Mercury guitars anyone? (Original Fender Venus?)

[live-i-evil]

So, have you guys ever seen one of these?





Cause now I have 2 . This one and one in CAR on its way. I haven't been able to find much(search yielded nothing) but apparently Fender ripped off this guitar for their Courtney Love Venus models. There's this link here https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid= ... opic=10708 where the designer tells he history of the guitar on the "I Love my Fender Venus" Facebook page but it looks like there were less than 100(some say 30) made. Plays really really well, super comfortable almost strat like neck and I love the looks. I'm super excited but now I have to sell my Jazzmaster. Definitely worth it though. So what have you fellow offsetters, seen one before? Know any history? Anyone?

[Veitchy]

Very cool. From here, it looks as if the body is quite compact, like the solid body Rics. Is this the case?

[ncarey13]

Very cool. From here, it looks as if the body is quite compact, like the solid body Rics. Is this the case?

That's what I was thinking, it looks like a Ric.

[live-i-evil]

Very cool. From here, it looks as if the body is quite compact, like the solid body Rics. Is this the case?

Spot on! Its nice and small and obviously borrows from the ric camp quite a bit. I actually reread that facebook link I am embedded in the OP(interesting read, really!) and it seems as if the builder borrowed the looks from ric but based the feel office his favorite 80s strat plus neck. It's a really comfy guitar and the humbuckers sound great. Mid output but really jangly and the toggles for splitting the coils sound great as well. I guess he gave courtney love one(you can see it in the Hole video for Violet) and she really wanted another but they stopped building. A few months down the road and the fender custom shop introduces the Venus, designed by Mrs. Love. Sorry for the long post but i'm really excited about these things. Its rare I find something I haven't heard of but its even rarer when it instantly plays and sounds just like I want, its christmas come early!

[ianlenorable]

That is a sexy guitar! I play a Venus, and I love how compact it is/the look of it, so it's really awesome to read some of the history and see a Mercury! Thanks for posting!
(Exclamation points!)

[jbiscuti]

I think that is incredibly cool and I would absolutely rock one of those! What did you pay for them/what is the going rate, if you don't mind sharing

[thingsthatfly]

its a real shame fender didnt do a better job of ripping it off, that guitar is a rare thing one that has a rare body shape but one that looks like it should be a standard, the headstock and that little curved edge of the fretboard looks great. Not sure id part with my jazzmaster for one. Hope they do start remaking them like they say on that facebook thing

[Veitchy]

I'm guessing it'd sound good slamming the front end of an AC30

[andrewcx13]

i like the thinline design so much better than squier's solid body.

I owned one for about a month or so. Bought it and i hated the neck, it felt like an awful strat and was far too wide to be comfortable, so away it went.

[live-i-evil]

I'm guessing it'd sound good slamming the front end of an AC30

It does. And my other amps too. Sounds great with the Ampeg VT-40 and kills with the Harry Joyce Hiwatt 100 I got as well

I think that is incredibly cool and I would absolutely rock one of those! What did you pay for them/what is the going rate, if you don't mind sharing

To be honest I'm not really sure what the going rate is because I've never seen one before this. That's coming from someone who habitually looks at the classifieds here, at tgp, hc, mylespaul, rig-talk, ebay, and craigslist. I bought the one pictured here on eBay. The seller was asking $1250 I believe but I made a best offer for less than that and won. After he shipped it he told me he had a second one that was red that he was gonna sell if I was interested as well. I soon as I got my hands on this one and got to play it I told him I'd take the other one. He had just listed it on eBay acraigslist for something like $1595 but I talked him down to considerably less since I bought the other one and no one was biting on it. I think $1595 is pretty high but $1200 seems fair. I mean, it's a seriously rare and awesome guitar but no one's really heard of it so it's really only worth what you can get for it. It does have a cool history, is a wonderful playing and incredibly versatile sounding guitar with the coil splitting options, and the fit and finish is excellent, but again, no one knows what it is. I will tell you this though, IF I ever had to sell it I wouldn't take less than $1250 for one of them and I would most certainly hold on to the other seeing as how I may never find another one. That being said, I'd sell one of my kidneys before I sold one of these.

i like the thinline design so much better than squier's solid body.

I owned one for about a month or so. Bought it and i hated the neck, it felt like an awful strat and was far too wide to be comfortable, so away it went.

Me too. The one in the Hole video looks to be a solid body as fas as I can tell and I don't like it as much. The Venus just looks awkward to me all around and that neck does look pretty wide.

[BillClay]

Cool find. I love my squier venus but can tell that it probably doesn't match the quality of these.

[Mecler]

Show the red one. Or both in the same picture!

[SignoftheDragon]

Show the red one. Or both in the same picture!

+1

Them are sexy! I wonder if they ever made a 12-string, or if that only came after Fender had their go. I played a squier one in the store back then, and it felt and played terrible compared to my Surfcaster, so I let the Venus slide off the bottom of my list.

I did see Shirley Manson playing a custom shop Venus at a Garbage show on their v2.0 album tour- I got a little bit excited about it again for a week, but then it passed. I remember fighting through the crowd/pit to the front of the stage just to confirm it had a Fender logo on the headstock, and it did.

[ianlenorable]

Show the red one. Or both in the same picture!

+2

[thingsthatfly]

im guessing http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mercury-Guitar- ... 2313a4db6d" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;