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A friend just today acquired a supposed Charvel strathead. I'm good with 'pointy' knowledge, but I'm very limited on strathead knowledge, so I've done some homework researching on usacharvels.com to try to verify it but, some things don't add up. I was wondering what the experts can tell me.
- removed the neck and saw 5-5-81 written. It has close 12th fret dots, a very very worn/dirty maple fingerboard, skunk stripe, and trus rod adjust at heal
- logo is about 80% scratched off, but you can see the 'made in usa' and the 'tm', According to the info, the logo should be 2-1/4" wide, however this logo is 2-1/2" wide, which is not supposed to exist until 1983
- tuners are black gotoh looking with the 90 degrees sideways tab, these aren't supposed to be there until 1983 (there are no extra tab screw holes visible).
- it has a OFR, which we assume was added later as OFRs didn't exist until 1983. HOWEVER, in theory this 1981 neck should have had a E/B string retainer, yet there is no hole for one. It has a floyd nut with the mounting screws going thru the neck. The nut ledge and routing for the screws on the backside look either factory or very well done luthier mod. Has a floyd type string retainer, plus two extra holes above the retainer (looking like they moved the retainer about 1/8" lower).
- neck plate is a aftermarket black with a funky serial number. The seller says he put that on when he pawned it once, and he is now looking for the original plate. Unknown if it is the solid brass prepro or the cast serial one.
- body looks charvel, appears to be amber colored ash, cavity cover triangle shape is charvel, however it has a metal plate (again, not used until 1983).
- has a black pickguard with 3 singles and 3 mini toggles and 2 (maybe 3 I can't recall) volume/tone controls.
So our quandry is that the neck says 1981, yet so many other things point to 1983, so we are wondering if its real, or a mix/match mutt of possible USA charvel parts, or what? I told my friend that one super important thing to do is to get that original neck plate.
So your opinions, is it worth keeping, or should he get his money back from the seller?
- removed the neck and saw 5-5-81 written. It has close 12th fret dots, a very very worn/dirty maple fingerboard, skunk stripe, and trus rod adjust at heal
- logo is about 80% scratched off, but you can see the 'made in usa' and the 'tm', According to the info, the logo should be 2-1/4" wide, however this logo is 2-1/2" wide, which is not supposed to exist until 1983
- tuners are black gotoh looking with the 90 degrees sideways tab, these aren't supposed to be there until 1983 (there are no extra tab screw holes visible).
- it has a OFR, which we assume was added later as OFRs didn't exist until 1983. HOWEVER, in theory this 1981 neck should have had a E/B string retainer, yet there is no hole for one. It has a floyd nut with the mounting screws going thru the neck. The nut ledge and routing for the screws on the backside look either factory or very well done luthier mod. Has a floyd type string retainer, plus two extra holes above the retainer (looking like they moved the retainer about 1/8" lower).
- neck plate is a aftermarket black with a funky serial number. The seller says he put that on when he pawned it once, and he is now looking for the original plate. Unknown if it is the solid brass prepro or the cast serial one.
- body looks charvel, appears to be amber colored ash, cavity cover triangle shape is charvel, however it has a metal plate (again, not used until 1983).
- has a black pickguard with 3 singles and 3 mini toggles and 2 (maybe 3 I can't recall) volume/tone controls.
So our quandry is that the neck says 1981, yet so many other things point to 1983, so we are wondering if its real, or a mix/match mutt of possible USA charvel parts, or what? I told my friend that one super important thing to do is to get that original neck plate.
So your opinions, is it worth keeping, or should he get his money back from the seller?
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