy. Made in Japan. They supposedly got sued byFender for being too close of a copy.
I can't find a serial on it, but I don't want to take apart and see. I just know it was made in the 70s.

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Re: Lace Helix electric guitar from 1999
By: Grease to Nightfox on Sun Aug 23 2026 06:48 pm

Really cool find. My lucky find was not as neat, but I like it just the same. It's an Electra tele copy. Made in Japan. They supposedly got sued byFender for being too close of a copy.
I can't find a serial on it, but I don't want to take apart and see. I just know it was made in the 70s.

That's cool. :)

Speaking of Fender suing, within the last few months, I've heard Fender is suing a company in Germany called Thomann for making (or selling?) guitars that are too much like their Stratocaster. Seems odd to do now, since guitar makers have been making Strat-like guitars for decades.. I heard the Fender Stratocaster body has become public domain in the US, so Fender wouldn't be able to sue guitar makers in the US for that.

Nightfox

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