My 96 Mystery Soloist or Thanks (NOT) MusicGoRound

[Inearthed]

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

I have one like this but in black. I picked it up from Shawn who picked it up from someone else.

[aliensporebomb]

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

Can someone post a picture of a black one? It would be like Darth Vader's guitar.

I really like the looks of these guitars - looks like GodOfRhythm's is a bit different, Duncans
instead of Kent Armstrong pickups and a black whammy bar instead of chrome on the low-profile
JT580LP.

So, it sounds like these guitars came in:
deep candy red, yellow green, black, gunmetal gray and I just got pictures from someone who had a blue
green one with sharkfins and bound ebony neck but was otherwise the same and had a matching
blue-green headstock with the exact same hardware otherwise so at least one variation exists.

What's funny is, the look of the red ones was primarily chrome, red and white logo. But the binding was ebony.
So you figure the binding would be white to match the logo but apparently not.

They did the same theme on the blue one I saw: ebony binding but white Jackson logo on the headstock.

More as I hear or learn more.

GodOfRhythm: that listing of the 250-some guitars, was that 250 per color or 250 total? Now I'm really curious.

[Inearthed]

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

Here's one from the thread I bought it on.

[Greg Crowe]

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

There are a couple places on eBay that deal in factory 2nd Jackson's. One is mhzsomething and the other is out of Nashville and keeps changing their name. They somehow get ahold of the factory seconds and each is already stamped "Used" on the back of the headstock by Jackson. MGR didn't stamp that, Jackson did.

The place on eBay from Nashville has a pretty good write-up of where they get their guitars. They deal in factory 2nd's and guitars from music stores that go out of business. Most likely the story on your SL2 was that it was for sale at a store that went out of business, went back to Jackson where it was stamped "Used" and then a bunch of that inventory was bought up by MGR.

[aliensporebomb]

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

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

First off, welcome to the forum! [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

While that was pretty rare when you bought it, it is nothing now. The downtuning craze has prompted all sorts of new gauge sets, all with unwoud G strings. Check out these gauge sets from Everly:

11-15-20-36-48-56
12-16-22-38-48-60
13-17-24-42-56-65

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the heads-up - I actually loved that 13 set since I was playing it in standard, it helped get my chops up big-time. And it just never went out of tune, ever, even with stupid whammy usage. I went to 11s after that but it wasn't quite the same. My other guitar has 9's and the soloist has 10s now but I might do a hybrid set. For some reason I find it easier to do fast flatpicking on heavier strings and then legato stuff on lighter.

[aliensporebomb]

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

[ QUOTE ]
There are a couple places on eBay that deal in factory 2nd Jackson's. One is mhzsomething and the other is out of Nashville and keeps changing their name. They somehow get ahold of the factory seconds and each is already stamped "Used" on the back of the headstock by Jackson. MGR didn't stamp that, Jackson did.

The place on eBay from Nashville has a pretty good write-up of where they get their guitars. They deal in factory 2nd's and guitars from music stores that go out of business. Most likely the story on your SL2 was that it was for sale at a store that went out of business, went back to Jackson where it was stamped "Used" and then a bunch of that inventory was bought up by MGR.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's really interesting - I'll keep a lookout on Ebay.

But the really interesting thing is, if this guitar is indeed a factory second it's more perfect in terms of construction than some of the other guitars I have. At the time this was produced they must have been more
picky than any maker out there.

Love the black SL2 a few posts back. Whoa.

[Flametop]

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

In yellow.....in our jam room.

[Torched]

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

I have one of these in gunmetal grey with sharkfin inlays. I'll post some pictures as soon as I get a hold of a digicam. And BTW, since my thread is getting ignored.....anyone know what pickups Jackson put in these things. The bridge pickup on mine is a Duncan Custom but I have no idea what's in the neck other than that it is a Seymour Duncan and it gives me a SMOOOOTH lead tone.

[Newc]

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

Jazz probably. I just won a red DR2 on Ebay and the guy says it's got a Screamin Demon and Jazz.

[Flametop]

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

My understanding was that they came with Kent Armstrong pickups of some type in them.

[Newc]

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

Yeah but his say Seymour Duncan on them [img]/images/graemlins/poke.gif[/img]

[Flametop]

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

I see that. What I meant was Armstrongs as stock.
This is a piece of info that I was told, but have no way of knowing if it's true. Other than when I got mine used, the original pup was still in the neck position.

[pro-fusion]

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

I think the other factory second place on eBay is "mhzstudio8"--I've bought a couple of non-Jackson items from them, including an Ibanez that was clearly a second with finish damage, which the seller was very good about showing in the listing.

They are fine, if not exactly the fastest shipper in the world.

[Newc]

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

Ah, I see (about the Armstrongs).

Maybe if we had some sort of all-inclusive information page...like maybe the MOAIP [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/poke.gif[/img]

[aliensporebomb]

Postscript: four years later...

I heard something from someone who read this thread and this might shed some light on the truth behind this guitar (or not!).

Here's what someone emailed me: that the music store that went under ("Music Off 10"?) apparently paid some of their employees with inventory in lieu of cash.

Whether this was legit or under the table I can't imagine.

Those former employees went and sold those guitars to whoever would give them $ to make ends meet.

Here's the guitar today:



Case closed. I think.