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My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

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  • My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

    Around 1998 I was in the market for a new guitar and a new Music Go Round opened up about a mile from where I lived at the time.

    Most of the guitars they had there were questionable and not that remarkable except a stable of what had appeared to me brand new USA Jacksons.

    There was a Marty Friedman in white pearl, an RR which sold quickly and this strange red soloist with lots of chrome but no inlays on the ebony board and it just had a sort of stark "cool" about it.



    I looked at it and went on my way and it kept haunting me so the next time I was in there I played it and was very sorry I did because it was unbelievable - light, resonant, great action, and it looked BRAND NEW. I
    could shave in the finish it was that near to mint.

    So I thought about it and traded my '88 Charvel Model 4 in on it along with some cash and was happy with it - I just bought it rather impulsively. I liked it, had the cash and wanted it and got it.



    I logged into the net to do some research on it and realized that the Music Go Round participated in a practice which I believe made them have a falling out with their corporate office since before long they were just "Music Store" (purveyors of fine nameless strat copies) and then later "out of business" altogether.



    What these idiots had done is stamp on the rear of the headstock was the word USED with some kind of metal stamp. They also did their best to deface the serial number on the highest fret (they had a fake serial number on a decal on the back of the headstock).



    To make matters worse, they put some sort of brownish substance (I don't think it's paint since much of it has worn away) to cover that area.

    When I grilled them about it, they claimed they did this so buyers like me would not attempt to claim a warranty I was not entitled to being that it was a used instrument in the event of a need for repair. Apparently a lot of like new guitars were showing up at MGR and people with minor problems were trying to claim warranty service on guitars they'd bought used causing musical instrument manufacturers to complain to Grow-Biz, MGR's parent company. Hmm.

    My gut feeling says they did this so they could claim plausible deniability if a guitar had been stolen and brought their to be consigned by some drug addled fool.



    They also claimed that all of those USA Jacksons came from a music store that had gone out of business and this was what was left of their inventory. Hmmm.

    When I first had the guitar I couldn't discern the serial number at all and just decided I was stuck with the guitar for the duration and would try to figure it out later. I emailed Jackson (and I think it was Kevin Livingston who responded with what he felt the guitar was). Good enough. He felt it was made sometime in 1996.

    It was effectively an SL2, no inlays, bound ebony board, chrome hardware, Takeuchi-Licensed Floyd, deep candy red finish. Pretty simple. But classy in an understated yet hot-rodded way.

    I looked on the Jackson website and the indication was that 1996 instruments was U0 3212 thru U0 4005.

    So I figured it would have to be squarely in that range. I wondered if it was possible to discern the serial by forensic means?

    I took a look in the control and tremelo cavities and found nothing but more red paint.

    I recently got a digital camera and took a photo of the area the serial number would occupy on the fretboard and used photoshop and got some very surprising results.

    I had a really hard time discerning any of the characters with the naked eye but using the "find edges" command in photoshop gave me some potential identification:

    The first thing I did is photograph the top of the fretboard with a 4 megapixel camera under a bright light source.

    I then took the photos into photoshop and made thepictures grayscale so I was not distracted by any chromatic information. I could already tell that the SN at this point was U0 3X 3X but hard to say what the other characters were.

    I inverted the picture and it made it considerably easier to figure out. The first 3 had most of its lower half obliterated but a faint trail leading down gives it away as a 3. The second number in the serial inverted is obviously an 8.

    The next character is easiest to read of them all with the naked eye and is obviously a 3 both inverted and standard. The last character is strange as it only reveals itself inverted and appears to be a 6 non-inverted it appears to be a 2.

    So, if my findings are correct my mystery guitar appears to be either U0 38 36 or U0 38 32.

    My edited pictures are at http://madsound.dyndns.org/findings/ for anyone interested in taking a peek.

    Anyway, I love the guitar but it's been driving me a little batty over the years.

    I got email from a guy in Belgium who claimed my guitar was one of an edition of 250 but who knows.

    Anyone know of what guitars in that special run were finished in deep candy red?

    Anyway, I'm new to the board so hello!
    Last edited by aliensporebomb; 01-21-2012, 07:03 PM.

  • #2
    Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

    Wow. Welcome to the board, and that's a helluva post [img]/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

    Damn sweet axe, as well [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]
    I want to depart this world the same way I arrived; screaming and covered in someone else's blood

    The most human thing we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

    My Blog: http://newcenstein.com

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

      Welcome! Very sweet guitar. [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

        Nice Axe!! Very nice Axe! Welcome to the board. Hope you enjoy it here. It becomes very addicting.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

          Have you looked in the trem cavity for a work order #? It's defintly a sweet axe and while no inlaws isn't the norm it's not totally unheard of.. sounds like your pretty good at your investigation and it would be nice if you had WO #;s in the trem cavity .. with the decal etc though you seem to be right on target ..
          Don't worry - I'll smack her if it comes to that. You do not sell guitars to buy shoes. You skimp on food to buy shoes! ~Mrs Tekky 06-03-08~

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

            If anyone knows where to find one of those in black, please let me know - I've GOT to have one [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
            I want to depart this world the same way I arrived; screaming and covered in someone else's blood

            The most human thing we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

            My Blog: http://newcenstein.com

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoR

              That's a sweet axe.
              Too bad Music Go Round did that crap to it. Such a beautiful guitar deserves not such shabby treatment. [img]/images/graemlins/sick.gif[/img]

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoR

                Very nice guitar. SL2 are very cool looking, a true hot rod of a soloist.

