I See What You Did There

My little rant on eBay led to a fellow in FLA contacting me about what I wrote. Seems my new friend Mike felt the same way about people over-paying for poorly made guitars on eBay. Mike is attempting his first built-from-scratch electric guitar, which can be a nerve wracking, trying experience. Mike's enthusiasm got me back to work on a few projects I've had twisting in the wind and I'm glad for it. The first project is customization of a handsome blue Hyde NH Strat that has gold hardware. The guts were already replaced from stock with a S/S/H pickup configuration. The stock scratchguard was a boring white so that had to go. I kept an eye on the eBay auctions and checked sale prices at the major brick & mortar guitar stores like Sam Ash and The Guitar Center. There is more competition on eBay, and a wider variety of brand names are being offered there. That's the great thing about auction sites - if someone else wins this time there is going to be a near-identical auction within a day, week or month. One never really has to pay more than their set price if one is willing to wait. Slowly but surely I compiled new components for the Hyde NH Strat. Replacing the stock pickguard is a nice blue pearloid model which also has the S/S/H arrangement. Keeping the Strat look but losing the sound, I'm going with a GFS Gold Boutique Lipstick pup at Neck position; a Fender Lace Sensor Gold single coil at Mid pos and a Wilkinson Gold Humbucker at Bridge. I got a roll of copper adhesive-backed tape foil and outlined the flip side of the scratchguard where the electronics will touch. Solder was applied where sections of copper overlap to give a unbroken trace pattern. I put the pickups in place and now we're waiting for pots and switches to come in from a electronics supply store.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Seeing the ridiculous prices suckers are willing to pay for POS Teisco electric guitars from the 60's & 70's inspired me to write a review on eBay. Low quality mass produced slabs of painted and varnished wood was shipped to the USA market by the Japan manufacturer. These beginner six strings were sold under many names at many outlets. They were lower quality shiny birthday, graduation and Christmas gifts. The bulk of these cheap knock-offs found their way into the back of closets, spaces under beds and tucked away in basements before their first anniversary came around. More young people were probably turned off from learning to play than were ever inspired by the high, hard to work action of thick, club-like necks. So when I keep seeing guitars that cost 19.95 to 34.95 when new -and that's about all most of them are really worth even now- repeatedly going for $100.00 and up on auction, it made me sad. People are buying these things and tucking them away to sell for double what they paid a year or two from now. Good luck. Guitars are made to be played, and there are plenty of reasonably priced Fender Squier Stratocaster and Telecaster models to be had. The introductory line Squier models are made with manufacturing techniques not available when Fender started electric guitar production in the 1950's. Better quality of components are used as well, the price offset by mass production. I've bought Fender Squier Strats used and new from $60.00 to $225.00 and every one of them was worth every penny. Like a good car, I either got my money back or made a little on every Strat I've sold. As for the Teisco's and the many names they were sold under, good luck with them. They don't get better with age and price.