Show your 80's shredders. (Future Vintage bargains)
Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2020 6:43 am
So for a long time I was dreaming to have a super strat guitar converted to a surf guitar.
(Basically doing the same as what many shredders did to offsets) and after picking up my first I got a bit hooked.
I would love to see your cheap shredders
As it turned out, these 80s asian guitars are a lot of fun. The premium "collector" guitars are expensive from this era like any other guitar.
But you can get the asian stuff so cheap if you look around a bit. For these guitars I paid 230 euro's in total.
I'm just wondering if these guitar will become the cool guitars of tomorrow. With them being up to/close to 40 years old we can definitely file them under vintage and if you see what people pay for Teisco's and sorts, I can imagine prices for these could just go up at some point.
I can only advise to pickup a affordable shredder by a somewhat established builder from the 80's.
So Covid hit, got bored and found a 1988 Yamaha RGX-312 online for 80 euro's.
When I went to pick it up the guy told me he was a drummer and got a lot of instruments when the juvenile rehabilitation facility where he was teaching music therapy closed down. There was another guitar he was selling but because he didn't had to chance to change the strings I could get it for 40,-. The Yamaha has a nice thin shreder neck. I plan to block the trem (I can't find a trem arm for it) and at the moment I just have the surf 90 connected straight to a volume. Great for that AC/DC tone or straight out surf and other clean stuff.
So my second 80's guitar turned out to be that 1983 Vantage Avenger from the same guy and was my 2nd guitar from the 80's. This one is a lot of fun for the price of a cheap strat knockoff. But this one has two MMK-145 pickups that are splittable. They aren't muddy and sound really wangy with some extra gain on humbucker mode. Especially the neck pickup is where it's at for this one.
So these super cheap guitars were bringing me a lot of fun and slowly while getting interested in shred guitars.
I was getting two guitars on my radar. A Fender HM in Hot Pink and a Charvel Star. I love the looks and I wanted to try out a floyd rose.
I got intrigued by a floyd rose, since the jazzmaster/jaguar trem got so much hate for so long because people didn't get it, I can imagine the floyd rose got the same fate.
Online I suddenly got this ad recommended with extremely terrible pictures but it seemed like a Squier copy of a HM Hot Pink, including some effects and a brand new Fender Champ 100 (Which I'm selling). So for 200 euro's I picked up this lot. It turned out a 1989 Korean Samick Contemporary Strat in Razz Berry but where the front of the guitar faded to Hot Pink. With the selling of 1 pedal and the amp I will have gotten this guitar for free + an Japanese Delay copy that sounds really good and a few Fender cables (brand new).
This guitar plays easily as good as my MIM strat even with it's plywood body. I can't recommend getting one of these.
Last but not least
The Tokai Five Star Super Edition I picked up yesterday. This one needs some work and will be changed more to Charvel Star specs.
I Paid 200 for this one and is definitely the most expensive one but with it's semi-unique design all I can say it's really cool, plays well and feels solid.
You can see the wood grain through the finish at parts and the paint technique seems similar to the way my 60's guitars look. I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually nitro.