                I can't believe the store defaced the guitar like that. The reason they gave is the biggest piece of crap I've ever heard from a store. It actually sound criminal.

                Welcome to the best place on the web [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoR

                  I agree if they "are" responsible for removing serials some sort of action should be taken by Jackson - no?

                  Its a nice axe none the less - welcome aboard.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoR

                    That is just plain wierd and sounds like BS to me. When I started reading this I was expected the "its a fake" punch line ala Ed Roman, so I am glad that it seeems real. Too bad it got defaced.
                    "I''ll say what I'm gonna say, cuz I'm going to Hell anyway!"

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoR

                      I looked but the inside of the trem cavity is entirely shiny red paint. I looked for evidence of a painted over piece of paper but I see none. One side of the cavity is rougher than the other but it doesn't look like painted over paper at all.
                      Last edited by aliensporebomb; 08-15-2009, 11:06 PM.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoR

                        Weirdly, that store stopped being a Music Go Round for reasons unknown about a year after I bought the guitar. They were just "music store" with a bunch of weird imported strat copies and acoustics. Same people running it. About two months after that they just up and vanished. Not totally surprising but I now ponder if that indeed was stock from a store that went under or if someone took their "severance" and unloaded them to make some quick cash. But at that point in time I knew most of the music stores around here and I wasn't aware of any Jackson dealer going under. When I got the guitar, it was brand new - still
                        had the protective paper on the metal cavity covers and everything.
                        Last edited by aliensporebomb; 08-15-2009, 11:07 PM.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoR

                          [ QUOTE ]
                          That is just plain wierd and sounds like BS to me. When I started reading this I was expected the "its a fake" punch line ala Ed Roman, so I am glad that it seeems real. Too bad it got defaced.

                          [/ QUOTE ]

                          The weird thing is, it still looks really new. If I bring it to jams people go "did you just buy that?" The paint is unbelievable and the fretwork is about as close to perfect as any I've seen.

                          To the person wanting a black one: I've seen one of these on Ebay once, and another one in town in a store (not as nice as mine) and I just got email from a guy in Belgium who claims mine was some special edition of 250 - I have no idea, I just liked it so who knows. I've seen on the net a gunmetal gray and a yellow guitar of this type (no inlays). I don't know if they did Black but it would make a heck of a custom order.
                          Last edited by aliensporebomb; 08-15-2009, 11:08 PM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoR

                            One last thing about this guitar that might make you guys laugh. When I got it, it was strung with .013s!

                            With an unwound G!

                            The low E I kept from the original set because I've never seen a low E that thick as an electric guitar string, I even used the guitar as a "bass" once with that string on a track with octave divider it was so thick.

                            I could whammy like a maniac and it would never, ever go out of tune.

                            I've never even found an unwound G like that again too.

                            Strange.

                            I eventually strung it with .011s and later .010s which seems reasonable.

                            But 13s! Man!
                            Last edited by aliensporebomb; 08-15-2009, 11:08 PM.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

                              [ QUOTE ]
                              If anyone knows where to find one of those in black, please let me know - I've GOT to have one [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

                              [/ QUOTE ]

                              There's one in my living room right now...and it's fantastic! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

                              Aliensporebomb, I had commented on your SL2 on the Harmony-Central forum, but didn't know the background of yours. Did you buy it from a MGR store in Minnesota? The word at the time was that they bought up the inventory of Music Off 10, which was at one time a well-known dealer of Jacksons, Hamers, American Masters and other nice USA guitars. Not sure what happened, but a lot of those guitars ended up at MGR stores.

                              I went barking up the same tree as you after finding a number of Hamers with the serial numbers gouged out and covered with "stock number" stickers or stamped USED. Then I found some Jackson RR2s with blank neck plates in place of the Ontario plates...again with stock number stickers only. MGRs story was that the guitars were factory seconds, but I contacted Kim Keller at Hamer and Kevin Easton at Jackson, who each verified that their respective companies didn't sell their USA factory seconds.

                              Interestingly enough, I got an email from a MGR district manager shortly after I posted my tale on the Hamer and Jackson/Charvel forums. He was quite agitated to say the least. To this day, I never got a satisfactory answer. That doesn't change the fact that there were some great deals to be had on USA guitars at MGR stores, but I made a point of avoiding anything missing the original serial number and/or bearing a "USED" stamp. Too easy to unload stolen guitars that way, as I see it.
                              sigpic

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