What's the best quality cheapy you've bought and why?

SunDevil

Crafter PRS copy - resonant 1 piece body, 1/4 maple cap, mop inlays, lovely dark board and good frets - £250 circa 2003.

Change of pups and it was my main gigging guitar for an age

Schnozz

PhilKing said:

1960 Les Paul Junior for $250 - many years ago and had the worst yellow finish ever, plus a headstock crack that was showing through.  I gave it to @WezV and I gave him an original Gibson Les Paul Junior decal that I'd had for about 20 years.  He stripped it and fixed the crack and sent it for a refin and it came back like it was just out of the factory.  

Can you show us this one @WezV ?

There's some great ones so far - I'd particularly like the Yamaha Attitude and I'll have to search for a Knaggs Kipawa

WezV

PhilKing said:

1960 Les Paul Junior for $250 - many years ago and had the worst yellow finish ever, plus a headstock crack that was showing through.  I gave it to @WezV and I gave him an original Gibson Les Paul Junior decal that I'd had for about 20 years.  He stripped it and fixed the crack and sent it for a refin and it came back like it was just out of the factory.  

it certainly was yellow


I was thinking about that one recently, mainly because I know I would be tempted to age it if I did the work again.    At the time i was dead against fake wear on real vintage guitars.

sunshinewelly

Fender Strat plus for £380. Bought it on here but it arrived in a poorish  condition but seller kindly gave me a part refund. Its the only guitar I own that I would not part with.  

Schnozz

WezV said:

PhilKing said:

1960 Les Paul Junior for $250 - many years ago and had the worst yellow finish ever, plus a headstock crack that was showing through.  I gave it to @WezV and I gave him an original Gibson Les Paul Junior decal that I'd had for about 20 years.  He stripped it and fixed the crack and sent it for a refin and it came back like it was just out of the factory.  

I was thinking about that one recently, mainly because I know I would be tempted to age it if I did the work again.    At the time i was dead against fake wear on real vintage guitars.

Keep it like that - It looks lush!

prowla

A '64 Ric 4001 for £220.

DesVegas

@photek has just remended my white Westfield Les Paul copy which I paid £40 for if remember correctly off ebay. Plays great and I loves it I do. Loves it.

https://imgur.com/pSZyxr0

Flanging_Fred

Westone Thunder Jet. I picked it up for 40 quid. Someone had carved some writing into the back (with VERY poor grammar I might add) but it fits me so well and as soon as I played it I knew it was going to be something I play a lot.  Now it’s the first guitar I pick up to take to a gig.

skunkwerx

Whats the ethics with Cort? I’ve heard of the brand a few times but never seen one in the wild. 

Schnozz

skunkwerx said:

Whats the ethics with Cort? I’ve heard of the brand a few times but never seen one in the wild. 

Hmm...Well there was an argument for cheap, poorly treated labour at their Korean factory, but all mine have been from Indonesia and I can't see how it would be any different there.

There's no excuse for poor treatment, but in terms of cheap labour, surely you can choose not to work there...But if there's a shortage of jobs, then they're providing employment. I have to admit that I've not thoroughly looked into it.

People refer to Korean Squiers as the 'golden era', but Cort/Cor-Tek have also built a lot of Ibanez instruments.

I like Indonesian built instruments as the Cort and G&Ls I've have from there have been exceptional.

darthed1981

skunkwerx said:

Whats the ethics with Cort? I’ve heard of the brand a few times but never seen one in the wild. 

China is financing becoming a superpower based on cheap manufacturing for the West.

South Korea has arguably as good a living standards as the UK.

Indonesia, OK, is a hell hole, but the money from manufacturing might let them crawl out of it.

After all, it's how we did!

Philly_Q

I've got some Japanese Epiphones - an LP Special and singlecut LP Juniors - with the proper LP headstock shape, nitro finishes (or at least top coats), two-piece bodies, decent hardware... they're really good.

They weren't particularly cheap and I didn't get amazing deals on them, they were about £350 each, but they're great quality at that price.

