Clarification on possible mij Jackson.

[Heavymetal2000]

I read the faq, and I did a lot of searching around other sites for info on jackson and charvel guitars.
I'm mostly looking for clarification on the subject.
Any help is appreciated.

I currently own a Jackson Kelly and I'm curious if it's a legit mij or possibly a mut.

I'll describe it and if possible include pics.
Black body, one piece, basswood?
One Volume knob, no tone.
3 way selector, H H pickup style
Had Duncan designs in it when I got it, I put a SD JB in bridge
Shark finlays, maple neck, bolt on, rosewood fret board
Serial number is 7 digit, 9412701




Thanks for any help!

[Heavymetal2000]

Apparently 94xxxxx denotes concept models made only in 1994. But its confusing cause it doesnt list the Kelly as one of them.
I would imagine the neck/pocket would be stamped?

[toejam]

I had a Dinky HX from '94 with a similar serial. That looks like a KE3.

[Number Of The Priest]

In 1994 Jackson was still using the Pro/XL/Std model designations. These designations were the first mass production Japanese Kellys and went from 1990 to 1995, give or take. If this guitar were truly a 1994, it would be designated a Kelly Pro, Kelly XL, or Kelly Std, and we easily know the features of this guitar don't match up with any of those three models.

After this era, the KE3 was born. I owned a 1996 KE3 and they started off with Duncan Designed pickups (various conflicting sources including the Jackson catalogs state they were either the HB103 Distortion set or the HB102 JB/Jazz set), black hardware, and reverse sharkfins.

This lasted until 2002 when they gained Duncan Designed HB108 Detonator pickups, chrome hardware, and standard sharkfins.

That lasted until 2006 when they gained Seymour Duncan JB/Jazz pickups, reverted to black hardware, and maintained the standard sharkfins. This went on until 2011 when the Chushin Gakki plant closed, ending Japanese Jackson/Charvel production. I currently own a 2009 KE3 that fits these parameters.

Your guitar might be somewhere between the above two paragraphs since you have the stock Detonator in the neck position but have black hardware. The less likely alternative is that you have a 2006-2011 model where someone purposely downgraded the JB/Jazz to the Detonators, forcing you to swap the bridge Detonator with your JB. A word about the Detonator... users have described them as sounding more like Duncan Distortions than the Invaders they are made to superficially resemble, and they encourage people to give them a shot. I presume your guitar came with both Detonators?

I'm no serial number expert so that's not influencing my analysis. Though, usually for this era I think they should start with 97, 98, 99, that sort of thing. I'll leave it to guys like Mudlark and Johnnyryche to offer their perspective.

[Heavymetal2000]

Awesome, thank you for all of that info!
I'm hungry for anything I can find about this guitar as I plan on hanging on to it. It just feels awesome.

A little more info to chew on.
The original owner stole the original pickups from it for another guitar and installed the Duncan designed ones to fill the holes.
He then sold it to his buddy, who happens to be my buddy as well.
He's not much of a metal guy and it was just sitting there more often then not as he favored his strats.
I was interested in learning guitar so he sold me the Kelly for 100$, I put a JB in the bridge and shes been mine ever since.

Now that I've been playing quite a bit and learning I started diving into anything guitar related.
Learned how to adjust and set up the floating bridge, doing intonation and I'm really interested in knowing the actual model name, year, and origin country.

Hopefully the others will chime in as well and thank you again.
Also like I said, I'm not fishing for info to sell. This guitar ain't going anywhere, its actually got me looking for another jackson haha

[Number Of The Priest]

Do you know what original pickups were in it before the original owner stole them? If they were Duncan JB/Jazz, that really makes it a 2006-2011 KE3 in my mind.

To be really sure, remove the neck from the body, and look for the date stamps on the neck heel and in the neck pocket. That will solve your date/year puzzle. Model is KE3, no doubt about that. All KE3s were made in Japan.

You stole the guitar for $100. Nice!

