Duncan Strat arrives...

Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

Scott_F said:
I'm not sure what these went for new, but mattt was saying it was pretty excessive.
Click to expand...

Oh man, i was wondering who on this board bought that! Nice buy, nice buy.

Yeah, i remember searching the ESP Japan site a while back when the Duncan guitars were mentioned on this very forum. Most of it was in Japanese except for the prices and pickups...

I'm pretty certain the lowest priced one there was 150,000 Jap Yen... and i'm confident those strats (they were making a couple of models... 'vintage' and 'vintage hot' i believe) were ranging from 200,000 to 300,000 Jap Yen...

That's between $1770 and $2660 to you...

Best thing you can do if you really wanna know the value is to try and e-mail ESP Japan and they might be able to let you know... and of course, shop prices are usually a little lower than what it says on the site, but i guess it would have balanced out if it was an import.

Whatever the original price turns out to be, i challenge anyone to find me a better used Strat for $500 which plays and sounds as well as the Seymour Duncan strat i tried a couple of years ago.... it can't be done unless some idiot is desparate to get rid of a custom shop fender strat. Not to mention it's a collectors item now... damn that thing is gonna fly up in value, unbelievable, i'm sure the guy didn't know what he was selling.

Unfortunately... i wouldn't have been able to afford that guitar for another 3-4 months. If i could have afforded it now, i would have caught a flight to Texas, assasinated Scott before he could bid, and i would have won that auction no questions asked :laugh2: ;).

I'd have given my left testicle to have bought that. Everyone needs a good strat.
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

Forget copying the classics! I realize they're easier to sell, but I think Seymour would be better off consulting some of his world class friends, and come up with
"the perfect guitar." Maybe some kind of design that appeals to both Fender and Gibson players, in the way that a PRS does....only the Duncan one would have an ingenious way of taking stock Duncan pickups and popping them in or out, with only
a 4 terminal clip-on connector in the pickup cavities. That connector would be similar to the way speaker wire attaches to stereo speakers. Then you could keep all your Duncans on pickup rings, then change them out by simply unclipping the 4 leads from the 4 little terminals. The pickup rings would have tiny bolts, not screws, so they could go into threaded inserts, not wood. You wouldn't need to alter any stock Duncan pickups. The guitar would accept any pickup! And, without using a soldering iron!

If the guitar looked cool, like a PRS, Baker, McInturff, or other boutique guitar, it'd be taken seriously. Not like some novelty toy like a Line 6 Variax or Parker Fly. No offense to those guitars, but the Duncan should look like a classic, with a classy appeal.
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

Scott,

Congrats on your guitar. I actually bid on it, but I already have 2 ESP strats and 2 MIJ fenders, so i didn't do the buy it now. FWIW, I played the same one at a Guitar Show two years ago, same color and all.

It was a good guitar, but a little on the heavy side. How is the weight on yours? Does it have the vintager 7.25 fretboard radius?

About the $500 challenge from Matt. There are plenty of sub $500 Japanese strat copies that have the same build quality as the Duncan ESPs. You just have to know what to look for. I have bought and sold a dozen of these strats easily, and I have 4 right now that I would bet are every but as good as the Duncan guitar.

2 are for sale cheap, PM me for details!!!
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

Gearjoneser said:
Forget copying the classics! I realize they're easier to sell, but I think Seymour would be better off consulting some of his world class friends, and come up with
"the perfect guitar." Maybe some kind of design that appeals to both Fender and Gibson players, in the way that a PRS does....only the Duncan one would have an ingenious way of taking stock Duncan pickups and popping them in or out, with only
a 4 terminal clip-on connector in the pickup cavities. That connector would be similar to the way speaker wire attaches to stereo speakers. Then you could keep all your Duncans on pickup rings, then change them out by simply unclipping the 4 leads from the 4 little terminals. The pickup rings would have tiny bolts, not screws, so they could go into threaded inserts, not wood. You wouldn't need to alter any stock Duncan pickups. The guitar would accept any pickup! And, without using a soldering iron!

