Washburn MR-400 Custom

guitarz.blogspot.com

Usually I loathe this kind of paint jobs, the easy and intruding horror comics/graffiti style that reduces everything it touches into pathetic boyish machismo. But I must say that in the case of this Washburn MR-400 it's surprisingly good, with this close-up framing that turns the image into a quasi -abstract pattern - it's unusually intelligent for this kind of things, and gives it an enjoyable second degree. 

On top of this, the guitar is quite cool I must say. As far as I understood, the Washburn MR series models are Sammy Hagar signatures - the 400 being the P90s version - and look like thinline wider LPs with strangely shaped and placed soundholes - a very nice touch, mostly combined with the florentine cutaway. The paint job comes from Washburn's custom shop.

I have problems understanding Washburn's policy: it's an old company that has been there for ever and that could claim to belong to the holy ancients, but they seem to keep low profile, for example they don't keep archives of their discontinued models - and they've had prestigious users like Brian May or Roger Waters who even had a signature model (not to mention Paul Stanley, but who can still think that KISS is attractive?) - and don't try to claim a 'cult' status like many of their competitors on the guitar market... They have original though classic designs, also innovative technology, but their catalogue is full of LPs clones and superstrats... I have a good feeling though about their products, but it's a blur impression really not based on how they communicate about themselves!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Washburn Ace Frehley AF-40V

guitarz.blogspot.com:

There's no point in even attempting to judge a guitar like this, the Washburn Ace Frehley AF-40V. It's a guitar designed with a particular band's image uppermost in mind, and when you're talking about a band like Kiss then the guitar needs to conform perfectly to everything they stand for. But when you know the manufacturer is Washburn, you know that the quality of the instrument is going to be impeccable.

This particular example, signed by Ace Frehley and only ever used as a display item, is currently being sold on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $3,000.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Electric 12ers #1: Washburn "Andy Parker" electric XII prototype

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is the first in a short sequence of blog posts about electric 12-strings, as found recently on eBay by Jaimie Muehlhausen from The Ones That Got Away blog.

To start us off, we have this prototype Washburn "Andy Parker" model. Jaimie comments:

Not sure what the hell this prototype was...I know I’ve seen some high-end acoustics with this fanned string/bridge thing before...

I think Jaimie must be referring to acoustics made by Babicz, on which the strings fan out on the top behind the bridge. The difference on this Washburn is that these are the 2nd strings in courses on a twelve string and are fanning out to meet tuners at the base of the guitar body. I'm pretty sure this guitar, although supposedly a prototype, did end us as a production model because I have certainly seen one in the flesh even before.

I quite like the squared-off Explorer stylings, although for me the headstock shape doesn't quite work. I'm not sure in practice how user-friendly it would be to have six strings tuned at the head and six tuned at the body end. It also brings to mind the tuning arrangement on the B.C. Rich Bich 10-string.

G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Washburn Tour 24 Tele

guitarz.blogspot.com:

With reference to the Takamine GE-400 that Bertram posted yesterday, Ed writes:

I had a mid 80's Washburn Tele that must have come from the same factory. Black with Orange/Red accents, including the fret markers. Same tremelo, too. I bought it on eBay because it matched my shoes. Solidly built, but It was the heaviest tele I ever played. I shipped it to someone in the Ukraine last year.

Love your blog,

Ed in Laguna Beach

Thanks for that, Ed. I remember these from back in the day, and thought they were cool then. I suppose it's a Tele in body outline only. It's a Washburn Tour 24 and would have been built between 1982-1985, with solid Ash body, dual humbuckers and tremolo. I'm not sure what the trem unit is in this case, but some of these guitars (most likely the USA-built "Chicago" models) were outfitted with Washurn's proprietary Wonderbar locking tremolo system - which was a much bulkier piece of hardware than that seen here.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Ex-Nuno Washburn Mouradian prototype

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Yes, I appreciate that this Washburn Mouradian guitar is a rare "one-of-a-kind" prototype model.

I appreciate also that it belonged to Nuno Bettencourt and is the actual guitar that he played it with Extreme at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert in 1992.

Nevertheless... a $35,000 Buy It Now price on eBay?

You're having a laugh?

Thanks to Jono for bringing this guitar to our attention. As he says, "You gotta wonder where they pull out those prices from and more importantly, who the hell buys this stuff?"

I've got nothing against Mr Bettencourt, who is a fine guitarist, but I wouldn't have thought he was the kind of guy whose personal instruments commanded those kind of big bucks. That asking price is not quite in Hendrix/Beatles/Elvis territory, but it's close.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

80s Washburn A20

I know that Washburn guitars are not always appreciated for their sometimes cheesy looks, but hey, when you take risks, you have the right to fail - it's more difficult than copying again and again 50-year old models - and you can always end up with something challenging if not just really nice...

I like this Washburn A20 and its Explorer look - an Explorer made a little more comfortable it seems... But like for the SG Xtreme in the previous post, I wish I could see this guitar with a nice natural finish - I think that I will proclaim the right for any guitar in the world to look fresh and natural and not like a hooker with glossy lipstick!

Ah, I have to add that the headstock sucks.

bertram

The Ugly Washburn Duckling

Hi, this is Bertram from gUitarREN again.

Today I will give you a good tip - I think. On the Thomann online music shop, you can find this atrocious guitar, the Paul Stanley signature Washburn PS400 G3.

What's the point, will you ask ? Well, the painting on this guitar is so ugly and ridiculous that the poor thing that was originally sold at 650€ is now almost given away at a mere 185€ (with an ugly gig back and an awful strap).

I can imagine that a 650€ Washburn is much probably a good guitar, with its Grover tuners, alnico humbuckers, Tune-o-matic bridge and all that stuff. And if you look carefully, the shape is not so bad after all, quite original and as ergonomic as necessary.

So it wouldn't be stupid to buy this now cheap guitar, dismantle it, sand off this shameful finish, slightly file off the pointy bits, oil it, varnish it or paint it something sober and tasteful, and it might happen that you have a good and thankful guitar that will owe you and serve you well for ever, and this for a quite reasonable amount of money and a little bit of sweat...

I would do it myself but my girlfriend who is also my GAS inspector forbid it on the pretext that I have enough guitars and can only acquire necessary ones (you know what I mean). But if someone does it, please let me know!

***** SAVE A GUITAR! *****