This Charvel has serial number 3615 and is finished in a very unique shade of yellow which appears to be a mix of both a mustard yellow and gold color with some metallic overtones. Upon seeing this Charvel the unique color and matching painted headstock immediately caught my eye - this guitar certainly stands out in a crowd.

I was lucky enough to acquire this guitar on eBay from the original owner, Kent. The guitar is no longer factory original (added Floyd Rose tremolo) and has a nasty battle scar on the lower horn area where the paint has flaked off exposing the primer but I didn't care and loved the color so much I had to have her. In fact, I have seen a few other Charvels that had the paint bubble and/or flake off in such large areas, for example #1625. While uncommon, it would appear that some colors/textures result in the paint flaking off. Again it does not affect playability and it gives the guitar character.

The owner had the factory vintage tremolo replaced with the superior (for tuning stability) double locking Floyd Rose license unit. This modification is probably the single most common modification made to guitars back in the 80's (other than swapping out pickups) and I would estimate some 15% or more Charvels had aftermarket Floyd Rose or Kahler tremolos installed. Remember at the height of Charvels popularity, guitar players like EVH, Vai, Satraini and others had revolutionized guitar playing with wild whammy bar antics. These techniques required drastic pitch changes and while the vintage tremolo could handle very subtle changes in pitch without going drastically out of tune, they could not handle such abusive whammy bar techniques without going horribly out of tune! On this particular Charvel, the Floyd Rose modification was done professionally and the guitar intonates and plays perfectly.

Here are a couple of quick visual clues to help the knowledge-seeking Charvel enthusiasts as to identify a factory versus aftermarket Floyd Rose:

•  Tremolo covers on Charvels with factory equipped vintage tremolos were slotted to allow string changing without the need to remove the cover. On factory equipped Floyd Rose Charvels the tremolo cover was solid (no opening/slot) as string changing was done on the Floyd unit itself.

•  If you look inside the tremolo cavity, there are six small holes visible from the six screws that attach the vintage tremolo to the guitar body.

•  On Charvels having a factory equipped Floyd Rose tremolo, the nut is secured to the neck on a small platform that is actually an extension of the neck material. Whereas Charvels having an aftermarket Floyd Rose tremolo, the nut is usually secured on a make-shift platform (which could be of any material) or the original nut was retained and a Kahler lock nut was secured immediately behind the original nut.

The work order (invoice) number 2228 and a set of initials which are no longer legible as they are covered with a second set of markings (black marker) are found written in the neck pocket in pencil. Written in black marker are the date 6-6 (sometimes you see that the year, 83 in this case, which was not written) and initials “WH”. Identification markings found written on the neck include initials “WSJ” (possibly, as they are hard to decipher), “ODPH” which I see written on all Jackson style (pointy) necks with a painted headstock face and work order (invoice) number 2228. Recall the general rule of thumb regarding work order (invoice) numbers was that Charvel guitars with serial numbers before 2400ish used consecutive work order (invoice) numbers for the neck and in the neck pocket of the body while later examples, after the 2300 - 2400ish serial number range, used the same work order (invoice) number for both the neck and the neck pocket.

Typically two codes are found written on Jackson style (pointy) necks; namely OBD or ODPH. OBD ( O il, B lack Head, D ecal) was found written on necks that had a black plastic cap headstock face while ODPH (ODPH = O il, D ecal, P ainted H ead) was found on necks that had the black plastic headstock cap painted.

I was thrilled to obtain this Charvel because of its unique color and traditional 80's guitar layout of a single pickup and volume only control. I think the matching painted headstock and the ebony fretboard adds to the overall classy look of this great guitar and she sounds as good as she looks.