Wednesday Roundup: June 14

A mid-week roundup that starts off with something that jumped on me...

Chicago Stompworks Red Llama Clone - TRADE

I didn't know who Chicago Stompworks were either until I was offered this in a trade.  They seem fairly legit for a company that is entirely dedicated to clones, but I honestly hadn't come across this particular listing.  This was offered as a trade on my ages old Zoom Hyper Lead.  I'll get into the complete story in a few days, but suffice to say it involves the UPS/Fedex.

I took a complete chance on this one.  No experience with the Way Huge Red Llama, but there a enough people online that seem to rave about it to give it a chance.

Good news - It sounds pretty cool.

Fender MIM Standard Stratocaster - $400

You can't get much more cream of vanilla that an black Stratocaster with a white pickguard and a maple board, but there's a reason vanilla is a popular... color?

This just goes to show that if you are patient, you can still get prices that are as good as they were a few years ago.

My advice would be to snap this up and drop a GFS brass block in it.  You won't regret it.

Jackson JS32 - $250

For $250, it's hard to go wrong with this one.  Even money on the fact that the Floyd (a licensed unit to be sure) is improperly set up, but that can easily be fixed.

Simply put, this is Charvel So-Cal vibe without the bucks (which is weird given the historic Jackson/Charvel relationship).

Aside from being a great color, there's actually a lot of guitar here - the top is carved, it has the classic Jackson shark tooth inlays, and it has a locking tremolo as opposed to a pseudo-syncrozined Fender copy.

The only gripe I have here is the extremely noticeable "Jackson" logos on the pickups. Completely unnecessary.

Hughes and Kettner Statesman 20W - $800

I wasn't sure what this amp was at first - the seller didn't refer to the model, but mentioned it was made in Germany.

Does that explain the price?

I've seen larger versions of this amp for sale around the same price, which yet again proves that you don't pay by the watt on the used market.

As for whether these are any good, I can't say for certain.  What I will note is that H&K abandon this line completely in favour of their Tubemeister series, which is made in the far-east.  I owned the 18 watt version and, though feature rich, it left me wanting.  Maybe this is better, and would run you about what you'd get the 18 watt Tubemeister plus the matching 1X12 on the used market.

Plus made in Germany?

Hamer Californian - $225

I actually don't think this is all that special - the Jackson above is a better deal.

But the strings man.  The strings.  I need to do this.

Yamaha Archtop - $400

I'm sure this thing has a model number, but I'll be damned if I'm going to bother looking it up.  You know this isn't going to have some great name like Jazzeroo or something...

Ok, ok... Jazeroo is a terrible name. Feel free to do better in the comments.

If this is like every other Yamaha out there, it's going to be a ton of guitar for the money, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that this will out-tone an Epiphone Joe Pass any day of the week.

But there's just too much off about this, isn't there? The f-holes, something about the pickups (or is it the rings?).

Either way, if you need a jazz box and have $400 to spend, you'd be hard pressed to do better - just don't expect much envy when you pull your sweet Yamaha out of the case.