NGD: Jackson Falcon Custom

[pro-fusion]

Her's a 1994 Jackson Falcon Custom that I grabbed off of eBay this week. The Falcon was Itaru Kanno's 'prototype' for the Caparison Horus, made while he was still employed by Jackson's Japanese supplier, Kyowa Shakkai. These were made in small numbers before Kyowa's contract with Jackson ended in 1994 and sold only in Japan. I know of only one other Falcon in the USA. The specs are identical to the Horus, except for the headstock and inlays, obviously, and the metal backing plates that nicer Jacksons have.

Mine has an EMG-81 in place of the original Jackson J-DA pickup (whatever the hell that was, first I've ever heard of that pickup model). The neck pickup is unconnected, and unfortunately I didn't get the original push/push volume pot with it. Allparts doesn't sell those anymore, and I'll have to get a push/pull pot if I want to install an active neck p/u or restore the guitar to passive status.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of this guitar. Easily as good as the Caparison Horuses I've played. The only thing I don't like is that frets 25-27 are smaller than the others, and therefore require more finger pressure. The early Horuses were apparently also made this way, but the current ones have uniform fret size.

[Newc]

Congrats

The DA is the Doug Aldrich pickup.

[Trem]

Whoa, very cool find.

They took that style from the esp maverick which was first out in the early 90's. Had one and it was sick i love the style, but they are short scale and i just can't do short scale.
Other than that it was the finest built and feeling instrument i ever had-
If i ever do a custom, it will be this in 25.5 scale with 24 frets - Esp Japan.

[KBRR]

wow very cool and rare jackson! awesome

[MartinBarre]

That is freakin' awesome.

[Axewielder]

Cool! Never seen one before.

[RacerX]

Nice score! Did the seller know what it was?

[pro-fusion]

The DA is the Doug Aldrich pickup.

Thanks for the info. I took another look at the 1993 Japanese catalog and saw that there were two different version of Doug's signature model. The more expensive one had a Duncan Custom, and the cheaper one had the J-DA pickup. I didn't see that when I first looked at it. The Falcon is in that same catalog.

They took that style from the esp maverick which was first out in the early 90's. Had one and it was sick i love the style, but they are short scale and i just can't do short scale. Other than that it was the finest built and feeling instrument i ever had-If i ever do a custom, it will be this in 25.5 scale with 24 frets - Esp Japan.

The Maverick actually goes back to the '80s; it's one of ESP's earliest models. They have a 27-fret version now, but the Maverick always looked like it had been designed for that. I had a late '90s MV-USA for awhile that was a nice guitar.

I've been playing short-scale most of the time lately.

Nice score! Did the seller know what it was?

The seller was Gravity Music Gear in Denver. They sell a lot of stuff on eBay; in fact, I think I may have gotten other gear from them before. I don't think they did any research on this one, but apart from the catalog scans on audiozone.dk, there isn't much info out there about the Falcon. I had to look long and hard to find out any additional info. It was only listed in the 1993 catalog, even though mine has a '94 serial number. It was something of a signature guitar for Japanese guitarist Yukihiro "Chachamaru" Fujimura, who is shown in the catalog photo. He followed the design over to Caparison.





Here is Chachamaru playing a Falcon with a cool graphic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsSFC2_bo_8

[Robbie Dane]

Cool guitar!

[VitaminG]

very sexy

[Jacksonguy666]

Never even heard of one before! How much did she run you?

[pro-fusion]

About $700, which is fairly high for a used bolt-on Japanese Jackson. As rare as they are, I could hardly resist.

[Sinistas]

Awesome score.

[Ben...]

About $700, which is fairly high for a used bolt-on Japanese Jackson. As rare as they are, I could hardly resist.

I would happily pay that or even slightly more for one of those. They're so cool!

[yellowv]

Like I said at mg.org I would kill for that thing. $700 is a great deal for that as well as it is esentially a Caparison Horus, but far more rare. Great score. I'm glad and pissed at the same time that I missed that one for sale. I have had my eye on that one syco finish DA that has been on the 'Bay for a long time. If the price ever drops low enough I may have to buy it.