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Opinions on Ron Kirn Guitars, please?


Jakeboy

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I found a newish Kirn Esquire on the local Craigslist that looks mint. Has a Fralin Big Single 43 as the pickup with a Babicz bridge.

He wants to trade for one of my Hamers…

Does anyone have experience with Kirn? I would appreciate your insights before I plan to meet the guy and play his guitar. 

Thanks in advance.
 

 

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I had one in for a refin awhile back. I didn't get to play it because it came disassembled but the build quality seemed good. Resale might not be great like a lot of boutique brands.

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There aren't tons of Kirns out there. He builds them out of his house I think. Kirns are good guitars like Hamers, but like Hamers they suffer from resale. They used to be (10 years ago or so) around $1500 new. Used in new condition every now and then I've seen them pop up this past year in the $1000 range.

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Like Hamers in the resale arena, eh? This one is a funky color that I love that will be very difficult to resell down the road….I’ll do some more research but if like new ones sell for around $1k, then he ain’t getting my Newport. Glad I asked.

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It’s a high quality partscaster.   Honestly, I’ve built as good or better F-style guitars with Musikraft and/or Steve Parker components.

Not worth any USA Hamer in an across-the-board swap.

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1 hour ago, cmatthes said:

It’s a high quality partscaster.   Honestly, I’ve built as good or better F-style guitars with Musikraft and/or Steve Parker components.

Not worth any USA Hamer in an across-the-board swap.

Totally agree, he makes really nice guitars, but they are top notch partscasters (not cheap either, over 1600 for old barn wood model I looked at several years ago). 

Never one to diss a Telecaster, but, compared to a Newport, those are fighting words!

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It’s not even a proper Tele….more a custom build.., it thank you all. A little internet research has shown that he doesn’t even carve  all his own necks.,he buys some from USAGC and carves some. 
 

No thank you!  The HFC comes through again.

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I’ve never been a fan of the USACG stuff.  It’s pretty amateurish compared to Musikraft or Parker, and I’d never use it. 

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31 minutes ago, cmatthes said:

I’ve never been a fan of the USACG stuff.  It’s pretty amateurish compared to Musikraft or Parker, and I’d never use it. 

Nice to hear that about Musikraft... I've only had a Warmoth, but have had a Musikraft on order since June. Anxious to see how it is. It should be close by now, last email I got said it was @CNC. 

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6 hours ago, ptm1diver said:

I had a Kirin custom strat.  Finish had issues and we came to an accommodation.   Best thing I did was trade it for one of my Monaco Pros and got a few hundred to spare.   I hope you don’t get my old one.  

Ha! I ain’t getting NONE of them, much less your old one.  Thanks for the help!

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On 9/25/2021 at 11:47 AM, Jakeboy said:

It’s not even a proper Tele….more a custom build.., it thank you all. A little internet research has shown that he doesn’t even carve  all his own necks.,he buys some from USAGC and carves some. 
 

No thank you!  The HFC comes through again.

Sure would have been a better thread with pictures even if you dress it up like your dog.

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I had a Kirn with a big ass neck.  It was a good guitar, and I did order that neck. But more than an inch all the way up was just not my thing, so I eventually sold it for that reason.  I thought the fretwork was good, pickups sounded good, and it played well. Sure was pretty, too. But I would say that every Hamer I have has had more attention to detail in its construction, perhaps because there are more details. A tele is a pretty simple thing, not a lot to do there.

 

anyway I had zero complaints about mine, other than I ordered the wrong neck as an experiment and tried it for a time. That’s on me.  I could have kept it and swapped out the neck but I found a custom shop tele on CL locally for the money I got for the Kirn.  It also played well and had a neck more to my liking. But it is not any better put together.  The wood is fancier and a diff finish. 
 

fwiw and I don’t own it any more, just another viewpoint 

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