There's also my first good guitar, my Hamer Special, which cost me £250.  That seemed cheap even 35 years ago.  

TTBZ

The Pearl LP I got for something like £250. The stock pickups were shite but with Bare Knuckle Black Dogs it sounded awesome. Such a good guitar which I was stupid to sell really. I just keep reminding myself how heavy it was to ease the pain! 

Whitecat

darthed1981 said:

skunkwerx said:

Whats the ethics with Cort? I’ve heard of the brand a few times but never seen one in the wild. 

China is financing becoming a superpower based on cheap manufacturing for the West.

South Korea has arguably as good a living standards as the UK.

Indonesia, OK, is a hell hole, but the money from manufacturing might let them crawl out of it.

After all, it's how we did!

https://cortaction.wordpress.com/about/

Schnozz

^

photek

DesVegas said:

@photek has just remended my white Westfield Les Paul copy which I paid £40 for if remember correctly off ebay. Plays great and I loves it I do. Loves it.

https://imgur.com/pSZyxr0

Agreed, it’s really shouldn’t be as good as it is! Bolt on neck, lower grade multi piece body yet it is resonant and lively. I think you got lucky with that one chap.

photek

Mine would be a pair of Fernandes telecasters, both blonde with maple and both superb. Haven’t found another Tele I prefer (well perhaps my old Mattos!).

Oh and my 82 JV Squier strat that cost me £100 mwahaha!

darthed1981

Whitecat said:

darthed1981 said:

skunkwerx said:

Whats the ethics with Cort? I’ve heard of the brand a few times but never seen one in the wild. 

China is financing becoming a superpower based on cheap manufacturing for the West.

South Korea has arguably as good a living standards as the UK.

Indonesia, OK, is a hell hole, but the money from manufacturing might let them crawl out of it.

After all, it's how we did!

https://cortaction.wordpress.com/about/

They would do that here if labour laws didn't prevent it.

Harsh for those employees though, why do some capitalists have to be so damn nasty!

JayGee

Indie IPR semi hollow PRS-a-like. Something like £140 from eBay in pretty much mint condition, looks, feels, plays and sounds like there was a zero missing from the price tag...

Matt_McG

Two things:

G&L Tribute Asat Special -- Mine is a Korean one, before they moved production to Indonesia. Not exactly cheap cheap. I think I paid about 300-350 quid for it (new) which was a couple of hundred pounds off RRP, as the shop was shutting down. Proper US G&L pickups. But, still, a real bargain. Plays and sounds better than guitars three times the price. I haven't played a recent Mexican Fender, but when I AB'd them at the time I got this (8 - 9 years ago) there was no comparison. The G&L was a much better playing, sounding guitar. Versatile tones, everything from classic tele sounds to full on rock. I still prefer it to a lot of £800-900 guitars I've tried recently.

'Artisan' archtop guitar.  I think I paid £50 or it. Cheap Chinese balsa and ply archtop acoustic. Lots of things not quite right with it. The composite fingerboard isn't completely flat so the action increases somewhere around the 17th fret although it's absolutely fine and playable below that. The resonator style cheapie tailpiece isn't quite centred, so the strings take a very slight bend as they cross the floating bridge. The floating bridge itself is some kind of cheap timber. It's definitely not anything like as dense as ebony or rosewood. There's no bottom end to speak of.

But ... it is constructed properly, with the right type of bracing. The woodwork inside, if I have a poke through the sound holes is clean. It's bright, it projects, it has the right kind of light, dry, fast sound that, with the right strings, completely nails the Selmer type Gypsy jazz tone. Way way way more than supposedly Selmer style acoustic that cost 10 times as much. Intonation, after a bit of futzing with the position of the floating bridge is very good. 

I'd probably have to spend at least 500 quid to get something in the same sonic ballpark.



I'm on the left of the vid with the black t-shirt (it's a jam, and it transpired we knew the song in different keys, so its not super polished [world understatement) but you get the sense of the sound.