EDIT: It might be the weird angle of the photo obfuscating the saddle lock screws, but is that a normal JT580 trem I see, instead of a JT580LP? OP, can you shoot a head-on photo of the body and tremolo? Or, try and visually match your tremolo to the photos on http://audiozone.dk/index-filer/Trem...ject.htm#jt580 . KE3s are supposed to have the LP variant.

[Heavymetal2000]

I'm going to do as you suggested and remove the neck I think.
I'm heasustant as I'd hate to do it and have it not go back together properly or feel the same afterwards... but I need to know haha.

As for the bridge, it resembles the JT 580 takeuchi model exactly.
Threads are inside the bridge for the bar not outside.
It says Jackson on the top side of the brudge in line with the low E string, says licenced under floy rose right next to the tremolo bar insert, and has no writing or stamping at all on the part of the bridge where the fine tuners are if that helps at all

[Heavymetal2000]

Ok so before work today I removed the neck.
Took some pictures and put it back together.
It seems to feel and play well still so I must have done it right haha. I lifted the bridge a touch as well to get rid of some buzz I had below the 12th fret.
The neck is stamped Aug 26 2004
And the body is stamped Sept 9th 2004 and says KE 3 on it.
So now I know I have an actual KE3 at least.

I did some more digging through my buddy about this guitar(why I didn't ask these questions sooner I have no clue)
And he said it was originally his cousins, he bought it from him, sold it to his buddy, bought it back then sold it to me...

Anyways, his cousin was the original owner from new and he took the pickups from this Kelly for a jackson V he already owned and put the pickups from the V in this Kelly.

It kinda leads me to believe he may have swapped the bridge and neck plate as well. The 94 concept series that this serial number seems to point to did have a V model in 94, but not a Kelly.
It also seems like the low profile bridge you mentioned may have been swapped to the V abd older 580 was tossed in the Kelly. This would also explain why the Allen screws on my bridge for locking the strings in don't properly fit in the bridge pocket. They seem to be too long.

He's messaging his cousin to see if he still has the V and if he'd be willing to let it go. Might be able to reunite these two guitars at some point if I'm lucky. And get my hands on another Japanese jackson!

[Number Of The Priest]

I was going to link you the below video but it looks like you managed to disassemble and reassemble the guitar competently! I consider this video a mandatory skill for owners of bolt-neck guitars. Because neck pockets have a tiny amount of wiggle room, there is no way to know for certain that reattaching the neck in the pocket will automatically be in perfect alignment with the body. Only after restringing the guitar, using tensioned strings as a straight edge can you visually evaluate if the low E and high E strings have the appropriate spacing with the edge of the fretboard.

2004 KE3 makes sense except for the black hardware. Since a previous owner swapped the pickups, it is not difficult to imagine he got a little "swap happy" with all the other modifications you listed, including changing the hardware from chrome (as would be typical circa 2004) to black.

I am going to guess the V is a KV3. Made in Japan. Similar in spec and build quality to your KE3. If so, and if you can get it for a similar price to your KE3, you will have scored again.

[Heavymetal2000]

Thanks for the video! Any and all information I can soak in regarding caring for and maintaining my guitars is a bonus.
I'm constantly looking for more.

I didn't even think about the hardware honestly! It's TRUE though cause the 2002 V I was trying to trade for had all chrome hardware on it, no black at all.
Learning new things about this guitar daily.
At least he swapped on actual jackson tuners and a jackson bridge and not just some random stuff. Honestly I'm not a fan of chrome hardware, especially on a black guitar so it's not hurting my feelings at all haha.

It's strange now that you mention it, that the other guitar would be a KV model.
I know you cant take the neck plate serial as gods word cause its known that there are oddities within the serial numbers during certain years, but my backplate serial like I said begins with 94 and is 7 digits.
According to jackson lore haha, it technically came off a 94 concept which are the only guitars to have 94xxxxx serials.
And the only V in the concept series is the jrr-94 which doesnt have a floating bridge.
The jdr-94 and jsx-94 had jt500s, but mine is a 580T

I guess at this point it doesnt matter, there may have been 2 or 3 guitars involved in these parts swaps. It's still all jackson parts on it and I love it so I'm just gonna play it and enjoy it.

