Guitar Info

This is one seriously ugly Strat. The seller claims that it is "hand-crafted" and "made with all-American Fender parts". I don't care. It's gross. The textured and patterned scratchplate looks bad enough, but what's the deal with the stuck-on dragon "carving" which I can only assume they copied from the much more tasteful Aria Dragon Strat? And why is the "carving" coloured black so that it looks like an oil slick? If you check the photos on the linked page, you'll see it also has skull-shaped strap buttons. Can I say "gross" again?

This guitar was put together by someone with absolutely no idea of taste or aesthetics. Vile.

Guitarz reader Jason Moody writes to tell me about this guitar. Built by luthier Scott French for Spencer Seim ("the drummer for the NES cover band The Advantage, and the noise rock band Hella", apparently), the guitar incorporates several interesting features such as an egg shaker with contact mic mounted into a rear cavity, B-Band piezo strip installed as nut pickup, and the green nitrocellulose lacquer with beardburst finish made from Spencer's own beard clippings.

Pics from www.scottfrench.com.

Yes, I know we've looked at a Musicvox Spaceranger on this blog already, but I think the design is so completely bonkers that it withstands looking at again. The eBay auction for the Spaceranger pictured here ends tomorrow night. By all accounts they are very fine players, so for the guitarist who wants something that looks that little bit different, why not go for it? And don't you think the yellow volume and tone knobs make it look even madder?

I still reckon these are destined to become collectors items, the cheesy guitars of the future, so it could well be an investment. In years to come, some company like Eastwood Guitars could well be making replicas of these.

Edit: I'm told that - because of the presence of the P90 pickups - this is a Space Cadet, apparently. However, if you click through to the auction page and check the close-up of the (huge) headstock, then you'll see the name "Spaceranger".

So, it's a carved-top one-off Custom Shop Fender Showmaster master-built by Chris Fleming and featuring a set neck, two-piece alder AAA curly maple top, transparent crimson urethane finish, Sperzel staggered tuners, Duncan Fat 50 and Trembucker pickups, etc, etc...

So, what's not to like?

The fingerboard inlay, perhaps!

OK, so it was made for the 2003 Summer NAMM show as a showpiece but outside of that arena I can't see this appealing to anyone other than the Fender collector with a lot of cash to spare.

This hologram-topped guitar from Alien Guitars might appeal to those of you out there who like your guitars with skulls on, but to me it's a tired old cliché.

Thanks to G at Iconic Guitars for sharing this.

Last June I commented that Eastwood's proposed Breadwinner re-issue was not going to happen. Well, now it seems that the situation has changed and Eastwood are already taking orders for their Breadwinner tribute guitar which has already been shown at NAMM 2009. I guess that for whatever reason, Ovation (now owned by Fender) had changed their minds about allowing the re-issue.

Other than the obviously different-shaped headstock, there are quite a number of cosmetic features that are, quite frankly, inaccurate, and if I was shelling out best part of a thousand dollars for one of these, I'd want it to be a much more faithful replica than the guitar we see in the image above. I see from the specs that Eastwood are making trem-equipped models available, something that the originals never had.

If I was in the market for another Breadwinner I think I'd prefer to track down an original which could theoretically be cheaper than this Eastwood, although some retailers are already hiking up the prices of the originals. I bought my own 1976 Ovation Breadwinner back in 2006 for a little over £300.

Kudos to Eastwood for responding to public demand and making this re-issue available, but why the high price and why wasn't attention to detail better?

For today's post I am again featuring a one-off Hamer guitar, this possibly being one of the bizzarest I've seen on ebay in a long time.

This Hamer T-51 Tele-style guitar has its body covered in suede leather and comes with matching strap and pair of cowboy boots (US size 12)!

This was a custom order created for Bill Kamen, president of Kamen Music, parent company of Hamer Guitars.

As I write this, the auction only has 2 hours left to go, so if you fancy this guitar and can wear a size 12 boot, then you've not much time left!