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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!
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!
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