Well, yesterday night, I was on my usual Carousell prowl. I came across a "listed-moments-ago" listing, selling 3 items for $100. Not just any other items, those 3 items are of great value. They are an Epiphone Les Paul Special II in Vintage Sunburst, an M&E Brothers BR-414 acoustic guitar from Symphony Music School and a brandless 5-way guitar stand. I was eyeing on the Les Paul Special II for quite awhile already because I know in Singapore its quite a popular model. People selling the guitar itself at $100 is considered crazy cheap already because Swee Lee used to retail it at $180 brand new. Swee Lee doesn't retail the guitar individually anymore. So instead of just getting the Special II, I got another acoustic and guitar stand as well.
I met up with the seller at Sengkang quite early in the morning and I'm actually quite surprised he provided the gig bag as well. So I brought mine for no reason. HAHAHA. :( Anyway, its a good thing I met him in the morning; I will explain why later on. Let's see some gear first. :)
First of all, the 5-way guitar stand. (You can skip this part if don't wanna read about this guitar stand.) I'm totally amazed at the condition of it because it looks and feels totally brand new. These go around for $50 to $70 new, and I got it as part of a $100 deal. Totally awesome. Unfortunately, I just sold it away half an hour ago. (That is why I'm thankful I got it in the morning, so I can resell it in the afternoon.) The reason for selling is simple, I just don't have the space to squeeze in this thing in my house. So I have to let it go, and at a price which I don't regret after meeting the buyer. Call me crazy, but I sold it for $20. I know, I'm kinda dumb... I didn't expect this thing to be so popular that I keep kena spammed by offers the moment I listed it. Well, the buyer made me not regret it after all. A shout-out to Richter for buying my stand!!! Woohoo!!! Okay, he's an interesting guy. He does private guitar setups and repairs, and he knows an awful lot about guitar gear. And he's a Christian serving at Hope Church Singapore! I've got a feeling me and him will have more interactions in the future. :) Anyway, that's about it for this stand. Cool!
Next up, the M&E Brothers BR-414 acoustic guitar. I have honestly never heard of the brand before, but since it comes as a part of the package I just accepted it. After the seller passed me the guitar along with the gig bag, I saw the words "Symphony Music School" printed on the bag. So this means this guitar is an original brand from that school, which means it is probably made in Singapore/China. Either way, I'm definitely not keeping this guitar as well, for a few reasons too. The main reason is its poor resonance due to it's shape. It is flatter than most acoustics and the hole is in kind of a weird position. The setup itself is pretty bad; the action is far too high and 15 minutes into playing my left fingers are tired out. The bridge is of the wrong size, making the strings slide to one side. The nut is far too tight and it makes tuning the guitar screech. But, overall, it is an acceptable guitar, at least at this price anyway. I am selling it away tonight at $50, again presumably way cheaper than what it can fetch. Well, call me dumb again, but the next few pictures will place everything into context.
This is it, the grand prize I was aiming for, the ever-popular Epiphone Les Paul Special II in Vintage Sunburst. After selling the acoustic for $50 and the stand for $20, technically speaking I got this guitar only for $30. I can't even believe what I'm saying myself. A $180 brand new, constantly sold at $100 used guitar made its way into my arms for only $30. This is how Carousell should be used. :) The above 3 pictures are taken after I took everything apart and cleaned it from head to body. Refer to the below pictures and description for the process of cleaning it up. All in all, I don't really know if it is just my fate, or all my electric guitars are in the Vintage Sunburst colour. HAHAHA!
(You can literally see the amount of dirt on the fretboard itself.)
(From these 2 pictures alone you can see the dust being reflected off the guitar's finish.)
(So I just turned my little space into a temporary workshop. Hehe.)
Condition wise, this guitar sucks when it is handed over to me in the morning. Strings are rusty that it hurts my fingers and everything else is just dirty and dusty. When I reached home, I immediately took everything apart and cleaned each part one by one. On a side note, the previous owner gotta seriously attend guitar restring lessons, if he even stringed it himself. I spent half an hour removing the strings alone because there are knots on every string at the headstock. Seriously that is one screwed up stringing. Then, I polished the headstock and wiped the body so much that it looks like new now. The only thing separating a brand new one from mine now is the oxidised metal parts, something that is out of my reach. Haven't even plugged it in to hear how it sounds because I need to get new strings for this guitar. Hmmm I will update once I played around with it and record some songs on it. Don't worry, I'll be keeping this guitar for quite awhile since I want to find out just why is it so popular. Heck I can even sell it away at $100 in the future should I need to get rid of it. And at the end of the day I would have played my fill and earn a profit out of it. Sweet!
Ok. Now for abit of an update. Haven't been able to play much recently because my school schedule is crazy. My course lied to be about Year 3 being slacker! :((((((( But fret now, this new guitar will spur me on to record a riff soon, probably the whole Hotel California solo since I learnt all of it already. Till then, cheers!!!
Edwin Ang
29th May 2016
Wow what a crazy deal!
ReplyDelete