Appreciate all the help! And enjoy discussing all this guitar related material!

[toejam]

but my backplate serial like I said begins with 94 and is 7 digits.
According to jackson lore haha, it technically came off a 94 concept which are the only guitars to have 94xxxxx serials.

I don't know what "lore" you're talking about, but that's not true at all. I had a 1994 Dinky HX for about 23 years (Japanese Professional series) with a 94xxxxx serial number.
Bought it brand new not long after it came out, sold it late last year.

D5.jpg
DinkyHX.jpg

[Number Of The Priest]

Man, toejam... that second photo is as old as time, lol. Good ol' JCF classic times.

Many of us back in the 2000s were not the biggest fans of the chrome hardware on these Japanese Professional Series Jackson guitars. You would have fit right in with us 15 years ago. Jackson may have listened, because in 2006, black hardware became standard. Thank goodness for that.

One thing I didn't reveal in my earlier posts was that my 2009 KE3 is likely also a mutt. In the link below, we came to the conclusion that the guitar left the factory with a KE3 body and a DK2S neck as a compatible mismatch. Really, the only difference is that the DK2S neck/headstock has binding, which is a nice "luxury" touch, so for all intents and purposes I consider it a KE3 with bonus binding. The only reason I withheld it from the earlier discussion is that it might have confused things as we were trying to get to the bottom of your model. Now that we have determined that your KE3 is likely a parts mutt that was an assemblage of Jackson-correct pieces that made it better, I figure I'd reveal my somewhat similar situation where my guitar ended up better than it should have.

Pics and detective work: https://www.jcfonline.com/threads/15...ke-my-old-one)

Oddities in serial numbers surely aren't the only oddities. This forum still uncovers mystery guitars from all eras and it's always fun analyzing them. Speaking of serial numbers, surprised our resident import serial number experts Mudlark and Johnnyryche haven't yet offered their perspective.

[toejam]

Man, toejam... that second photo is as old as time, lol. Good ol' JCF classic times.

It is as old as time! When I had primitive cameras and cell phone equipment and couldn't take pics worth a damn. LOL

I've upgraded and learned to take much better pics later on.
D6.jpg
D8.jpg

[Heavymetal2000]

I don't know what "lore" you're talking about, but that's not true at all. I had a 1994 Dinky HX for about 23 years (Japanese Professional series) with a 94xxxxx serial number.
Bought it brand new not long after it came out, sold it late last year.

Originally when I really started looking into identifying this guitar I went ham on google. I ended up coming across this older resource which is the Lore i was referring to.

https://www.jcfonline.com/archive/index.php/t-101353.html

If you look where the serial numbers are listed near the top it mentions that 94xxxxx serial numbers were assigned to the 94 concept series that were only produced for one year.

Further research on jackson 94xxxxx serial numbers came back with no results until just now, when you posted this beauty of a guitar with a 94xxxxx.
So I guess it wasn't only concepts, maybe that's a myth altogether. I know I could not for the life of me find any sort of correlation between my neck plate serial and an actual Kelly guitar.
But I know mines a mutt now as well.

Very interesting read on how you ended up identifying your KE3! Sweet looking guitars and I, like you, cant get enough of mine. Keeper for sure.
And after seeing your pics I've officially got another question.
Which could further the extent of how much of a Mutt my KE3 is.
I noticed your neck itself had a model and build date, as did the body. Both had there own individual model/date.

My body is stamped KE3 and build date, but I only remember the neck having a date. No model...
Could it be a indy neck? Were there any mij necks that would come with no model stamp?

Edit:



My neck has some sort of model but I'm not sure. Included some pics from yesterday when I removed it.

Another Edit:
Thought it said LXM, can we back with nothing, WXT on the other hand is a neck from a Warrior... interesting...
Is is still a Japanese neck? Stamps look very similar.

[Nimitz]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9920[/ATTACH]

Wish this was mine... love it