PRS Dragon, "dragon" inlay fretboard

PRS Dragon, Series I, II, III and 25th anniversary

Some guitars are considered to be "art", and actually, there are guitars which can be found in museums. In this case it's not about playability, but it's all about craftmanship and design, guitars built by masterbuilders with the skills of an artist / designer.
One of those guitars to be considered "art" is the PRS Dragon with it's design and inlay of the fretboard.

prs dragon series I fretboard inlay closeup

PRS, founded in 1985 by Paul Reed Smith, has the PRS Dragon exposed in the Smithsonian, the National Museum of American History. Also the PRS Dragon is supposed to be in the collection of the MOMA, the Museum Of modern Art, but I can't find any information about that on the MONA website. The guitars were donated by PRS, and it gave a boost to the collectability of the PRS Dragon. From here, the success of PRS Guitars started.

The PRS Dragon is handbuilt, in the early years of PRS Guitars, and is considered to be far more superior than the guitars built in the PRS factory, which was established in 1995.

prs dragon series II

PRS Dragon, Series, building years and limited numbers

Like most collectible guitars from a Custom Shop or (PRS) Private Stock, the limitation of numbers built is essential. The PRS Dragon is no exception. The PRS Dragon is not as rare as "single pieces", but still rare and expensive enough to be collectible. Most PRS Dragon's will be in private collections.

The PRS Dragon Series I was built in 1992, limited to 50 Dragon's.

The PRS Dragon Series II was built in 1993, limited to 100 Dragon's.

The PRS Dragon Series III was built in 1994, limited to 100 Dragon's.
The PRS Dragon 25th Anniversary, limited to 100 Dragon's.

PRS Dragon, fretboard / neck inlay

Obvious, the fretboard "dragon" inlay is the main feature of the PRS Dragon series I, II and III. The work is done by hand, which takes a lot more time than the modern method, using computer controlled cutting machines and duplicating devices to automate the series production. The fretboard inlay of the PRS Dragon series I, II and III is crafted by hand, so every fretboard of the Dragon in each serie is kind of unique.

I'm not sure if the inlay of the PRS Dragon 25th anniversary also is crafted the "old fashion way". Probably the fretboard inlay on this PRS Dragon is done by "Pearl Works", who does all the inlay work for PRS, computer driven.

*****

The dragon inlay on the fretboard of the PRS Dragon Series I is made of 201, small pieces of abalone and turquoise mother of pearl which results in a 2 color dragon on a dark rosewood fretboard.

prs dragon series I fretboard inlay
 

The dragon, crafted in the fretboard of the PRS Dragon II, is my favourite dragon inlay within the PRS Dragon Series. I especially grave the shiny abalone wings of the dragon. This dragon is made of 218 pieces of gold, coral, abalone, malachite, onyx and mother of pearl.

prs dragon series II fretboard inlay



The PRS Dragon III, the last of the original PRS Dragon Series has the most extensive dragon inlay. No less than 238 pieces of gold, red and green abalone, mother of pearl and real mammoth ivory were used for the dragon!

prs dragon series III fretboard inlay

The PRS Dragon 25th anniversary has a new designed multi material dragon inlay in the fretboard, which includes 300 pieces of 20 different materials in 8 colors, difficult to describe, but the image tells it all.

prs dragon 25th anniversary fretboard inlay

*****

The PRS Dragon is in every way a very desirable and collectable guitar. Apart from the dragon neck inlay, the rest of the guitar is first class too. The top of the PRS Dragon is made of "bookmatched" superior wood, and as every PRS, lots of attention goes to the finish and details.

How does it sound in real? I don't know! My local guitar stores don't have the PRS Dragon in stock, so I never had the opportunity to see and hear the PRS Dragon myself..  PRS wants every guitar to sound like a perfect blend of a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender, and I'm sure the PRS Dragon, with "PRS Dragon" humbuckers sounds great. However I can't imagine taking this guitar from the wall and playing the delicate fretboard!

PRS Dragon III Video

Below is a video of the PRS Dragon III, posted on Youtube by guitarist  Tony McKenzie who runs a wonderful website and who actually owns the PRS Dragon III. He presents the guitar, but, like expected, this PRS Dragon III is unplayed. It's all about the fretboard!

Fender CS Indian Stratocaster

Fender CS Indian Stratocaster

From the hands of Fender Custom Shop Senior Master Builder Marck Kendrick comes this stunning piece of work, the Fender CS (Custom Shop) Indian Stratocaster.

