SDOTD: Get yer Elvis on - for only $499!

[Steve DeRosa]

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/guit...81035000002000

Gretsch-style 24.6" scale, and if you're a speed-lead player and they're using the same pattern they used on the '70s Swede (I still regret trading mine ) IME it's the best. neck. ever. ...

FYI the black version is $849, the sunburst is $1399 - and hey, Elvis is Elvis...

I've got a gut feeling these aren't going to last too long...

[PTony]

I played a Hagstrom model 1- 60’s for years. It was my friend’s father’s. I was in high school and remember loving that guitar. It had a TON of tone options, a great feeling neck, and sweet tone. Plus, it was well made!

He passed in a house fire last year after trying to save his beloved Hagstrom. Smoke inhalation got him days later at the hospital. His family found an identical model online…disintegrated binding and all. It looked nearly identical to his.

His son (who was the drummer) owns it now. His kids will inherit it. Very cool story in the end. I’d think the model you listed would fly off the shelves at that price.

[martingitdave]

It's a pretty guitar!

[warfrat73]

It's just too slippery of a slope for me... gotta think about the jumpsuit and rhinestone costs down the line.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by warfrat73

It's just too slippery of a slope for me...gotta think about the jumpsuit and rhinestone costs down the line.

Stick with the leathers - they're always in style...

BTW it's after 3 PM EST and they're still in stock - no takers here...?

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

Stick with the leathers - they're always in style...

BTW it's after 3 PM EST and they're still in stock - no takers here...?

Nothing in the guitar budget right now...

But sure is cool. Had no idea Elvis had one. I always think of the acoustic with the leather cover or the Super 400.

[Steve DeRosa]

All gone - new SDOTD is the Gretsch Electromatic G5237 "Mary Ford Standard" for $399:





https://www.musiciansfriend.com/guit...74922000001000

Some highly apocryphal Gretsch lore and trivia: After her divorce from Les Paul in 1963 (I was fortunate enough to see their last TV appearance as a kid, in 1962) Mary Ford was attempting to jumpstart both a solo career and an endorsement deal of her own with Gretsch. It has been rumored that the short-lived (and now uber-rare) "Princess" pastel-colored solidbodies based on the '63 Corvette platform (vaguely resembling the contemporary - and strong-selling - single-pickup SG/Les Paul Junior, and sold with matching white case and amplifier) were in fact intended to be the first "Mary Ford" instruments, to be joined by similarly-colored Duo-Jet-based "Standards" and a "Custom" model modeled after her personal double-cutaway White Penguin. Production of the Princess ceased by '64 when the deal fell through - no instruments of this type were ever produced under the Mary Ford designation - and while similarly-colored double-cut Duo-Jet "Standard" prototypes are believed to exist (possibly as a single example, almost certainly no more than four or five) as well as her custom-built Penguin that was to be the platform for the "Custom," only the Corvette-based Princess "Junior" model saw the light of day. FWIW the above MF/GC exclusive Electromatic, in Surf Green with white back/pickguard/trussrod cover and Filter'trons, is probably a 90% accurate representation of what the "Mary Ford Standard" might have looked like: under Les' tutelage Mary became a formidable guitarist in her own right and, had it seen production, it (and the flagship Custom) undoubtedly would have been equipped with some proprietary cutting-edge electronic gadgetry garnered from their time together (which Les himself was extremely reluctant to license for mass production until circa 1970, with the Les Paul Professional/Personal and Triumph Bass models)...

To add some fuel to the fire - and credibility to the story - Ken Achard's History and Development of the American Guitar shows a documented prototype of a double-cutaway Les Paul Standard produced circa 1962 by Epiphone, when they were under Gibson management and using the same methods/materials. As you're well aware Les Paul - who had complained long and loud about the SG version that would bear his name until mid-'63 (he formally suspended his endorsement deal amid his divorce proceedings the year before) - performed many of his first experiments with solidbody design on (New York-built) Epiphone guitars, and this may have been an attempt to appease him with a more "modern" appearing instrument while still keeping him in the Kalamazoo corporate camp; suffice it to say that the body shape is nearly indistinguishable from the contemporary double-cutaway Duo-Jet - the same one that would have been used for the Mary Ford Standard/Custom - and if push came to shove it could have been a very interesting state of affairs...

[Bluside]

They're sold out now. I thought seriously about getting one, but I really couldn't justify it.

[cyclistbrian]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/guit...81035000002000

Gretsch-style 24.6" scale, and if you're a speed-lead player and they're using the same pattern they used on the '70s Swede (I still regret trading mine ) IME it's the best. neck. ever. ...

FYI the black version is $849, the sunburst is $1399 - and hey, Elvis is Elvis...

I've got a gut feeling these aren't going to last too long...

My local Guitar Center had (has?) two. I was intrigued by the sale and tried them out. I could not bring myself to buy. The necks on these are crazy thin. A modern C profile Fender neck is a baseball bat in comparison. Even if I could adapt to that the hardware was just appallingly cheap: about what id expect from a mystery brand guitar off Amazon or Ebay. These are in no way worth anything like the original street price. The sale.price may even be high. Sounded good through a Supro and a blues Cube. I'll grant them that. Kinda disappointing because they look great in pictures.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by cyclistbrian

...The necks on these are crazy thin. A modern C profile Fender neck is a baseball bat in comparison...Sounded good through a Supro and a Blues Cube...

Pretty much what Hagstroms have always been, on both counts - and that neck (which I mentioned in my comments above) is one of the main reasons I like them...

Hardware has always been iffy, though: had a '70s Swede with the wannabe TOM bridge (saddles were individually adjustable for both intonation and spacing, by way of screws on either side of each saddle), and it was not only a nightmare to set up properly, but I was always in fear of breaking one of the tiny, not-too-well-made screws (a former bud who had the bass version wasn't so lucky) - shame, because the rest of the guitar was first-rate in both construction and tone (FYI Larry Coryell was using one as his main instrument back in the '70s), and I still regret trading mine...