stonge

Probably not anyone quite that competent. Some Harbor Freight tools can actually be used a second time without breaking.

I've seen comments in other forums that a fair amount of these could be DOA (shitty builds). Check them out in person (play them)and buyer beware lol... it's not like manufacturers dump defective goods at GC

is that how you 'top-wrap' a Bigsby? because toanz?

The dealers usually have to abide by MAP (minimum advertised price) for new products; they can sell gear for whatever price they want, but they can't advertise it below a certain price. Dealers also label stock as 'demo' or 'open box' to they can advertise a price below MAP. Manufacturers can also allow lower prices on overstocks; Dave's has been selling a lot of PRS SE guitars as open box - I bought a PRS SE 20 acoustic that was labelled as open box but I'm pretty sure it was still in factory packaging. ProAudioStar also seems to have a lot of 'open box' gear and almost everything I've bought from them looks to be new (I have received one or two Squiers that appeared to be factory seconds or returns). Some of the Fender/Squier/Charvel overstocks seem to end up with MIRC (they cover the original serial number with an orange label with their own serial number and stamp the guitars 'used'). There are lots of ways to clear overstocks lol.

Maybe there's an 80's appropriate big greasy handprint on the back as a homage to Body Glove...

i dunno -there's no Hameritus on the edges of the fingerboard so it's nice that is documented. I'm guessing 93-94 from the headstock...

I have a similar 40th Squier Anniversary Jazzmaster in blue; it's really surprising how good these guitars are. Mine just makes me want to sit around and butcher surf tunes all day .Really twangy and very diff from a strat or a tele. I have an upgrade set of pickups in a box, but these really don't need upgrading as the stock pickups work really well. and I blame Puisheen as well. One of these days I'll tweak the whammy bar enough to stop it from falling out at the merest glance lol, but it's a fun left turn from the usual routine. Mucho fun.

"nimrods abound"

I had a Peavey Mystic, but always liked this shape better. Kudos on this collection!

That makes me feel marginally better about myself; the most guitars of one model I've ever owned is 4 Daytonas, and I'm down to 2. That's cool but silly to me at the same time. Congrats on sticking to your vision though.

Official Hamer merchandise runs really small; I think Frank Rindone was considered size large lol. At this point I think my size for Hamer merch would be 'tarp'...

I did want to mention that you can hide an Apple airtag under the neck pickup of a guitar so you can track it in shipping; there are also some Android compatible versions that look to be thinner and might be a better fit (the airtag can be a little tall depending on the neck pickup routing depth). The airtag would have fit in the control cavity, but I'm not sure if Hamer's shielding paint would have affected the airtag signal. A big thank you to Dr Bear for mentioning airtags; it's easier to look something up on your phone and get a locational update rather than depend on the tracking info.

I had a checkboard pickguard on a black Phantom (90's version) - i sold the guitar to someone up here (I think) with a white pearloid guard and I'm pretty sure I threw in he checkerboard guard in the deal. white pearloid on purple works for me.

Maybe if they inlaid Joe's name on the fingerboard that Special might rise to Epiphone pricing levels...

The local GC has a used one of those last year, and i thought it was pretty remarkable for the price (i think one of the employees had it on hold). Couch guitars are fun; I'll pull up spotify on my tablet and play along unplugged after mrs stonge crashes out. Don't know if it's a strandberg-specific issue (maybe it's a fanned fret issue), but I tried a set of ernie ball primo slinky (9.5-44 with a 16 g string) and just couldn't get the g intonated right. The g# and a were horribly sharp, which matters a lot to an E/A/D chord basher like me. I put on a set of d'addario nyxl .010s balanced tension strings, and everything intonated correctly. The nyxl set had a .017 g string; I wouldn't have thought there could be such a big difference between an .016 and an .017.