Like the Fender CS Birdflower and the Fender CS Chris Craft Esquire Boat Art LE (sold!), this Stratocaster is also for sale at the German Music Store. From time to time I take a look at their site to see if they have new "Custom Shops". As they are the largest music store in Europe, they have the funds to aquire the most beautiful and expensive guitars, like this CS Stratocaster. This Custom Shop guitar is not a new item, but it sure deserves a closer look!

fender cs indian stratocaster neck

fender cs indian stratocaster output and knobs

 

The Fender CS Indian Stratocaster has a transparant finish with, airbrushed on the body, a very detailed indian head. It's a masterpiece; the feathers from the headdress expand over the pickguard, and like the indian's hair, it seems like they actually are arranged on top of the Stratocaster's body.

The back of the body, including the cover for the electronics, is decorated with feathers and a bleached wild west animal skull.

Another detail of the Fender CS Indian Stratocaster is the inlay of the same animal skull and feathers in the neck. The output and the three knobs are just clean chrome, a nice contrast to the full decorated CS Stratocaster. I haven't seen a lot of these cool clean chrome knobs on guitars, but I really like them a lot.

Last but not least, the humbuckers almost have the same "woody" color as the pickguard, and here also, the paintbrush expands. The Fender CS Indian Stratocaster is packed with these little details.

I took the liberty of using the pictures of the Fender CS Indian Stratocaster from the Musicstore  website, these images are great, and they show all the wonderful details of this CS Strat. Musicstore sells the CS Indian Stratocaster for just under 10.000 Euro. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find more specific technical information.



fender cs indian stratocaster  full back



fender cs indian stratocaster body

 

Fender CS Indian, 2 Stratocasters and 2 Telecasters

One of the reasons I like to post about CS guitars like this, is the fact that most of the (Fender) Custom Shop guitars are built in small numbers, or "one piece", and after they are sold, it's difficult to get information and pictures once these CS guitars are removed from the sellers website. Also many of these limited Custom Shop Fender's can't be found on the Fender website anymore.

Senior Master Builder Mark Kendrick from the Fender CS built 2 Indian Stratocasters and 2 CS Indian Telecasters.
The German Musicstore aquired 1 Indian Stratocaster and 1 Indian Telecaster.



fender cs indian stratocaster back




fender cs indian stratocaster full body

 

Stolen Fender CS Indian Telecaster

When searching for more information about the Indian Stratocasters and Telecasters, I found the Musicstore announcement about the theft of 50 Custom Shop guitars in the of night the 1st and 2nd of december 2007. Among these stolen exclusive CS's was the Fender CS Indian Telecaster!

The complete list of the stolen CS guitars :  http://video.musicstore.de/diebstahl/index_EN.html
The theft in 2007 was all over the news and on the forums on the internet, but I can't find any information about recovery, so I assume these CS guitars are still "missing". The reward for the recovery of the stolen CS guitars was set on 30.000 Euro, or at least 5000 Euro for the recovery of a single guitar! 

fender cs indian stratocaster headstock

fender cs indian stratocaster neck plate

 

Les Paul Slash Appetite

 


slash appetite les paul body and humbuckers

 

Les Paul Slash Appetite

In addition to my post about the Gibson and Epiphone Slash Signature Les Paul, here's another Les Paul, which has been dedicated to former Guns N'Roses lead guitarist "Slash".

This Les Paul is named after the "Appetite for Destruction" album from Guns N'Roses.

Les Paul Slash Appetite, by Gibson, Custom Shop and Epiphone

Both Gibson and doughter Epiphone have the Slash Appetite Les Paul in their collection.  Gibson is the premier brand, but as the price of the Gibson Slash Appetite, as all Gibsons, is fairly high, for the avarage Slash fan and guitar player, the Epiphone Les Paul Slash Appetite is an affordable (but not cheap) alternative.



slash appetite les paul body and neck



slash appetite les paul humbuckers and tailpiece



Next to the Gibson factory built Slash Appetite Les Paul, the Gibson Custom Shop also built 2 series of the Les Paul Slash Appetite, one VOS (Vintage Original Spec.), and one aged serie. The Gibson Slash Appetite, and the Slash Appetite Custom Shop are currently out of production, but can still be found on Ebay and music stores, if you do a good search, for incredible (Custom Shop) prices; Slash is popular, and so are the Slash Les Pauls.

