Charvette, Jackson, Charvel...newbie here...

[deeaa]

Hello people, a newbie here....

I've been playin' for, dunno, soon 20 yrs or so, and I have lately rekindled my liking for Jackson/Charvel type guitars...the necks that is. My ownership includes a Charvel one and a three, both bought circa 1985 or 6 I think, new, US made...after which I played a Gibson LP for 12 years and some others...have a luthier-scratchbuilt strat now as my main axe usually...so anyhow now I've turned my radar back to Charvels and Jacksons as there are plenty of those available pretty cheaply. And they're really good guitars compared with anything modern even near the price range. Those necks in particular are often amazing, hardly finger's thickness and still totally straight after 20 years!

I bought a Jackson (japanese, mid-eighties) for a bit over 200 a while back and customized it a little; a really nice guitar with the thinnest neck I've ever seen. A little heavy alder body, tele shape. Added a tremsetter and an EMG, paint job, etc..etc. Now I've been thinking about buying this nice Charvel strat (guitar logo era) with a floyd, guitar-shape emblem, with two seymour buckers (350 asking) and tweaking that too, new paint maybe and a tremsetter...you know. Or maybe this more modern Jackson V for the same money, hmm...:-) GAS---

But anyway, I just bought a Charvette for about a hundred, just for the neck, which was razor straight and almost as thin as the jap Jackson I have. I've never seen necks this thin on moderns Jacksons. Or any guitars for that matter.

I thought the guitar would be crap, and the hardware is mostly, BUT the body proved to be excellent wood. Really toneful, not plywood at all. And tuners seem pretty decent as well. I'm sawing it up and converting it to a custom Strat-based shape I've been designing for a long while now, and a hardtail. A buddy is making a nice wood insert and I've bought a Gbson-style Kahler bridge for it, fine tuners and all.

I wonder if these were built in China or where? It has a serial of about 800 and all it says anywhere is Texas USA etc. but I suppose they are made in far east?

At any rate I was really astonished with the woods quality, the neck is even a little better than on my Japanese Jackson and far better than most modern Jacksons they sell here...it'll make a nice light guitar.

I'm making this webpage as it progresses:

http://deeaa.pp.fi/Charv/charv.htm

I just finished rippin' the black surface off the headstock and carved that to me a bit like the Gibson Explorer head, i.e. sanded the end round....no pics of it yet.

So could anyone confirm in any way where did these Charvettes come from?

Cheers,

Dee

http://deeaa.pp.fi

[rjohnstone]

Welcome...
Charvettes were made in either Japan or Korea. Don't remember which of the top of my head.
Some were decent and some were total crap (plywood).

Your Jackson in the pic is a JTX.. mid 90's.

[Newc]

My ownership includes a Charvel one and a three, both bought circa 1985 or 6 I think, new, US made...

No such thing. All Charvel Model models were made in Japan.

[m2pmd70]

Does the neck on the Charvette have close together dots at the 12th fret, or are they closer to the edges of the fretboard? It's been postulated that the ones with the wide spread dots were made in Korea of "laminate" and the ones with the close dots (should be same spacing as model series) were made in Japan of solid wood.

[Sunbane]

No such thing. All Charvel Model models were made in Japan.

Newc is correct - the Charvel "Model" series were all Japanese. Another thing:

I bought a Jackson (japanese, mid-eighties)...

Japanese Jacksons didn't appear until 1990. The seller probably fed you some good ol' BS on that one.

However, welcome to the JCF!

[deeaa]

Newc is correct - the Charvel "Model" series were all Japanese. Another thing:



Japanese Jacksons didn't appear until 1990. The seller probably fed you some good ol' BS on that one.

However, welcome to the JCF!

Yep, probably! It is confusing as the 1 and 3 EB models have 'carved' neck plates with USA and no info on where they're made, and the Charvette also has a carved plate Texas USA and the address+serial, no info on manufacture location. The JTX the seller said should be late 80's, he was apparently just plain wrong :-) so I guess they're all japanese.

I can't check the neck dots now as the neck isn't here right now...but I'll post more info on the project.

Meanwhile, I'm looking in local stores if I can find some more excellent charvel/jackson necks :-)

[m2pmd70]

If you find a nice DKMG neck "let a brutha know" as the kids say.

[Sunbane]

Yep, probably! It is confusing as the 1 and 3 EB models have 'carved' neck plates with USA and no info on where they're made, and the Charvette also has a carved plate Texas USA and the address+serial, no info on manufacture location. The JTX the seller said should be late 80's, he was apparently just plain wrong :-) so I guess they're all japanese.

