I've always been curious about the Eastwood Classic 6. The shorter ears are a fun shape, and the pickups seem to make it sound more 50's-ish (semihollow but jangly) in demos. I almost bought one a few times before Eastwood raised their prices. When this one showed up at GC used, in "Excellent" condition, it didn't raise an eyebrow at $449.99 without a case. I waited, and they dropped the price to $349.99, but I wasn't sure I wanted to pay that for a black one. They again dropped the price, now $299.99, and I thought "why not try it?". GC's "Excellent" condition means "like new", and it did look like the pick guard still had the plastic on it. The headstock also has the solid badge logo instead of the more recent screen-printed logo, so cool, ok.
After I put in my order, I got a receipt with a different description of the guitar: "Used Eastwood CLASSIC 6 Burgundy Hollow Body Electric Guitar". Hmm, Burgundy I thought - Looks totally black, but maybe it's just bad lighting of a walnut finish. So that was my guess and I'd like that more.
That was Friday, and GC in NJ didn't ship until I bugged them a few times. No idea why, but they finally handed it to UPS the next Tuesday. I had no responses, and wasn't sure they really wanted the sale, but fingers crossed.
It arrived in a horribly deformed torn and taped up box, and I thought the worst.
As I was opening it up, I found one of the knobs on top of the bubble wrap - not promising.
As I removed what little padding they gave it, I saw a lot of daylight near the lower bout shining through the ripped box. Eek. I pulled it out and started looking it over. Visually, it appears to have been magically missed by every slam the box took in shipping. The knob went back on just fine. The pots were wiggly, so I tightened them down. The output jack also needed tightening, but those things are easy.
I plugged it in, tuned, and figured out the controls. The two lower pots are both volumes and the upper pot is the tone. Ok. At this point I realize the action is just about as bad as I have ever encountered. I don't know whether they didn't know, or wanted to try slide, or battled fret buzz, or what. I lowered it to where I prefer, and that was just great. Not a bad spot anywhere on the neck, so what a relief, and it now played well. The pickups were now way too high, and maybe that's why they raised the action so much? I lowered the pickups to where they sound pretty good.
Now I'm wondering why people don't actually rave about the Classic 6. This think is a riot to play. The mini humbuckers are super lively, a little bit wild and crunchy while still cleaning up for woody old-fashioned semi-hollow character. They're a bit microphonic and I like that. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and can't imagine why it was traded in. I was right about the pick guard being under plastic. After I peeled its dead skin off, the guitar looks great and I find no issues. It's definitely not black.
I'm curious as to why most of the headstock logos are screen printed instead of the badging they used on these 2020's. I like the badge. Bottom line, it's way better than $300 to me. Another guitar target of opportunity I didn't need but really glad I tried.
