Matt300ZXT
Well-known member
I figured I'd run by Guitar Center today and get a couple packs of strings after work and thought I'd check out their used section online to see if anything looked like a good deal....yeah right, when's the last time any of us got a good deal on a used guitar at Guitar Center? Online, it looked like a white Tele with maple/maple, Fender locking tuners, and a brass nut, probably from 2020 if his serial numbers are easy enough to read. Guitar Center takes HORRIBLE pics of used gear.
Anywho, they had this Tele from a local builder I wanted to check out. I'm not a Tele guy, but it was $500 used and he puts out decent looking guitars, at least from what I've seen pics of. He sells them on his site, or through FB Marketplace locally for $702 and up. Now, I've got a CMG Ashlee that when new was probably $800, so I know what a beginner US instrument in that price range should feel and play like. The Ashlee actually is quite good with a beautiful finish that they do in house. This Tele? Not so much....it was pretty much hot garbage. He's not a luthier, he's an overpriced assembler. I wanted to like it and I wanted it to be nice since it's a local guy so I could bring it home. In my opinion, the guitar should have been about $500-550 new, and $300 used. His decal with his shop name wasn't even a real decal! It wasn't the kind you have made for you and then stick on and pull off the excess backing material. It was a plain long strip of clear backing material with his logo printed on it, but the excess wasn't removable. It wasn't even trimmed to line up to the edge of the logo....just excess backing material and part of that was hanging off of the headstock. His serial # sticker was only slightly nicer.
I can check his current build sheets and he uses XGP bodies/necks, so cheap crap from Guitar Fetish. The body felt nice I suppose, but it's just a plain ol' piece of wood that's been computer routed en masse in China, so yeah....it'll be decent. It was a seafoam green with front and rear binding that was ok, no real big glaring issues in it, but could still tell it was a cheap body. The pickups were who knows what and it had a Joe Barden bridge. The neck....well, that's what turned me off. Sure, it was flat, sure there were no dead notes/bends but the harmonics weren't so impressive, there were a few fret ends that could use some work, but the frets themselves were beyond tarnished and in need of work. Maybe just a polish would have fixed them....but ya know how when you pick up a cheeaaaap Squire off the rack and the frets look gold from a distance from all the tarnish/marring/ugliness? Yeah...every fret looked like crap. I actually picked up a new Kramer Baretta Special, and the one with the dual humbuckers and Floyd Special for $379, and the frets looked the same. I expect that off a new cheap Chinese guitar that was shipped over and never really been set up or played/cared for, but this was an assembled guitar that had been owned and probably had several sets of strings put on it and been used. The neck also just felt cheap....like a cheap Chinese neck that just happened to be a good one out of the batch as far as no blemishes or anything, but nothing that'd even remotely inspire you to keep playing it.
The only nice thing I can say about the guitar was that the bridge was probably a decent bridge, and the locking Fender tuners were nice. They were SUPER sensitive, it was a bit hard to get it in tune without making tiny itty bitty adjustments...either that, or the tuner on that Line 6 combo was just really bad lol I dug the idea of the brass nut, but the high e seemed to have a tinny metallic sound to it when playing it open during tuning. Also, the G, B, and E had little cutouts or something where the string goes through it, I wouldn't imagine it had chipped off, I figured it was just part of the design.
They also had a 2020 Strat he had built, $500 as well. I picked it up and immediately set it back down without even playing it. It felt like a toy in my hands it was so light, and on the high e side of the neck pocket, there was a massive blemish where wood had been broken off when setting the neck in or something and crudely "fixed" and painted over. It was totally obvious it had been damaged at some point.
So, I came home empty handed....except for the 2 packs of strings. As a bonus, I did try out the Baretta Special and that slightly more expensive one. Not even remotely impressed like all the YouTube guys say. If they had a big sale on those and would sell the $379 one with the Floyd Special for less, I'd take it and put my spare chrome OFR on it and some real pickups and keep it around as a beater guitar, but I couldn't even justify paying $200 for the Baretta Special.
Anywho, they had this Tele from a local builder I wanted to check out. I'm not a Tele guy, but it was $500 used and he puts out decent looking guitars, at least from what I've seen pics of. He sells them on his site, or through FB Marketplace locally for $702 and up. Now, I've got a CMG Ashlee that when new was probably $800, so I know what a beginner US instrument in that price range should feel and play like. The Ashlee actually is quite good with a beautiful finish that they do in house. This Tele? Not so much....it was pretty much hot garbage. He's not a luthier, he's an overpriced assembler. I wanted to like it and I wanted it to be nice since it's a local guy so I could bring it home. In my opinion, the guitar should have been about $500-550 new, and $300 used. His decal with his shop name wasn't even a real decal! It wasn't the kind you have made for you and then stick on and pull off the excess backing material. It was a plain long strip of clear backing material with his logo printed on it, but the excess wasn't removable. It wasn't even trimmed to line up to the edge of the logo....just excess backing material and part of that was hanging off of the headstock. His serial # sticker was only slightly nicer.
I can check his current build sheets and he uses XGP bodies/necks, so cheap crap from Guitar Fetish. The body felt nice I suppose, but it's just a plain ol' piece of wood that's been computer routed en masse in China, so yeah....it'll be decent. It was a seafoam green with front and rear binding that was ok, no real big glaring issues in it, but could still tell it was a cheap body. The pickups were who knows what and it had a Joe Barden bridge. The neck....well, that's what turned me off. Sure, it was flat, sure there were no dead notes/bends but the harmonics weren't so impressive, there were a few fret ends that could use some work, but the frets themselves were beyond tarnished and in need of work. Maybe just a polish would have fixed them....but ya know how when you pick up a cheeaaaap Squire off the rack and the frets look gold from a distance from all the tarnish/marring/ugliness? Yeah...every fret looked like crap. I actually picked up a new Kramer Baretta Special, and the one with the dual humbuckers and Floyd Special for $379, and the frets looked the same. I expect that off a new cheap Chinese guitar that was shipped over and never really been set up or played/cared for, but this was an assembled guitar that had been owned and probably had several sets of strings put on it and been used. The neck also just felt cheap....like a cheap Chinese neck that just happened to be a good one out of the batch as far as no blemishes or anything, but nothing that'd even remotely inspire you to keep playing it.
The only nice thing I can say about the guitar was that the bridge was probably a decent bridge, and the locking Fender tuners were nice. They were SUPER sensitive, it was a bit hard to get it in tune without making tiny itty bitty adjustments...either that, or the tuner on that Line 6 combo was just really bad lol I dug the idea of the brass nut, but the high e seemed to have a tinny metallic sound to it when playing it open during tuning. Also, the G, B, and E had little cutouts or something where the string goes through it, I wouldn't imagine it had chipped off, I figured it was just part of the design.
They also had a 2020 Strat he had built, $500 as well. I picked it up and immediately set it back down without even playing it. It felt like a toy in my hands it was so light, and on the high e side of the neck pocket, there was a massive blemish where wood had been broken off when setting the neck in or something and crudely "fixed" and painted over. It was totally obvious it had been damaged at some point.
So, I came home empty handed....except for the 2 packs of strings. As a bonus, I did try out the Baretta Special and that slightly more expensive one. Not even remotely impressed like all the YouTube guys say. If they had a big sale on those and would sell the $379 one with the Floyd Special for less, I'd take it and put my spare chrome OFR on it and some real pickups and keep it around as a beater guitar, but I couldn't even justify paying $200 for the Baretta Special.
Thank god you can source quality parts and assemble one for a lot cheaper. 
