Belongs to a bandmate of mine, who found it at a yard sale (gutted) for like five bucks. She asked me to bring it back to life, and me with my fetish for weirdo jappanese guitars, I was more than happy to oblige!
It looks like someone pulled the guts from the tremolo (but left the original plate) and pulled the bridge. I routed the cavity to accommodate a new Fender Jaguar/Jazzmaster tremolo system... had to do some SERIOUS routing and a little cannibalizing to squeeze in the tremolo in there.
The bridge was a real problem as well. It sits on top of the PG. Only one stud was left, and I can see why it didn't last... a weak, narrow little post with very small threads just screwed into the top. I pulled and replaced it with studs that would normally screw into the base for an archtop tailpiece, popped a tune-o-matic on there...
ORIGINAL Two-tone finish... cream top, clear acrylic pickguard with chrome emblems over metallic blue silkscreen, the back and half of the headstock are sprayed metallic blue. And check out those humbuckers!!
Okay. Granted the Americans were doing some fun stuff by the time CBS bought Fender... but man oh man, aside from the Italians and SOME German and Swedish pieces, the Japanese were doing some of thee most INSANE designs...
I played it clean through my Reverberocket II and my Drip-Edge Princeton, and drove it through a 1474 Twin Twelve, just to see what it could do... It packs a little punch. Not a lot of punch, but just enough. LOTS of highs, not a great bass response, a little muddy, but definitely better than your run of the mill Japanese pickup from this period.
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