83 Kramer Reissue.

[SoooRad]

I believe all the original “Grail” Barettas were maple body, so they should’ve been pretty heavy too.

 

[TotallyRadGuitars]

SW's site says the tuners are Gotoh. I'm positive my buddy's came with Schaller.

What is SW?

Anyway, after about '83 all Kramers came with 135° Schaller tuners, starting with chrome then moving to black for standard line stuff (i.e. not special/signature models like EE's or Classics which still used Chrome). Earlier ones had 90° Gotohs, & very early ones had chevron buttons. However, '83 Non-Tilt nanners ALWAYS had black Gotohs with 90° set screws. Some pointy headstock models in the E5xxxx range also used these black Gotoh tuners. If you see a non-tilt nanner being claimed as original and it has Schallers, it's either a fake or modified.

A lot of people misunderstand how things worked. For example, they would have say, 100 boxes of black Gotoh tuners in 1983 and they put 80 of them onto non-tilt Barettas, then started using black Schallers on all of the tilt nanners. Then somebody would find those extra 20 boxes of Gotoh's again in some closet 3 years later and they'd stick them on the production line and some random guitars would get them. This was not consistent, production line stuff like other larger manufacturers or modern manufacturers were doing. The same applies - somewhat - to serial numbers, but not quite as extreme. For example if E8900 was December 1986 and has a block logo headstock, you might still find E8700 on a January 1987 guitar with a Pyramid logo headstock and that doesn't necessarily mean it's been modified, it could be factory original like that. On the other hand, you would never ever find a factory original E8000 guitar with a bound headstock neck because that's over a year too old. They also skipped big chunks of SN's, like anything from about F1xxx until F3xxx were chrome plates and never used on production guitars (except for Vaccaro stuff in the 90s, he re-used some of these old plates, many of them sold in boxes at the 1990 fire sale when Kramer went under).

It's part of the reason why these old Kramers are so divisive - same for old Charvels and the like - there's a certain "randomness" at play. I've had a lot of Kramers, some made within the same month as each other, that have totally different neck profiles, nut widths, and sometimes hardware. It's a convoluted mess but there's a handful of knowledgeable people out there (not to toot my own horn, but myself included) who can spot a fake or modified guitar a mile away - but most people would never know. There's a lot of little "they were made like this, except when X, and then they were like this, but except for X....." rules. I love picking up something to play that's different feeling than other guitars, but some guys want consistency.

 

[Rick Lee]

SW = Sweetwater

I have a buddy who worked for ESP in the mid-80s and said they supplied a lot of white labeled necks to Kramer, once Kramer got too big for their production abilities.

 

[TotallyRadGuitars]

SW = Sweetwater

I have a buddy who worked for ESP in the mid-80s and said they supplied a lot of white labeled necks to Kramer, once Kramer got too big for their production abilities.

Ah gotcha. Those articles are always a bit of a crapshoot, the reverb Kramer article is full of misinformation too. They have someone research this stuff for a week then write an article, then on to the next thing for SEO or whatever.

ESP made necks for Kramer right from the start of the wood neck era, not something that started later or anything. Even those early strat head and beak necks were made by ESP, but like I mentioned about how they'd use all sorts of random parts, some beak and nanner necks were made by Sports, or Lasido. However the vast majority of necks from 1980-1990 were all made by ESP and simply logoed/fretwork done in Neptune NJ. Same for bodies, ESP made most of those too... honestly Kramer was more in the business of assembling guitars from part sources than "building" them from the ground up or anything. As opposed to say, Hamer that did everything in-house except hardware/pickups.

 

[jb44]

What is SW?

Anyway, after about '83 all Kramers came with 135° Schaller tuners, starting with chrome then moving to black for standard line stuff (i.e. not special/signature models like EE's or Classics which still used Chrome). Earlier ones had 90° Gotohs, & very early ones had chevron buttons. However, '83 Non-Tilt nanners ALWAYS had black Gotohs with 90° set screws. Some pointy headstock models in the E5xxxx range also used these black Gotoh tuners. If you see a non-tilt nanner being claimed as original and it has Schallers, it's either a fake or modified.

A lot of people misunderstand how things worked. For example, they would have say, 100 boxes of black Gotoh tuners in 1983 and they put 80 of them onto non-tilt Barettas, then started using black Schallers on all of the tilt nanners. Then somebody would find those extra 20 boxes of Gotoh's again in some closet 3 years later and they'd stick them on the production line and some random guitars would get them. This was not consistent, production line stuff like other larger manufacturers or modern manufacturers were doing. The same applies - somewhat - to serial numbers, but not quite as extreme. For example if E8900 was December 1986 and has a block logo headstock, you might still find E8700 on a January 1987 guitar with a Pyramid logo headstock and that doesn't necessarily mean it's been modified, it could be factory original like that. On the other hand, you would never ever find a factory original E8000 guitar with a bound headstock neck because that's over a year too old. They also skipped big chunks of SN's, like anything from about F1xxx until F3xxx were chrome plates and never used on production guitars (except for Vaccaro stuff in the 90s, he re-used some of these old plates, many of them sold in boxes at the 1990 fire sale when Kramer went under).

It's part of the reason why these old Kramers are so divisive - same for old Charvels and the like - there's a certain "randomness" at play. I've had a lot of Kramers, some made within the same month as each other, that have totally different neck profiles, nut widths, and sometimes hardware. It's a convoluted mess but there's a handful of knowledgeable people out there (not to toot my own horn, but myself included) who can spot a fake or modified guitar a mile away - but most people would never know. There's a lot of little "they were made like this, except when X, and then they were like this, but except for X....." rules. I love picking up something to play that's different feeling than other guitars, but some guys want consistency.

Not familiar with Kramer, a tilted nanner = neck headstock is like the banana/hockey stick design?

Good info.