Yup - not that that is a bad thing though! The japanese factory has churned out some excellent guitars over the years, and the model series Charvels are highly appreciated by their owners.

The reason for the USA address on the plates, is that the Jackson/Charvel import office was located in Fort Worth, Texas. If you come across a plate saying "San Dimas, CA" or "Ontario, CA" - that would be USA made.

[deeaa]

At what point did the labeling change BTW? The old 80's charvels have the 'guitar' logo and USA on the headstock, but at some point charvels also came with Jackson-lookalike lettering - as in Charvette too. What does DKMG neck stand for? There's a japanese Jackson 'Pro' dinky with a reverse headstock 4 sale here too, 350;- but it don't look very good and the neck is way thicker than on my guitars.

[deeaa]

Hm, I see those made in USA get much better prices indeed. Here's one '87 made in Ontario, Jackson Custom Shop Strat w/a kahler trem, but it's 690. Too pricey! I promised myself I'd buy guitars in the 200-300 range only :-)

[Newc]

The thing to remember about neckplates is they attach with screws, which means they can be easily swapped.

However, if someone put a USA Charvel neckplate with the San Dimas address on a Model model and sold it for the price of a USA Charvel, I'd kick their teeth in.

If, on the other hand, you got it for cheap I'd sell the neckplate on Ebay. Last one I saw went for $600.

[VitaminG]

At what point did the labeling change BTW? The old 80's charvels have the 'guitar' logo and USA on the headstock, but at some point charvels also came with Jackson-lookalike lettering - as in Charvette too.

difference between the US and Japanese made "guitar" Charvel logos, the US has a 3-a-side headstock (on the logo itself) and the Japanese have a 6-in-line headstock.

The Model series (guitar logo) were made from 86-88. The script, or toothpaste, logoed Charvels from 89-91.

[deeaa]

The thing to remember about neckplates is they attach with screws, which means they can be easily swapped.

However, if someone put a USA Charvel neckplate with the San Dimas address on a Model model and sold it for the price of a USA Charvel, I'd kick their teeth in.

If, on the other hand, you got it for cheap I'd sell the neckplate on Ebay. Last one I saw went for $600.

Whoa, that's a lot! You can find whole guitars for almost that!

And nope, these model charvels were bought new...I don't think it was ever discussed where they were made back then.

[straycat]

A vintage USA Charvel(79-86) will go for a lot more than 600.00.Where have you been?The prices have tapered off a bit but a vintage Charvel will bring $1000.00 at least even if its just parts 5-10 grand is not out of the ballpark for a clean original.
The USA Charvels had either a black logo or a gold logo some had made in USA some did not.The import guitar shaped logos were white.The 89 -90s toothpaste(script) logo guitars are great guitars too as are all the Japanese made Charvels

[deeaa]

A vintage USA Charvel(79-86) will go for a lot more than 600.00.Where have you been?The prices have tapered off a bit but a vintage Charvel will bring $1000.00 at least even if its just parts 5-10 grand is not out of the ballpark for a clean original.
The USA Charvels had either a black logo or a gold logo some had made in USA some did not.The import guitar shaped logos were white.The 89 -90s toothpaste(script) logo guitars are great guitars too as are all the Japanese made Charvels

I was offered a '87 single-bucker Jackson strat for 690 a short while ago, I was basing my pricing on that, figuring a Charvel would be about the same, but I suppose that's not the case then...never seen an U.S. made one myself though. Just japs, and they go for 250-400 depending on condition here. Plenty on offer. Great bargains, too, at that price usually, if not beat up badly. I have a couple here I've been wanting, but can't justify buying more than one guitar of a given type. I already have a great floyd-equipped Jackson and that's enough for that type axe....unless I'd find a superior one for cheaper of course I could trade :-) but I haven't come accross any better ones yet.

At any rate well over 600 is way more than I'd pay for a guitar these days...I buy them to play them, not for collecting. Anybody offers me better money than I've paid for some of my guitars, I'll sell it in a flash. There's plenty of other great guitars too for 200-400 bucks out there that just need some tweaking or a couple of small improvements. The only way I'd pay that kind of money, or actually I would pay, say up to around a thousand, if a master luthier built me a guitar exactly to my own design from scratch. If I won in the lottery, LOL :-)

Sometimes they get nice price increases indeed...in '92 I bought a Gibson LP standard for cheep, got it new @wholesales price and they were cheap then anyway...sold it a few years ago for well over twice the money. I was able to get a bass and two guitars for the money - all better instruments IMO than the LP, although it was a nice specimen indeed.