Chuck over at Kick Axe Guitars hooked me up with this one. What is striking about this Charvel was the neck, a beautiful ebony board but it has NO top inlays. I got to admit it took awhile to get used to playing her without having any top dots (she has side markers only).

It has a weird/strange graphic that resembles a Zebra pattern. The work order refers to the graphic as a "white metallic w/black graphic (see picture)." The see picture comment is a note indicating that the customer supplied a sketch/picture of the desired artwork or sometimes a paint chip. Charvels were truly custom built instruments.

This Charvel has serial number 3121 and is equipped with a Kahler locking tremolo, which was more commonly found on Charvels than Floyd Rose tremolos. Remember that back in the 80's Kramer guitars had exclusive rights to the Floyd Rose tremolo. In fact most of the Charvels built with a factory installed Floyd Rose tremolo used a Floyd Rose tremolo that was supplied by the customer.

The wiring layout is very versatile and a little unusual; again the customer's imagination was the only limits on what Charvel could build. As a result there are many, many one offs and interesting rare examples that have been built during Charvel's history. The controls are two volumes (no tone control) and a pick up selector that is located after the two volume controls. This is different than the more common layout where the selector (toggle) is usually located between the two controls (typically a volume and a tone). The first volume is for the bridge pickup (a little unconventional has usually the first volume is for the neck pickup and furthermore it is a push-pull pot to allow coil splitting of the bridge pickup. The pickups are Duncan's JB (B) and Jazz (n) and they are wired out of phase ($15 extra for the wiring out of phase request!!). You can see all the details written on the work order and she remains all original.

The out of phase sound is cool (when both pickups are on) but the overall sound is a little bass-y to my ear. But I really dig the coil split option and my favorite sound is with the bridge pickup split (volume at 10) and the neck pickup on (wired out of phase remember) at a volume of 6. This combination is KILLER and you can create a terrific "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits or early ZZ Top tone.

Neck and neck pocket markings on this one show a few oddities. The first is that the work order (invoice) number on the neck (1394) and the number found written in the neck pocket (5415) do not match. I have seen a few examples of this (for example see Charvel 3277) and while not the norm it does happen from time to time. Interestingly the work order (invoice) number written on the neck is the one that matches the paper work.

The second unusual detail is the writing of what appears to be "2 3/16" in the neck pocket, which I had assumed indicated neck width. The normal measurement that is very commonly written in the neck pockets is "2 ¼". This is speculation on my part as the neck on 3121 measures 2 1/4 so I am not sure what the significance of this is.

Neck markings include the work order (invoice) number 1394, "OBD" (I see this on all Jackson style (pointy) headstock necks that do not have a painted face (that is on the normal capped black plastic face necks), and the initials "MJ".

Written in the neck pocket are two sets of markings; written in pencil are the work order (invoice) number 5415, some lettering I cannot make out and "2 3/16". In black marker are the common combination of initials and a date, "SVS" and "3/84" respectively.

This Charvel is all original but has wear or should I say borderline abuse. The clear coat on the headstock is peeling badly and all the black portions of the graphic have lacquer cracks around the paint. At first I thought that maybe the guitar was left in the sun/heat. Black will absorb more heat from the sun (hence expanding more) than the white background, which might explain why the lacquer cracks perfectly outline the black portions of the graphic. However the back (and there is no graphic on the back) also has severe lacquer checks. In any event she has way more than her share of superficial lacquer checks but plays and sounds great.

This guitar was ordered on 1-12-84 by Friendly River located in Cornish, ME.