Yeah, you read that right! A couple weeks ago I saw this guitar on e-bay and it caught my interest. Reserve wasn't met on the auction, so I ended up working a deal to buy the guitar from the seller after closing. It's a new-old stock guitar that's basically been sitting in a store for sale since 1993. Having spent a good chunk of the evening changing strings and cleaning it up, it now looks and plays great!

Here are some pics:






It's a 1993 USA Custom Exotic Wood model, exact model # unknown. It's got a mahogany body with the 1/2" flamed maple top, what feels like a Wizard neck, bound rosewood fretboard w/ offset dot inlays, and a Gotoh strung-thru fixed bridge. The HSH pickups are Dimarzios (Double Whammy in the neck and Super Distortion in the bridge, not sure what's in the middle) with split 5-way switch, volume, and tone controls.

Overall, I was pretty stoked about this find... I'd been looking for a USRG10 for a while, but since I'm a fan of mahogany/maple, this was a much better fit for my tastes.

--B

PS--Couldn't resist... last week I had all the guitars out for cleaning & I took a new collection picture. Several have since been bought & sold, but it'll be a while before I have the time to get them all out again!

Front to back: RG2420-TB Prestige, RG3120-DR Prestige (sold), Jem90-HAM, RG1880-BGS J-Custom, RG7CT-VV Prestige, RG770FM-DBL, JPM100-P2 (sold), UV777-BK, RG421-RB (sold), JPM100-P1, RG-ART J-Custom, RG1220QM-TO USA Custom (sold), Jem7-VWH, MA1FM-NT USA Custom American Master (sold), RG3120-TW Prestige, RGT3120-TP Prestige, RG1680x-AM J-Custom;
Not shown in picture: UCEW, RG-PR1, JPM90-HAM, RG2680M-DBK, RG1077XL-RB

I'm pretty sure that a " " would be appropriate in this case.

So, uh...

Very nice collection....I especially like the first one....RG2420-TB Prestige

I'll take them all thanks???

What's your fav of that bunch?

Actually, my favorite is the RG2420-TB right in front. It's got my favorite wood combination (mahogany/maple), pickup combination (Tone Zone/PAF Pro), and neck profile (Ultra). Plus, I'm {obviously} a sucker for anything with flamed/quilted maple tops, and the 2420 has a quilt so deep it looks like you could go swimming in it:



My second favorite, after all these years, is still my JPM100-P1.

--B

Wow the quilt on that one tickles my eyeballs!

Interesting that your new UCEW has a locking nut with a fixed bridge. Does anyone else find that odd?

Darren--

The nut is really weird. It isn't a locking nut--it's a metal baseplate with a plastic nut glued to it! The baseplate is then bolted through the neck just like a normal locking nut. Every time I look at it I think "wouldn't it have just been easier to glue the nut to the headstock like every other guitar?"

I think the UCEW's in need of a pickup change... something about the combination of Super Distortion pickup in the bridge + mounted on metal rings + strung-thru body + 1/2" thick maple top makes it obnoxiously bright. It busts in to microphonic feedback just looking at it. Plus the Double Whammy isn't really much of a neck pickup (and I find it odd to have a pickup named "whammy" in a fixed bridge guitar). I'm thinking a set of Breeds might be just what it needs to bring it back to a more reasonable level!

--B

nice acquisition The neck blanks probably came precut for the locking nut, hence the workaround... glen

Brent, lovely collection. Nice variety of guitars, but you patently have an obsession for maple/mahogany guitars, not that there's anything wrong with that!!!!

Only thing missing is a big ole fat daddy jazz box....pssst I saw a seven string Iby jazz box on our fav auction site, I heard it calling your name, but I'm not sure if it's still there.

Again, fantastic guitars.

We think alike

Congratulations on the new guitar! If that's the one I think it is - and you bought it from a guy in Rochester, both Mark DY and myself played that a couple of times. Neither of us had the $ to pull the trigger.

They also have a blue exotic with trem...

Enjoy.

Yep, I bet it's the same one... I think it was from House of Guitars or something like that. It'd looked like it'd been played quite a few times (and quite possibly never cleaned) when I got it, so I spent a lot of time with the ol' polishing rag last night! Seems like the seller wanted quite a bit of $ for it, so there was a little negotiation involved to get it down to the going USA Custom price range!

I just got a smaller semi-hollowbody a few weeks ago (a Washburn HB35). Maybe I'll work my way up to the 7.

--B

Wow, that's a lot of guitars! I love that RG1880-BGS J-Custom, she's really nice. Does she have piezos?

jim

That is a fine collection of instruments. I am glad to see that the RG2420 turned out to be your favorite; looking at it again makes kind of wish I did not get rid of it. By the way congrats on the NOS UCEW; coincidentally last week I also found a guitar that I have been looking for for a long time, an RG1822-TRD J-Custom, I will try to post a pic of it.