Dating a Fernandes Super Grade. Please, help.

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brokenstringshurt

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Hello. First of all excuse me if my english has some mistakes. I'm from Spain.

I've been visiting this site in the last two months as a guest. Thank God there is a place like this. I believe this is the place where you need to go if you really want useful and accurate information about these lovely japanese guitars, so my most sincere congratulations to all the people who takes care of this site, and to all the regular members.

There I go...

I recently have bought a Fernandes Super Grade (my very first japan copy guitar). As you probably have read a billion times, I am the typical case of someone who buys a Burny/Fernandes and would like to date the guitar with your help and expert eyes.

Reading some topics I believe is from the 90's, but I'm not sure. The pick-ups have an sticker sayin "VH-1", but we all know that this doesn't mean they are VH-1...

The body seems to me like a 2-piece. The mahogany is more brown than red.

It weights truly a lot: 5 kg (I believe this is equal to 10 pounds in english system)

There's a serial number stamped on the neck pick up cavity, but you must be some kind of Indiana Jones lookin' for clues to be able to know what these guys at Fernandes wrote there :roll:

The logo says Fernandes, and not Burny. Do you know what this means?. Is this guitar an export model or something like that?.

Has the fret edge binding and, maybe a medium tenon?

I'm not a collector, I buy my guitars for the way they sounds. And this Fernandes sounds just incredible. I have a lot of friends with Gibsons so I have had the opportunity to compare, and everybody agree this Fernandes sounds better.

I'm going to try to put the photos here...hope it works :roll:

Any help will be much appreciated. :)


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Welcome to the forum and your English is better than mine and I'm English!!

I think you are correct in thinking it's an early '90's model, thats just based on the info here:

http://www.japanguitars.co.uk/burny%20info.html

Lovely looking guitar, but at 5kg I'm glad I'm not wearing it :D

As you know Burny is part of the Fernandes group. Normally the Strat types were branded Fernandes and the LP's Burny, but they did vary this a bit. If the stickers say VH-1 then they probably are, but the earlier VH-1's with the braided wire are the pickups everyone goes mad for, the later ones with the grey wire like yours are still good pickups though.

Enjoy the guitar and take care of your back :D
 
Thanks for your kind replies :wink:

20 years reading english guitar mags, but in an english restaurant I will end hungry, I'm afraid (75% of my english vocabulary is guitar-related words...) :roll:

So we can say this Fernandes is from the 90's and a RLG model (a heavy RLG model).

(Volunteers to kidnap someone from Fernandes to get information about the serial numbers in their guitars?) :D

I add a photo from the back, where you can see why I believe is a 2-piece body.

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I have a Gibson bridge and I've tested it. It's amazing how these guys made these guitars. It fits with absolute precision.

It's a logical thing, I believe (where can you get spare parts for these guitars?. Go to Gibson...a nice revenge maybe)

I must say that of all the Gibsons that this Fernandes was tested against only a 58 Custom Shop (plain top) Reissue sounds on the same level. All the Gibsons Les Paul Standard (a 1989, a 1990, a 1994 Studio, and a 2002) sounds average (mediocre) in comparison

Can't imagine how a high end japanese Les Paul copy must sound...people I see here with so many beautiful and incredible sounding guitars must live in constant nirvana.
:eek: :D
 
looks nice...I`d like to own it.
One thing though...get a tripod for the camera...or take pics outdoors, or in daylight...I`m gettin` dizzy looking at the pics.
 
It's not always the case that a high-end guitar will sound better than a lower-end model, for instance a one-piece back and a pretty top won't make your guitar sound better! I have a Tokai LS120 and a LS80, the 120 definetely looks prettier but the 80 sounds just as good!

As for going hungry in an English resteraunt, count youself lucky! The food here has a bad reputation for a good reason :wink:
 
cool thing about many Japanese restaurants is...they have plastic versions of whats on the menu in their windows so if worst comes to worst...just point to what you want. we visited the part of Tokyo where they make and sell that plastic food once...some of it looks very realistic. Took home a bunch of sushi keychains.
 
Let just have beer so that the images get in focus!

Nice guitar, I'd also like to have it :)
 
RLG-70 but if bought in Spain these were named R-2 here and were distributed by SADEPRA,a great importer and very nice and knowledege people.Just notice how it is fernandes branded instead of Burny,this means it was for export. and ended bringing Fernandes replicas at the end of 90's maybe somewhere between 1996/98. SADEPRA carries Mesa/Boogie brand among others....I highly recomend them(I?m not affiliated at all).
 
Thanks again for your comments. They help me a lot.

My camera is one of my worst enemies, sorry. I know I'll better look for a new one instead of another tube screamer... :roll:

I bought this Fernandes in a private transaction with a French person, and he was the second owner, and he bought the guitar from a German seller in (I believe) 1994 (so I'm it's third owner), so the guitar has not been imported directly to Spain. R2 was the name used all along Europe or only in Spain?


P.D.: sneakyjapan, in Spain plastic food has great success on December 28th...the Innocence Sants day, but with a difference. Nobody tells you is plastic until you discover it by yourself (too late, usually). :D
 
next time I`ll try the beer...thanks for the tip.
I sent plastic spaghetti to my sister`s kids for Christmas last December. Hope they didn`t try to eat it.
 
JohnA said:
As for going hungry in an English resteraunt, count youself lucky! The food here has a bad reputation for a good reason :wink:

Maybe up in the frozen North, John...... :eek:

Mike
 
stratman323 said:
JohnA said:
As for going hungry in an English resteraunt, count youself lucky! The food here has a bad reputation for a good reason :wink:

Maybe up in the frozen North, John...... :eek:

Mike

Now don't start that again :wink:

Just a general observation that restaurants in the UK are generally not up to the standard of similar priced places on the continent, France, Spain and in particular Italy.

Sure there are some good 'fancy' restaurants down South, with prices to match, I'm sure we had one round here once but I was too busy looking after the whippets to visit! :D
 
hey I`m Canadian...youse wanna talk about the frozen north?
My mom is from Ealing...though she is a good cook...or maybe was, she suffers from Alzheimers now... it`s true not many folks visit England on the culinary tours, still...must be OK since you fellas seem to be in good health. But whats up with that jellied eel thing?
 
Sneaky, there's a diffenece between fine food & basic nutrition, just because I'm in good health doesn't mean I eat well!!

As for Jellied eels, you better ask Mike about those, he probably had them for breakfast! I'll stick to my black pudding!!

How off-topic can we get??
 
sneakyjapan said:
But whats up with that jellied eel thing?

Ah, you would have to pick up on one of the few Southern peculiarities! I have no idea, never tried them, doubt if I ever will! :-?
 
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