The Epiphone Les Paul Slash Appetite is according to the Gibson / Epiphone website still in production. Due to the limited numbers of Gibson and Epiphone Slash Appetite guitars produced, they are hard to find. 



slash appetite les paul knobs



slash appetite les paul knobs and finish





 Slash Appetite Les Paul, limited numbers produced, no bargains!

Gibson offers exclusivity with the Slash Appetite Les Paul. Like the signature models, Gibson produced the factory and the Custom Shop Slash Appetite LP's in limited numbers.

At first, Gibson set the numbers for the factory Slash Appetite Les Paul at a maximum of 600, but later another run of 600 guitars was done, bringing it to a total of 1200 Slash's Appetite LP's out of the Gibson factory.

The Gibson Custom Shop Slash Les Pauls are more exclusive; the Vos (Vintage Original Spec.) serie Slash Appetite Les Paul is limited to 300 guitars, and the Custom Shop hand aged Slash Appetite Les Pauls are limited to 100 pieces.

To my surprise, Gibson's "budget" doughter Epiphone also limited the amount of Les Paul Slash Appetite's.
Their maximum is set to 3000 guitars. That explains why not only the Gibson Slash Appetite LP's are very hard to find, but also the Epiphone Slash Appetite Les Paul is not available on every corner.



slash appetite les paul headstock

 


slash appetite les paul humbucker

 

Seymour Duncan Slash Alnico II Pro humbucker

Since 2010, Gibson and Epiphone Slash Signature Les Paul's are equiped with the Seymour Duncan Slash Alnico II Pro humbuckers so it's no wonder the Slash Appetite Les Pauls also come with these Seymour Duncan Slash humbuckers, as they produce Slash's lead guitar sound.

The Alnico II Pro humbuckers on the Slash Appetite LP's are "Zebra", black and white styled, without covers. I think they look great on this guitar in combination with the "Appetite Amber" finish of the body.

I'm not a real big fan of a "sunburst" finish, so I prefer the looks of the Slash Appetite above the looks of the Slash Signature guitars.

Somebody wrote on a Les Paul forum that instead of buying a Slash Les Paul, you could as well buy a Standard Les Paul and upgrade the guitar with the Seymour Duncan Slash Alnico Pro II humbuckers to get the same sound, for a fraction of the price. When it's just about the sound, I think he's right. If you not only want the sound, but also the exclusivity, Slash's name need to be on the guitar.



slash appetite les paul finish





slash appetite les paul switch



Egmond guitars

Egmond guitars, this years news

egmond guitar

This week I read an interesting article regarding the famous Dutch guitar builder Egmond. This company passed away some time ago, but still has a lot of fans, especially among the older generation guitar players who's first guitar often was an Egmond.

The article wasn't hot from the press, actually Egmond guitars was in the news in february this year, but as the Egmond guitar factory doesn't exist anymore, what news can you expect?

Egmond guitars, some history

In 1940 , former railroad station-chief Uilke Egmond and his three sons Gerard, Dick and Jaap started to build guitars in a small workshop in Best, Holland. This workshop burned down two or three times, but despite of that, production and selling of the Egmond guitars went up, and in 1961 the Egmond guitar factory was established. Beside of the Egmond guitar factory, the family also ran the Musica music store.

Guitar building and selling expanded, and after 1960 more than 200 guitar builders were employed by the Egmond guitar factory, resulting in the build of more than 125.000 Egmond guitars a year. At some point, Egmond guitars was the largest guitar builder in  Europe.

egmond guitar

The popularity of the Egmond guitar started with the introduction of Leo Fender's Stratocaster. The Stratocaster was the dream of every young guitar player but the price made the guitar unreachable. For a fraction of the price Egmond produced guitars, within the reach of young guitar players. The popularity of the Egmond guitar exploded. Egmond built electric guitars, acoustic and semi-hollowbody guitars, and amps.

Egmond not only built guitars under their own  name, but Egmond also produced other labels like Wilson, Miller, Manhattan, Lion, Caladonie, Lido, Frima, Rosetti, Orpheum,  Royal, Royalist, Alpha, Vega and Roderich Paesold; a long list. Most guitars were exported, and especially the Rosetti Lucky 7 was a hit, due to the fact it came in all kind of "hip"colors.

With the worldwide competition of very cheap, well built guitars from the asian countries, Egmond guitars hit rough weather, and it all came to an end in 1976.

