Made in U.S.A., serial number engraved, Peter Frampton signature model, $199. $199? Hold up. This is a couple thousand at least, what’s going on here. Go out to the car, where my phone was charging, look up the guitar model, see a couple on eBay that are $4K, look up and it’s 6:01pm, Shop’s closed. Opens tomorrow at 11 preserving my find until tomorrow when I have my cash and maybe something to pawn.

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Did more research online that night, much wondering about the hows and whys something like that wound up at a pawn shop. Knock-off? Who is knocking off Peter Frampton Les Paul’s? Seems odd. Pickups had gold covers, could have been unique to that year, could have been done by the owner. Looks identical to all other pictures. Probably stolen.

Show up at 11:10 Sunday morning, plug it in to an solid-state Marshall. Very pleased with the way that it played, everything works, so far so good. Lady offers $150+tax. Sold.

Get home to look up the serial #, and it is for a regular production Les Paul, not a Custom Shop model. Real Peter Frampton’s have a PF starting out the SN. Disappointed to say the least, but I kind of suspected that this was the case. The control knobs are slightly off too, not perfectly parallel. At least it isn’t stolen and I have 30 days to return it.

If you build a nice guitar wouldn’t it be a good idea to put your own name on it? This thing sticks out like a sore thumb to anyone familiar with Gibson (not me, other people) or anyone with a computer or smartphone could look up the serial number. My guess is that these are going to primarily third world countries, places without widely available Internets.

Fuzz Box Girl has a guide on how to spot a counterfeit Gibson on her blog.

Also, Peter Frampton recently found his original Les Paul, I took that for

TL;DR If it seems like it’s too good to be true, it probably is. You need an exit strategy.

P.S. Don’t worry about me, I kept the receipt and it went back to the pawn shop on April 25th. Got a call about my craigslist ad May 4th for $375, went back to pawn shop and it was sold again. C’est la vie.

You can download the mp3. I found this originally as a part of  ”Illegal Art,” a compilation of banned music. AC/DC didn’t give the Beastie Boys permission to sample “Back in Black” and the song had to be pulled, really too bad it’s one of their better singles.

There are several unique things about Ibanez that are also very stereotypical of Japanese industrial culture. Ibanez was a Spanish guitar maker that was purchsed by Hoshino Gakki, a Japanese musical instrument company that was importing Ibanez guitars up until the Spanish Civil War in 1935.

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Ibanez was one of the companies that were making close to identical copies of more expensive American made guitars, such as Stratocasters or Les Pauls. These are called “lawsuit guitars” and are very collectible. The Road Star II was not one of these, it had an Ibanez headstock design and a slight variation on the stratocaster body design. The more modern Ibanez guitars have a thinner, pointier, more pronounced cutaways than the Ibanez Road Star II or traditional Stratocaster. There were also some “batwing” strap buttons, that I hated, and replaced. But no other guitar has similar strap buttons like those big V looking things.

Opening the shotgun style case, another unique feature to Ibanez, to see the shining white guitar was all it took. I think that I had the cash on me and carried it home; I don’t remember going home to get my truck. It still had the original warranty card in the case with the purchase date of 4/20/1984 written on it.

There was a little Hiwatt practice amp, that I traded in to a major guitar outlet for a new solid-state amp. I really should have kept the small amp for carrying around, like I said, it was small and lugging around a big amp to friend’s houses is a pain. I think that it was $150, maybe $100 for the whole deal at the garage sale. A great deal, at the time they went for about $150-200 used, they go for $300 or so currently.

Anyone can go to a guitar chain or local music shop for their first guitar, how many people just happened on theirs?  Finding your guitar is like meeting a beautiful woman, sometimes you find them, sometimes they find you, but when it’s right somehow you just know.

How Flipping A Coin Helps You Make Choices

The Ibanez Roadstar II is known for it’s bolt on neck, one of the best you can apparently, you see them separated from their bodies and for sale quite a bit. It’s amazing that these guitars aren’t worth more considering how much the necks sell for on eBay, up to about $100 is pretty common, but you see complete guitars for $300-400 depending on rarity and how original the equipment is: original case, original strap buttons etc.

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So, of course I’m doing my over-analyzing, thinking of all the myriad of ways to go when I saw this on eBay. It was late, and I was feeling impulsive and put the first bid on it, $100, shipping was $23, waiting about five days was excruciating and of course the last 30 minutes the price doubled on me up to $77, plus shipping it was right at my $100 budget. Kind of feel like I overpaid for it, but it just pairs too well with my other Roadstar.

This guitar is far from cherry, it has been well used, the headstock is scratched deeply, looks like a razorblade almost, there is sticker residue left behind, but the neck is straight and in good condition and the body should clean up nice. I love my other Roadstar, and several of my friends have tried to buy it from me after playing it, so I feel pretty good about the new addition to the “family.”

So I need a set of pickups, thinking about a Seymour Duncan Invader for the bridge, but I really don’t know if that is too high output, maybe go with something a little more vintage sounding. The pickguard is going to be another tough choice. Let me know if you have suggestions. There was a guy I ran into at a local Guitar Center, overheard me talking about a Floyd Rose bridge and wanted to give me one for free. Too bad he didn’t have it on him, because I’ve been trying to get a hold of him for a week now and we haven’t had any luck meeting up. So Eric, let’s make this happen soon, I’m ready.

You would think that there would be even more stars than the first Anchorman, I hope Steve Carrell & Paul Rudd are back at least.

It isn’t possible they could ruin this, Will Ferrell is still on top of his game & I am expecting this to be hilarious and worthy of the name Ron Burgundy.

Contain Brad Davis & mark Brian Ching. Osvaldo Alonso & Brad Evans will most likely be in the CM, they will probably be the two Sounders who see the most of Davis. Jhon Kennedy Hurtado will probably get most of the man marking duties against Ching. Jeff Parke & Hurtado are both large central defenders, but Ching, no shrinking violet himself, only needs to catch his defender off balance for a moment before he shoots. Ching doesn’t waste time or touches when he has an opportunity to score.

The Sounders have a more diverse offensive attack, no offense to Cam Weaver, but the Dynamo don’t have players sitting on their bench who can score a hat trick like David Estrada or Eddie Johnson. Houston is a very good side and has built a rivalry after several memorable meetings in MLS, US Open Cup, & MLS Playoffs. There are several players who have played for both sides, Patrick Ianni, Nate Jaqua, and Brian Ching; Tally Hall GK is a Puget Sound local product.

Other cool prizes, XBox 360, apparel, a car, a rolling alarm clock, spywatch. is the only thing you can win. :( Sorry, your intrepid blogger needs to read contest rules more closely.

What’s really slick is Rafflecopter. To sign up you follow and like the various accounts and pages and step it up with an embeddable blog post.  Hopefully they let me in on the limited signup. Keep an eye on Rafflecopter, I have  a good feeling about this company, their product is slick.

Enter the contest at http://jessicagottlieb.com/2011/12/xbox-kinect-bundle-giveaway/