Anyway, back in 1996 I think I had four guitars. Today I have around 23. They’re all bargains, too. Many of them (eleven!) are signature models. I never set out to be a signature model collector, I just have a thing for guitars that are a little out of the ordinary. And given the vast quantities of ordinary guitars sold out there, the peculiar ones are usually cheaper.
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Ibanez “Lawsuit” Les Paul In the 70’s Ibanez and Yamaha were known for making copies of Gibson instruments at a fraction of the price with arguably better quality. If this instrument is any indication, they were doing an extremely good job.
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| Ibanez Voyager Officially the pointiest guitar I own, a Craigslist bargain.
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Yamaha Ty Tabor Model Yet another signature model bargain. The guy at Guitar Center said Yamahas don’t have a high resale value, nor do green guitars in general. Now that I own two green Yamahas, I can only say that this is good news for me.
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Fender Eric Johnson Model OK this one was less of a bargain, but I did get it for around cost because a local music store was going out of business. Ordinarily I don’t like to pay more than $1K for a guitar, but this was as good a deal as it gets for this guitar.
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| Ernie Ball Music Man Steve Morse Model I had only ever seen one other Morse model in my life when I found this one at South Austin Music in Austin, Texas. It was right there when I walked into the store. It had to be done. It’s a 1988 model. 2nd year of production. It’s beat up a good bit. The price tag said $999 but I said $800 and that was that. |
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| Kramer Nightswan This one was languishing without a bridge at Xanadu Music and Books in Memphis. I think I purchased it entirely out of nostalgia. I had a Nightswan years ago. I’m not much for lightning bolts, though. It’s on semi-permanent loan to my nephew Austin at the moment. |
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| Romero? I found this thing for $99 in a Dallas pawnshop (same one I got the Ibanez RG7621 below, actually). It’s apparently a custom job by some guy still learning how to make guitars. Turns out the handmade pickups are dead, so this will probably get stored away until I can get around to buying and installing new pickups. |
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| Epiphone Joe Pass Purchased for $300 at Music City Pawn Shop in Sherwood, this guitar was a necessity for taking jazz guitar lessons from Ted Ludwig. It’s about as good an archtop as you’re going to find for the price. |
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| Starfield Cabriolet SJ Limited I found this at the Blue Suede Shoes Antique Mall in Bryant. It’s a brand that Ibanez made in the early 90’s but was discontinued because they were just too interesting and unusual to survive in the surprisingly conservative world of guitar buying. |
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| Fender Custom Dweezil Zappa / Eddie Van Halen The body and neck of this guitar were made by Larry L. Brooks of Fender USA for Dweezil Zappa, and then assembled by Lee Garver and painted by Dan Lawrence at GMW Guitars. The guitar is actually displayed on the GMW site as an example of their custom graphics. I bought it at a Zappa.com garage sale. |
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| Fender Japan Richie Kotzen Telecaster TLR 135RK I traded my blue Kotzen strat for this green Kotzen tele. The bridge pickup is hum-cancelling, which is a nice change from the strat. I play a lot at low volumes, so single coil hum is no fun for me. This guitar is built like an old Broadcaster – the neck is like a baseball bat. Also, the tone knob is a phase switch for the middle position of the pickup selector. |
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| Ibanez RG7621 Custom I bought this guitar for $150 in a pawn shop in Dallas on the day I was flying to the UK for vacation. It was black, with several nicks and scratches and fingerboard gunk. With some free tools from the pawn shop, I cleaned her up and took her apart so I could get her on the plane with no case. When I got home, I got the crazy idea to cover her with Japanese advertising art from the 50’s, which I have since removed. I also have another black RG7 of which I still have not taken a picture. Currently in the possession of Alex Moulton. |
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| Greco Something or Other I don’t know anything about the model, but it appears to be Gretsch-esque in its influence. I bought it for $150 on ebay. What’s more important is that on the back it’s autographed by Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, Booker T. Jones, Wayne Jackson, Andrew Love, Eddie Floyd, Carla Thomas, and Marvell Thomas. And if you don’t know who those people are, then you best go find out. |
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| Jay Turser Telecaster Another pawn shop prize. Gold hardware, pearloid pickguard. It’s really light. These Turser guitars are made in China but the quality rivals American Fenders (like that’s hard, but for $299 list, it sure is). Currently in the possession of Tara Rix. |
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| Yamaha Blues Saraceno Signature Model For some reason this is the guitar for which I get the most offers. Sorry, guys; I’m hanging on to her for awhile. Keep checking Ebay. Fairly rare, the guitar was made and played for a few years in the early 90’s by guitar whiz Blues Saraceno, a fine guitarist who is probably the only player of a caliber to replace both Eric Clapton in a re-formed Cream and C.C. DeVille in a constantly re-forming Poison. |
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| Customized Ibanez RG 7 My very own custom-swirled Ibanez 7 string courtesy of Herc Fede. |
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| Ibanez JPM100 P3 If there were more people in the eroded hills of northern Arkansas that cared about guitars or Dream Theater’s music, I probably would not have received this fine instrument (thanks Eric and Homer!). |
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| Ibanez PGM300 This is a Paul Gilbert model that was available only in limited release in the States. Much thanks to Chris Longo for the trade. She’s got a great sound and is surprisingly versatile for an Ibanez shred machine. Tone Zone/JEM single coil/PAF Pro configuration. She’s my favoritest guitar in the whole world. |
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| Ibanez Universe 7P 7-string I’ve had this guitar the longest. Purchased in 1995 while they were out of production, just before Korn came along and suddenly every company was making 7-strings. She’s a 1991 model I think. |
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| Rickenbacker 4001 Bass According to the Rickenbacker website, this is a 1980 model. Purchased for a paltry sum I won’t reveal. The paint was stripped at some point and re-coated in a poorly applied gloss. Even the fingerboard. I had to have the pickups professionally rewound. |
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| Gibson MK-72 This is a really unique guitar. Something I never thought Gibson would come up with. The Mark series were produced between 1975 to 1979 and featured a sloped shouldered body, spruce top, round soundhole, removable pickguard, bound body, mahogany neck, 14/20 fret fingerboard, fan bridge, 3 different replaceable saddles, blackface snakehead peghead, 3 per side tuners. |
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| Ensenada Classical I got this guitar absolutely free from my mom’s ex-boyfriend. It’s actually a pretty nice guitar. |
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| Peavey Ecoustic This was purchased at Ashley Music in Harrison, where I learned to play guitar. She’s not very loud acoustically, and the body is so light that the headstock tends to fall forward if you take your hands off. Currently in the hands of my niece Emily. |