If the guitar looked cool, like a PRS, Baker, McInturff, or other boutique guitar, it'd be taken seriously. Not like some novelty toy like a Line 6 Variax or Parker Fly. No offense to those guitars, but the Duncan should look like a classic, with a classy appeal.
Click to expand...


Perhaps it's possible to take a PRS and chop rectangular sections running from each pickup to the top edge of the guitar. These pieces would then be reattached using strong allen bolts through the back of the guitar. Then you could remove them and slide the duncans out sideways with the guitar at pitch. The only aesthetic concern are join lines where the wood pieces meet. You could jazz that up by using pearl inlay along the lines (not the whole way down, though, to preserve wood contact), sort of a sideways santana thing. Hopefully any tonal dregradation would be minimized by using the same piece of wood and by tight allen key joins holding them in place. Thw wood that is cut out could be done on an angle, so the minimumamount of wood is cut. Just enough to slide the pickups out.

Like so:

qc-eagle.jpg
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

One of the reasons this strat was priced is that when I got it, the B and to a certain extent the G strings were a bit dead and dull. No sustain. Spoke with Robert S. about it for a while tonight, he and I diagnosed it as probably being the bridge stamped pieces.

So I had a brainstorm and I tried the thing that seemed quick trouble shooting, and swapped the stamped pieces on the 2nd and 5th strings, then swapped the 3rd and 4th string stamped pieces.

Problem gone. The reason I swapped the ones I did, is that the two small threaded posts that adjust the height of each piece are the same length on 3 and 4 and the same on 2 and 5 and the same on 1 and 6.

Quick swap, problem solved. Just had to reintonate and get the radius set. Plays like butter now.

The seller probably didn't know that much about guitars or didn't want to screw around with it or take it to a tech.
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

gearjoneser and hot grits have some awesome ideas...

i think another SD guitar would rock!!!

but like what has been said...make it original and make it well...

the already SD loaded feature of my Brian Moore i1 was a big seller for me on that guitar...

looking forward to the new SD guitar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

Ah rats! You guys beat me to the punch. I was going to suggest a custom SD guitar that would allow super easy pup removal/replacement. Such a guitar would move a ton of SD pups, I'd imagine. Even though I know it's fairly easy, ripping the guitar apart to replace pups has always been a little intimidating to me. A decent quality guitar that allowed this process to be super easy would be awesome! In fact I'd go so far as to assume that there's probably a similar guitar in the SD labs right now that has been modded to easily put new pups in just to try 'em out. Sort of a "pup tester."

I suppose the trick of such a guitar would be convincing people that it was a real, viable instrument and not just a cheap novelty item. Guitarists can be pretty traditional folk who tend to be set in their ways.

Although the flip side to the coin would be make it cheap purposely. Make it a playable, good quality guitar but strip it of all fancy stuff. Then market it as a "pup tester" guitar that hobbyists could easily test pup configurations on until they find something they like. Once they settle on a good combo they can take the pups and mount 'em in a real guitar. Although come to think of it, maybe such a guitar would cause a lot of pups to be returned to the dealer if they didn't like 'em. And there's always the issue that pups only play a small role in the overall sound from any guitar. It might make a cool tool for dealers though. Customers have questions, the dealer can easily swap pups out and create a prototype of sorts. Dunno. Just spewing some random thoughts.
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

Im normally not into clones of strats or LPa or antyhing but that strat looks awesome man! Looks pretty real to me! I like the red too, hmmm interesting how it doesnt have a skunk srtipe on the back of the neck.... most strats do have skunk stripes....
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

Did you ever change out the mint guard and knobs? I figure if I bought it in may of 04, I probably sold it to you less than 6 months later.
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

bigalthethird said:
What Mattt is that up there that got banned or deleted or whatever?

This is a cool thread btw!
Click to expand...

Hmm... makes me wonder, can't remember. I do know that the bugger went on holiday for a year or so one time. Maybe that was it.:butkick:
 
Re: Duncan Strat arrives...

It's definately a gorgeous guitar. I was going to pinch it at UGD, when Mattt had his hands on the Tele-Gib!!!! ;)
 
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