The guitar's entire top is mother-of-pearl pieces, in a circular mosaic pattern, similar to some old Zemaitis guitars from the 1960s. I wasn't sure what to make of it. It just seemed bizarre, more than anything else. But every time I looked at it (every day or so), it intrigued me more. The seller wanted $325 in a fixed-price auction. The seller had great feedback, and it seemed like a reasonable price, but for whatever reason I was not able to pull the trigger.
Will Ray's Bottom Feeder: King Mother-of-Pearl (January 2019)
I kept an eye on it, though, and it went through several no-bid cycles. Then, the seller added "or best offer" to the fixed-price auction. I got to thinking about it and figured to offer $50 less. So I sent an offer of $275. To my surprise, he immediately accepted my offer and I PayPal'd him.
Sometimes selling an included hardshell case that you don't need can lower your price on an instrument enough to make a good deal into a great deal.
Bottom Feeder Tip #207:
If a seller's item hasn't sold after awhile on eBay, he or she may entertain best offers. That's opportunity knocking for you as a buyer. You have nothing to lose if you send your best offer. It can be accepted, rejected, or met with a counteroffer. But keep in mind that once your offer is accepted, you just bought it and must pay for it. It's legally binding, as they say.
The mother-of-pearl pattern on this instrument is ornate and thoroughly plotted—even on its headstock, to the extent that the company's name appears on the back rather than interrupt the visual vibe.
I received the guitar a week later. It's stunning up close. The mother-of-pearl really pops. It came shipped in a brand-new hardshell case. I'm not into hard cases, so I promptly sold the case for $50, which brought my actual price down to $225—where I'm more comfortable as a bottom feeder.
Bottom Feeder Tip #688:
Sometimes selling an included hardshell case that you don't need can lower your price on an instrument enough to make a good deal into a great deal.
Normally a P-90 fanatic, Will Ray nonetheless found this axe's humbuckers very articulate and mud-free—making his final $225 cost a Bottom Feeder bargain.
How do I like the guitar? Well, it's an interesting piece—that's for sure. The intonation is good, the neck is straight, the action is easy to play, and the humbucker pickups are very articulate without being muddy. I have other guitars that can do the same thing, but they don't look like this one! I still get a kick out of eyeballing it.
So, is it a keeper? Yeah. I'll probably keep it around for a while. It's always fun to show people, and it never disappoints at a jam.
[Updated 8/19/21]
When first found by the seller, the guitar’s headstock had “Epiphone” crudely scribbled on it with a white marker of some type. So, the seller painted the headstock black to cover it up. He then decided to try his hand at inlay work. He studied some images of Epiphone guitars and did a handmade job of inlaying the brand name at the top. After that, he had the idea to inlay the company’s “Tree of Life” design a few inches underneath the “Epiphone” logo. That’s a filigree that Epiphone uses for its top-of-the-line electrics, like the Joe Pass Emperor model. For sure, the inlay work looks a bit dodgy, but it has a kind of charm.
Although the pairing is a bit unconventional, the bridge humbucker and neck P-90 are both real Epiphone pickups.
Both pickups are genuine Epiphones. The bridge pickup is a humbucker and the neck is a soapbar P-90. The pickguard was handmade by the seller and looks pretty good. It’s a Tune-o-matic style with a stop tailpiece, and both look like Epiphone’s own.
But even by my standards, this guitar is an odd duck. I kept my eye on it on eBay for a while, because I wasn’t sure if I really wanted it. But when it got re-listed with a lower buy-it-now price of $99.99 including free shipping, I was hooked and had to pull the trigger.
It arrived a week later, and the relic’d look appeared better in person than in the pictures. The action was good, the neck felt comfortable, and it stays in tune well. And when it’s plugged into an amp, the guitar really comes to life. The bridge humbucker digs in with the right amount of growl, while the neck pickup has more warmth than you’d typically expect from a P-90, but with more high-end definition and clarity than the humbucker.
The Epiphone logo and Tree of Life design look dodgy, but it lends the guitar part of its distinctive hound-dog charm.
One interesting thing I discovered was that both pickups were wired out of phase. Normally, I would just reverse the polarity of one of the pickups, but lately I’ve been using guitars with out-of-phase pickups for tracking rhythm. It’s an old trick that L.A. studio musicians used for making a rhythm part fit into a dense song that featured lots of instruments. Listen to my MP3 and you’ll see what I mean.
By the way, I believe that this guitar started out as a real Epiphone, then someone did some weird things to it, and someone later tried to restore it. So, is it a keeper? Yeah … for now anyway. It’s a unique instrument and is just plain fun to play. What else is there?
With a neck anchored by a metal plate and a bridge held in place by sheet metal screws and a shop-formed steel protrusion, this weirdo guitar is solidly constructed.
The auction had a “Buy-It-Now” of $129.99 with only $10.97 shipping. But it also said, “Or Best Offer,” so I thought about it and sent an offer of $105. A few hours later I received a notice from eBay that the seller had accepted my offer. Cool!
Bottom Feeder Tip #112: When making an offer, try not to lowball it too much or you might insult the seller, in which case he might not even respond.
A photo of the guitar on eBay inspired a double take—and an “Or Best Offer” posting inspired a savings of $25
off the initial asking price.
I received the guitar a few days later. The action was a tad high, but the S-style bridge allowed me to lower the action with plenty of room to spare. I also raised the pickup a bit closer to the strings. I was pleasantly surprised with how well this guitar was built. The neck felt solidly anchored to the wah pedal via a metal plate. The bridge felt solid because it was bolted to a metal protrusion using heavy-duty sheet metal screws. Usually these mad-scientist creations use whatever spare parts are laying around the workbench, but this guitar looked like the builder knew a lot about not only guitar construction, but also about machine shops. And the intonation, which I feared would be squirrelly, was spot on. The theremin had a switch to activate it, tripping a little yellow sensor, and its own output, too. A 9V battery, a small coil of wire, and a tiny circuit board got it kicking. In general, this was a well-thought-out guitar seemingly built by an experienced guitar maker. It was a joy to behold.
Thanks to its S-style bridge, it was easy to lower the action on the guitar after it arrived, getting the strings closer to
its single-coil T-style pickup.
So how did the guitar sound plugged in? Surprisingly good, considering all the metal on the body. Hey—it’s a wah pedal with a neck. Check out my sound sample. I have to say, though, it’s a difficult guitar to play. My right hand had trouble doing any kind of precision picking. There was very little real estate for my picking hand to anchor itself on. The action for the left hand is nice and low, and it’s easy to make chords on the fretboard. And the theremin? In a word: terrible. Listen to my sound sample and judge for yourself. It’s really whiney, high-pitched, and obnoxious sounding, and totally unusable. But I wasn’t expecting much from the theremin anyway.
So is it a keeper? Yeah, for now. Whenever I show it to someone, it always gets a wow, followed by a laugh.