Price watch (27)

Do avoid this one.

I'm doubting its authenticity based on these contentious points:

• A: Pickguard is misaligned; it goes too near to the edge of the cutaway
• B: This part of the pickguard is located at the 21st fret - it should be 20th
• C: The truss rod cover is misaligned to the left & the tip is levelled with the low E machine head, it should sit a little higher. Em... is it just me or does that string retainer look crooked?

Disclaimer: Pickguard & truss rod cover might be OEM replacements which are ill-fitting.

I've contacted the seller who has no guitar knowledge, said it belonged to a cousin who had moved out of the house.

Good deal for this episode goes to this SKB hard case - awesome condition & a sub-$100 price tag. 

Price case

Let's take a look at this.

And then, this.

The bag costs more than the hard case. OK, maybe the Taylor name there is a legit reason for the bag to be listed that much. The hard case is an SKB offering & does not bear the Taylor name. But what does the international market say?

USA

• Taylor bag: 100
• SKB Hard case: 137

CANADA

• Taylor bag: 139
• SKB hard case: 144

Regardless of the prices, the bag still costs less than the hard case. Anyway, who are we to say that Item A should cost less than Item B, yes? We don't own a store, we don't ship in container loads of stuff - what the heck do we really know. Hmm...

The Special one

This 5-way switch is dead. Yes, it might look quite presentable but it didn't notch in any positions & was stiff so it was dumped.

These 2 are dead as well. No amount of contact cleaner would provide any salvation- stuck. The orange caps were saved, of course.

The guitar in question is my Fender American Special Strat. I had Beez instal a Fender 5-way pickup selector replacement & a couple of Gotoh pots to replace the dead tone pots. No orange caps were used this time, instead, my Luxe capacitor went in there. Remember, an American Special Strat comes with special wiring- the middle pickup is tone-free, meaning, it's not wired to any tone control ala Eric Johnson. This isn't my option, it's factory default.

Here it is, all cleaned up & ready to play. The American Special does not come with a hardcase. A Deluxe Fender bag is the standard accessory with every purchase. 

The one you see here is an SKB manufactured Fender case. I recently bought one for my Special, it's a good guitar with plenty of good tones for me so it deserves a good resting place. 

Here you go- proof of the SKB manufacturing.

Listen to your pedal board- no kidding...

Here's a neat little ditty by SKB (the makers of that indestructible guitar hard case, among others)- the Footnote pedal board. It lets you hear you pedals (yes- integrated driver included) before you actually hook up the entire board to an amp. This way, you can mess with your knobs before performing knowing you have that limited tinkering time when your turn is up. As at time of posting, this product is not available here (yet).

Hard FREEDOM

The FREEDOM brand name is the budget derivative of SKB. If you know the latter brand name, the manufacturer does not just make guitar cases exclusively, they do so for other storage considerations as well: luggage, weapons, sports, etc. & the reputation is such that Fender decides to officially include SKB cases for their American Standard range of guitars (& other upper tier offerings) quite recently. My FREEDOM cases house my Fender Highway 1 Strat & an Ibanez S540. I find these units to be very tough & durable; one of them took a tumble once & the guitar in tact was unscathed, let alone the case itself. The one you see here is about 7 years old.