Martin guitars bought the Egmond factory in Best, Holland and, for a while, produced the Vega and Alpha brands, copies of the Martin best sellers, which ended in 1983. It's all history now.

egmond guitar

Playing the Egmond guitar, what about the quality?

As mentioned, lot's of young guitar players in the 70's started with playing guitar on an Egmond, as they only could effort a cheap guitar. Among them some big names: Keith Richard, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Paul McCartney, Brian May, Trini Lopez and Dutch players Andy Tielman and the famous Jan Akkerman.

The quality of the Egmond guitars is questioned. Some more expensive Egmond guitars were well built, but most of them were described "crappy". I read stories about paper sticking to the body as Egmond shipped the guitars with the paint still wet, Egmond guitars pulled crooked in the shop, and some even called the Egmond guitar "among the worst they have ever seen".

Despite of the supposed lousy quality, older guitarists remember their first Egmond guitar, and now the Egmond guitar is considered "vintage".

egmond guitar

This years "news" about Egmond guitars

Early this year news came out that Canadian company Audio One Corporation, musical instruments builders, worked in silence for already four years on the re-introduction of the legendary Egmond guitars. The plan was to build a serie of six of the Egmond top models in a limited edition. A lot of time and money were invested before the project came to an end, with the passing away of engineer Yuri Dmitrievski september last year. The project is in "the fridge", and there the story ends, much to my regret.

More about Egmond guitars

All about Egmond guitars can be found on the website egmondguitars.nl  from Wim Markenhof, who obviously is an expert on the Dutch Egmond guitars. Wim wrote a book about Egmond guitars (also in English) which can be ordered on the website. Among the information in the book is an article about the Paul McCArtney Rosetti Lucky 7 guitar.

Les Paul Slash Signature



les paul slash signature body



Les Paul Slash Signature (with Fishman powerbridge)

Again I spotted an electric guitar with an acoustic pickup. This time it's a Les Paul Slash Signature, on which I least expected a piezo pickup. It seems there are more of these guitars than I thought there would be.

As probably everybody knows, Slash, former lead guitarist of Guns N' Roses is addicted to the Gibson Les Paul. Slash is one of the "billbords" for the Gibson Les Paul, so it's no wonder Slash, Gibson, and doughter Epiphone, worked together, to all benefit from the Les Paul Slash Signature models.




Les Paul Slash Signature by Gibson and Epiphone

According to the very informative website slashparadise.com, Slash gave his signature to a total of twelve Les Paul Slash Signature models; three from Gibson USA, five from the Gibson Custom Shop, and four from Gibson's doughter Epiphone.

Their cooperation started in 1990 and is still going on. The (Gibson and Epiphone) Les Paul models are one of the most sold guitars, and I'm sure the Slash Signature gave the Les Paul sales an extra boost.



les paul slash signature full body



Les Paul Slash Signature, Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II(Slash) and Fishman Powerbridge

As far as I know, all Gibson Les Paul Slash Signature's are equiped with Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II humbuckers. Since 2010 the Les Paul Slash Signature comes with the Alnico Pro II Slash APH-2 humbuckers, which reproduces the tone of Slash's studio guitar.

What for me makes this guitar particularly insteresting is the fact that the newer built Slash Signatures are also equiped with the Fishman Powerbridge for acoustic Piezo sound.
From the outside the Gibson Les Paul Slash Signature with Fishman Powerbridge can be recognized by the extra switch between the volume and tone knobs, for blending the acoustic and electric sounds.

The combination of a Slash Les Paul with Alnico Pro II humbuckers and an acoustic pickup system like the Fishman Powerbridge seems a bit strange. Hardrock and metal combined with acoustic tones in a Slash Les Paul?

I wonder if potential buyers of the Gibson Les Paul Signature need the acoustic tones of the Fishman Powerbridge, for Slash's hardrock and metal sound, and appreciate this piece of technique in this specific guitar, where it's all about producing the tone and sound of Slash's Les Paul as close as possible. Isn't that the power of a signature model?




les paul slash signature headstock

  


les paul slash signature back



Epiphone Slash Les Paul, with Alnico Pro, without Fishman powerbridge

If, with a smaller wallet, a Slash is wanted, and a piezo is not needed, there is an alternative.

Epiphone also offers a Slash Les Paul "Signature" Standard Plus Top with Alnico Pro humbuckers, but without the Fishman Powerbridge for a fraction of the price of the Gibson Les Paul Slash Signature!



epiphone les paul slash body and neck