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Picture of Petr of Petr's Violin Shop & Guitar Central in Anchorage playing one of his old fenders.

I knew that. I should have been more careful about posting something.

I must admit that I’ve no idea re the mic discussion. SM 57s are still my vocabulary, which says a lot about where I’m at.

That's what I originally thought, but according to this, 6 "55072" puts it in the 2000 group

Yes. It is absolutely without a doubt a 1996 Standard.

They weren’t using computers for graphics in the mid 1990s. They would just order Letraset/dry transfer sheets of logos from a custom graphic shop that was typically using some physical screen print font library. It’s crazy what we take for granted now that was impossible to find 30 years ago!

The notoriously weak spot on many Hamers...

Yeah, those two additional frets aren’t really helping if you cannot reach them.

The weather was clear and cooler on Sunday morning. It was time to drive two and a half hours to Acworth, Georgia. Everything was great until traffic slowed down because of three lanes being closed on I-85 due to construction. GPS was my friend, a fake friend, but it got me around the traffic problem. Switching lanes on the new route was a bit of a challenge. I swear I did not see the cars on my right, but I think they were using the median to get around other cars. Oh, well. Everyone had brakes. I did not use mine. They had to use theirs. My arrival was shortly after the doors opened. There was no line. I paid my admission and asked where the Vintage Guitar Magazine booth was. I wanted to meet Willie G. Moseley. His tables were right at the entrance to the larger room. Most of my time there was talking guitars, newspapers, and music history with Willie. He spoke. I listened. When other people gathered around to see his display of books, magazines, and guitars it was an opportunity for me to visit the two rooms full of guitars. There were a lot of vintage Gibson and Fender guitars, but not that many of the "expensive" ones. Everything was expensive. The Atlanta Vintage Guitar Show has a warning on its web site for non-vendors coming to the show. I saw two guitars at dealer booths that were clearly identified as Chibson. One was a copy of an Ace Frehley Les Paul. The headstock image looked wrong. The rest of the guitar looked nice. Cool amps, both vintage and new brands, were on display. There was an incredibly clean Fender Deluxe that stood out to me. My credit card was left unharmed. In two large rooms of guitars I saw one B.C. Rich, absolutely no Dean, and one Hamer. Abalone Vintage Guitars had a four digit Standard bass. The owner of Abalone Vintage saw my Hamer Fan Club shirt and that started a really fun conversation about Hamer, Tom Petersson, Peter Green's Les Paul, and fake guitars and parts. He mentioned one guitar he inspected having $40,000.00 of hardware and electronics being replaced. Spotting fakes and authenticating real guitars has become hard to do without having a guitar for a long time. It cannot be done with a quick inspection anymore. After checking one room I made it back to Willie's table and talked some more. He mentioned seeing @Kerry Marchman on Saturday. He quoted Lemmy on advice. There were tales of trips to Atlanta for concerts going back to Cream at Chastain Park. In the smaller room I met Jon Kammerer. He truly loves what he doing. His enthusiasm for his designs of both acoustic and electric immediately came out. Those guitars are nice. I picked up what we have called the Peanut guitar. It plays nice. The body is not that deep, so the volume is not as loud as other acoustics. There is a pickup system installed. The sound is unique in the same way that Ovation does not sound exactly like other acoustic guitars. Jon was pointing out his bridge design on his acoustic guitars do not use traditional bridge pins. I also got to check out the floating top design. If I were to play acoustic all the time this guitar could be fun. Of course, nothing could be more fun than going back to Willie's table and talking to him when he was not discussing guitars, books, and magazines with customers. That was how I ended my day. It was worth the ride down into Georgia.

Switchcraft 151 or 152

I've tried to reach inside the barrel Jack's and pull the contacts out a bit. Worked for a while but the plugs just fall out again. I have some barrel Jack's in my parts bin, but they're not the same. Anyone know who made those blankety blank barrel jacks??

That flamey neck is gorgeous. Now you need to wear it down.

I've owned several of these over the years. They are great guitars and Gibson put amazing maple tops on all of them. Here's the big issue I had, that cutaway is not comfortable for playing up high. It looks good in the pics but it puts you hand in an uncomfortable position and I used to get cramps in my arm while gigging.

I LOVE Blackmore’s vibrato bar usage and his embracing of flash when he felt so inclined. I was surprised he didn’t use the bar or even have it on his Strat for this last time. He was such a rocker BITD. Love his playing.

