Jim Browne

It looked magenta/purple (on my screen, at least), in all but the back-of-headstock photo.

Such a deal!!! Well done!

Man, I love that color! Missed the ad, when it was still up, so I'm glad to get to see this. How much did it sell for?

Wish it fit a Blitz!!! I've got an old DiMarzio Explorer bass body, with a OEM, Charvel-made neck (all parts picked up, on the cheap), and I fear that the case is going to end up costing way more than all of the bass's parts, combined!

I recently purchased a cushy ol' hardshell case from Sparky (and a really cool MXR dealer sign). Great seller!

Excellent - thank you! Please let me know if you find any spare fiberglass insulation, up there in the attic. Or some holiday decorations, possibly.

That's great - thanks! I stow a bunch of my old lit' at my father's house, so I can continue to be in denial about just how ephemera I've hoar..um... I mean, "acquired," so I can't be sure about the '89. I worked at a Mesa/Boogie dealer, at that time, so I think that I must. Is it a thin, black catalog, with an inset closeup color photo of some glowing tubes, and the slogan, "The Spirit of Art in Technology"? That one, I do have - somewhere in the piles of my semi-abandoned junk, that continue to negatively impact the value of Jim Sr.'s home. I don't recall having anything else from '89, though - that catalog may have been all that they sent to the store, so -if no one else wants it, some of it would probably be new to me, and welcome. The one Boogie that I actually own (a hardwood, 6 x 6L6GC-equipped behemoth of a Coliseum head - talk about an amp for which there is scarcely a use left for, on Earth (especially as I live in a one-bedroom apartment!) is from the '81-'82 period, so the older lit would be great to have. If you PM me your PayPal address, I can at least pay you for the cost of postage. Thanks again!

I am both a Mesa Fan and a hoarder. Is that a disqualification?! I think that I have the '89, but would love to check out the '81.

I had a Van Nuys replacement neck that had twenty-two frets (also was cut for a Floyd Rose nut - factory, or not, I don't know), and have seen maybe one or two others. That neck's impressed serial number (also had the impressed wood code) was in the 8000s, so it was at the very end of VN production - could've even been farmed out to ESP or someone, but the construction and contours were, otherwise- identical. Definitely not a feature that was avaialble (from VN) for very long, and certainly not a standard feature, as they continued to produce (almost entirely) twenty-one fretters, which many early Dallas models also used. A confusing period, to be sure!

Yeah, yours looks pretty pristine! They used very durable finishes, by then - similar to what Fender was using at the time, but a lot of the solid color guitars tended to discolor, even though their finishes remained intact, for the most part. The gold plating was usually the first casualty. Yours has lived a pampered life, apparently! (And, yes, the "A" prefix seems to have been in use for a number of years)

The only time that I've seen dates (and they were usually on the butt end of the neck) is on some shop-built ("S" serial number) guitars. The tell tale Van Nuys signs would be two sets of impressed numbers: one is a wood-identification code, and the other is a serial number. Those don't correspond, exactly to a date, but they were sequential, so you can usually arrive at the year, based on other, similarly-numbered examples.

Your Tele looks great for exactly what it is, which is -without a doubt- a Dallas-era Schecter. For the reasons that I mentioned -and this is all apparent, within a split-second glance of your photos- it is impossible for your guitar to have been manufactured any earlier than 1984, and it was likely made a bit later than that. The Tele that the anonymous person that you quoted mentions is alike, in the same way that any of the "PT"-style Schecters -from any iteration of the company, including the present-day one- would be similar, in that it has two tappable humbuckers & gold/brass parts. It would be nice, from a sales price perspective- if yours was a Van Nuys instrument, but it's not remotely possible. And it would have sold, within a day or two, at your asking price, for sure. None of this takes anything away from the quality of your guitar, but since you are continuing to seek out information on it, I wanted to weigh in with some facts. Good luck with your sale!

Sunbursts were available, throughout the Dallas years - tobacco sunbursts, like yours, and -especially- cherry sunbursts, as were common on hotrod-style Japanese imports of the period. As I said on The Gear Page (as did others, who are equally knowledgeable (I've been collecting Van Nuys-era Schecters for over a decade, and was an enthusiastic fan of the brand, since 1980)): Assembled in Dallas, Texas from wooden parts that were imported from either Canada or Japan (they used both OEM sources, during that period). Pickups & tuners were made by Schaller. 1985, or a bit later. Forgot to add: The earlier ('84-'85), maple neck Dallas Schecters had one-piece necks, with skunk stripes (and -initially- many had twenty-one frets). I've seen a number of early Dallas guitars that appeared to have used remaining Van Nuys stock for the necks, combined with imported bodies. Then, they continued to use one-piece/skunk-striped necks, but those were definitely imported, with squared ends on the neck heel portion of the skunk stripe.Whichever source was used for your parts, that's a really striking body!

That's from the Dallas-era, but not from the beginning of that period (which would be '84). Probably '85 or later, in which case the original, covered pickups would've been made by Schaller - not Van Nuys-made Superocks, like Townshend used (in addition to their predecessor, the Z+) in his earlier, Van Nuys Schecters. In their case, early would be '79-'83, for shop-built guitars. The fetish for Van Nuys PTs -and their scarcity- has spilled over into the more common Dallas PTs (or "Saturns," as they were -ultimately- officially known), so they seem to have risen from $700/$800 up to around $1,000 to $1,200. Marketplace confusion sometimes yields those higher prices, especially when a B.I.N. eBay listing and one enthusiastic buyer is involved. They kind of swing wildly throughout that range, though.

Assuming that you're not kidding: the Schecter that's pictured is worth many, many times more than what the OP's (fine, no doubt) PT would sell for. This one has a koa body, Z+ pickups, and (likely, because two-piece necks came pretty late in the game, and this one's got other, earlier features) a solid rosewood, pau ferro, or shedua neck. It was made from parts that were all produced in the small Van Nuys shop, rather than assembled from imported parts, in Dallas, as the PT, that's for sale, is. ARM OF HAMER's PT was far rarer, and about as good as it gets, as far as (drastically reimagined) Fender-style instruments, from any era. Not a knock on the PT for sale here, though. It looks very nice, and Dallas-era PTs certainly have their fans. Apologies, if you were joking!