You'll have to trust me on this - I don't have the print yet - but just got the phone call.... "World's Largest Guitar Store" is closed. 13 employees terminated.
According to mr. wonderful's sight, he his moving to a new location a few blocks away and is also having trouble with his ISP. I guess time will tell the truth
Okay, I just got back from Las Vegas a few days ago, and while I was there, I visited his new location. It's not very large, actually smaller than your average GC. He had lots of nice BC Rich's and Steinbergers, a few old Kramers, an entire wall of his crappy knockoffs, and a few Ibanez's and Jacksons. I asked the guy working there, "how much for the BFP Jem?". "I believe Ed told me it was $6500, but if you're serious about it we could work out a deal."
I left soon after that conversation, lol. But not before trying out one of his 'famed' Quicksilvers. All I can really say is, I'm not impressed at all. The neck pockets were loose and the pickup routes were sloppy. The fretjob sucked, and the overall feel of the guitar was just crap.
No sign of Ed though, I would've looooved to meet him.
Okay, I just got back from Las Vegas a few days ago, and while I was there, I visited his new location. It's not very large, actually smaller than your average GC. He had lots of nice BC Rich's and Steinbergers, a few old Kramers, an entire wall of his crappy knockoffs, and a few Ibanez's and Jacksons. I asked the guy working there, "how much for the BFP Jem?". "I believe Ed told me it was $6500, but if you're serious about it we could work out a deal."
I left soon after that conversation, lol. But not before trying out one of his 'famed' Quicksilvers. All I can really say is, I'm not impressed at all. The neck pockets were loose and the pickup routes were sloppy. The fretjob sucked, and the overall feel of the guitar was just crap.
No sign of Ed though, I would've looooved to meet him.
Well, obviously his guitars suck. Does he really look, or even talk like the distinguished luthier he makes himself out to be? He's like the corrupt used car salesman of the guitar world. I wouldn't put it past him if he used veneers or even photo tops on his top-of-the-line guitars.
I had a long conversation with a guy that works there, or did, for the "new" owners of his "old" store.
Ed brought in these minority "partners" supposedly because he was tired of the front end and just wanted to concentrate on his customs he could build for a few dollars and sell for a fortune. Well, the new partners wanted to restructure everything, including the manufacturing part, which of course Ed didn't like. So he sold his remaining majority interests to another new "partner", and at the same time took the inventory he wanted and sold the rest to all the partners at full retail of course. [not sure how this all worked but supposedly the new partners didn't know a whole lot about guitars, and probably why they were chosen as partners!].
Turns out the new partner he sold the majority to specializes in breaking up businesses, so he was brought in to kill off Ed's "future" competition. Ed moved the biz into his house while he was space hunting and within a day of leaving had taken back over the website supposedly that belonged to the "old" business.
You know how far out there this sounds, but it was from a current employee [although a couple months ago so some of the timeline etc. is a little fuzzy now], but sounds so much like the way Ed would conduct business.
There's a 'person' who writes these 10 page gushing letters of endorsement to Ed about his Quicksilvers that are strangely similar to Ed's own writing style.
I googled the name Charlie DiBuduo Jr. and the only things on the web came back under something to do with the Quicksilver guitars.
Interesting.
Shame they suck, I actually like the looks of 'em.
its sad i heard he actaully did at one time own the remainder or bc rich old stock, bc rich even told me he did have it..this is when i was interested in a bc rich stealth...too bad all the proprietary stock went to him, sad id like a old bc rich neck through stealth but not from him i guess
I used to go to the East Coast Music Mall back in the late 80's and would see Roman there about every visit there. He had his "I love me" wall of pictures when first walking into the place...right there you can tell the guy was full of himself. He was a pretty arrogant bastard back then. He made EVH replicas and said how superior they were. I believe that he even had the original "Mr. Scary" for sale, or so he said it was. The (only) good thing was all of the guitar clinics that the place had, it was like every weekend.
I got a GREAT deal from EC Music mall.
I got my Mesa Studio .22 for 299.00 plus shipping due to their typo in the flyer they sent out. Still have the amp, and I love it!
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