Honestly, holding onto the other guitar wasn't even a temptation. I know it's worth more on the open market, but I didn't want maple and victory inlays; I wanted the spruce top and clean fretboard (if I could have custom ordered one, I'd probably have gone with no inlays at all). I did think about asking for some sort of monetary credit for the hassle, but I figured it was already gonna be a rougher day on the guys at the shop than on me, plus they had to pay quite a bit of extra shipping between the return of the wrong guitar and overnight air for the right one. And on my end, two more days of waiting and a stop by the UPS store on my way to work isn't exactly a heavy cross to bear. And now I have a funny story to tell about my new guitar.

The horseshoe crab inlay is badass.

Frank Beard was a killer timekeeper. Both times I saw him with the Top he was flawless. I mean totally perfect. He was always underrated and I am glad BFG gave him the props he did. RIP. BFG should just hang up the ZZ banner now and return to touring as Billy Gibbons solo with his BFGs. It is not ZZ Top without Frank and Dusty.

I was traveling yesterday and stopped at a gas station for a rest room break. I decided to grab a Powerball ticket. Handed the girl a twenty. She gave me the ticket, four fives and three ones in change. I immediately said “hey you gave me too much change”, and she was thankful that I was honest. I believe in karma, and while every man has his price, mine would be a lot higher than $5. THAT SAID, if they sent me that wrong guitar, it would have taken me several more minutes to come to the decision you made to call and tell them. If it was Guitar Center, it might have taken several hours, or maybe days LOL. You made the right and moral decision, but if I was the owner of that shop, I would have at least credited you $50 for your trouble.

So I picked up a 2009 VHT 2/50/2 Power amp for running my Tone King Imperial and Friedman IR-X through just to try something new. I had planned on getting into the whole Synergy thing next year, but a fellow on TGP offered to sell me a SYN2 with Tone King Imperial and Marshall JMP modules, a Syn 5050 power amp, a Live Wire 9 outlet power conditioner (this ain't fancy, but it's at least better than remembering a power strip), and a Gator Rack case for $1900 shipped. I couldn't pass that up, so I "loaned" myself the money out of savings knowing I'd have at least a redundant power amp and the Tone King Imperial module to sell. What I'm trying to figure out is which power amp to sell. VHT 2502 Pros - Separate volumes, presence, and depth knobs and separate hi/low signal and voice buttons for each channel. Separate Class A/Class AB switches for each channel. Cons - Built in 2009. Looks pretty good inside, but it's bound to need a cap job sooner than later. The two tubes for Channel B (12AX7/12AU7 complement) cracked in shipping, which gives me a touch of gear hypochondria that something else may be lurking to fail at some point. Cannot be bridged, so no more than 50 watts (class A) to a single speaker (this is more theoretical than anything because it's not like I'm using the 50 watts available to begin with). The lack of bridging makes it easy to accidentally flip Channel B on without a load when not running two cabs. This is a user error thing, but things happen on a dark stage. In fact, I have already blown one fuse, haha. Heavy and takes up two rack spaces. Incidental - EL34 Power Section Synergy 5050 Pros - Lighter, and only takes up one rack space. It's a newer unit that was serviced before shipping. These are also designed and built by Fryette, so the quality is there. Brigable to 100 watts, which also takes Channel B out of the mix (no accidental fuse blowings or worse if you hit the wrong standby). Cons - While there are volumes for each side, presence and depth are universal. There are also no options for A vs. AB, voicing, or hi/low signal. Incidental - 6L6 Power Section. Also only uses a 12AX7 as a phase inverter for each channel, rather than the 12AX7 for the same purpose in the 2502 but with an additional 12AU7 for each channel as a line driver. Overall, neither sucks, and this is a high class problem to have. The VHT is older gear with all the ups and downs of that, and it weighs 10 more pounds (though a lot of that weight is in the transformers I'm guessing, which is not for nothing). The Synergy is newer with a more recent service but is not as flexible in many ways. Even today, the Fryette 2502 is pretty much the same as the VHT badged ones, and they still cost a bit more. And it does sound really good - just smooth, clean power for days. But the Syn 5050 sounds pretty nice too. Either way, one needs to go, and I was curious what the opinions around here are.

I’d put this up against any “PlexI” clone out there. Beautiful inside and out, this is no “KIT” from someone’s garage. Well, actually I think he does work in his garage, but non the less. LOL Get you Classic Rock ON!

My 2Tek is the only bass I’ll ever need. These both appear to be beautiful examples.

I resemble that remark.

basically, someone bought this guitar a few years ago and thinks now it's worth 10x what they paid? I want to try what they are smoking!

Jazzburst is best!

@velorush nailed it! Beware of the Dog!