Found A 335 Kit Guitar At A Pawn Shop

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toomanycats
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The title really says it all. I found this guitar at a pawn shop being sold as a package deal with a USA Peavey KX-15 keyboard amp. I took home the pair for $80. The way I figure it, I'm $40 into this guitar.

The guitar looks to be made from the kind of kit sold by Stew Mac, amongst others. It has a very hand made feel to it, in a good way. I recently came across and played some mid 60s Gibson 335s, and they strike a similar chord, feeling fragile, idiosyncratic, and delicately voiced.

Someone clearly took their time assembling this guitar and setting it up. There's copper shielding in the pickup cavity. It's super resonate acoustically. Everything feels very "tight" and fitted. The action and intonation are spot on. There's nail polish applied to the wire retainer on the bridge . . . a sure sign that it was a player's guitar.

I don't know what the pups are, but the bridge measures around 10 K and the neck around 9 K and they sound fantastic. They're strong, clear, woody, and percussive. I have no plans to change them.

The paint is a thinly applied satin finish allowing the wood grain to show through. The back of the neck has been given the Scotchbrite or similar treatment. Another sign of a player's guitar.

The "open book" headstock was blank when I bought it and I applied the "Goblin" decal.

Why the heck did somebody give up this beautiful and soulful instrument for what must have been next to nothing? I just don't know. What I do know is that I already gigged it last night, so it's already paid for itself (and then some). Life if good.

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“There are only two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and Cats!” Albert Schweitzer
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tlarson58
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Location: Steamboat Springs, CO
Gearlist: A tele, a bass and a bunch of other stuff.

Love it. Let me know if you ever want to thin the herd.
Tommy Larson
Steamboat Springs, CO
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bleys21
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Damn it, man! How do you manage to live in a perpetual guitar buyer's market? We could make a million just by having you buy stuff out there, ship it to California, and I'll sell it for 10x whatever you paid... :-)
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BatUtilityBelt
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Awesome find. Sounds like your pawn shops are not quite the slimeball operators many of us have in our locales. Anything several times that price here would have been unplayable and probably unfixable.
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nomadh
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BatUtilityBelt wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2021 2:19 pm Awesome find. Sounds like your pawn shops are not quite the slimeball operators many of us have in our locales. Anything several times that price here would have been unplayable and probably unfixable.
It seems his pawn shops are run as either a charity or run by morons. At the least have never had internet?
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glasshand
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I'm not even particularly a fan of 335 types, but that is a beautiful example and quite a find!
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Rollin Hand
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You just keep goblin up the deals....

:mrgreen:
"I'm not a sore loser. It's just that I prefer to win, and when I don't, I get furious."
- Ron Swanson
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