Dean Markley Guitar? Really!?!

[Chimploaf]

Hi, noob here. I'm not sure how "vintage" this guitar is but I've looked everywhere and can't find any info or history. I've never seen another one. It has a strat style body, rear-routed. Floyd Rose, non-locking tremolo, with locking nut. The headstock has the Dean Markley logo, as do the three pickups. It looks like a typical 80s shredder guitar. I've emailed Dean Markley twice requesting info but gotten no response. I'm assuming Dean Markley had these made by another company. Apparently they sold, (or at least offered), them between 1980 & 1984. I'd like to know if this thing has any collector value due to it's rarity.

[jedistar]

Hey sorry can't tell you more about it. If you hear from DM pls post .

Hope you are OK that I use 2 of those pics cropped.

Regards
Paul
www.jedistarcom
http://jedistar.com/jedistar_vintage_gu ... ting_m.htm

[VintAxe]

Hey Chimploaf.

I don't know anything specific about your guitar but I do have a couple of thoughts. The headstock shape looks to be an exact copy of a Kramer shape as well as the general superstrat body shape so I would say they are attempting to copy a Kramer Superstrat. This makes sense because in 1986, Kramer was America's largest guitar company; might as well copy the most popular guitar in the market.

What makes you think the guitar was marketed between 1980-84? That headstock shape wasn't introduced by Kramer until 1986-87. This time period was also the heyday of the Superstrat.

During the late 80's, Kramer's budget guitars were being built in Korea. I'm thinking perhaps Dean Markley commissioned this same Korean builder to produce a line of guitars for them. One thing that is unique to your guitar relative to Kramers I have seen is the shark tooth inlays; don't recall ever seeing that style of inlay on a Kramer.

Although it is clear your guitar is rare, I'm not sure that translates into value in this case. It would compete in the market place with all the better known Kramer models. The two things it does have going for it are the inlays and the rare Markley logo. I think a critical factor in determining value is to figure out whether it was made in the US or Korea. Have you peeked into the control cavity yet? See what type of pots are being used.

[Chimploaf]

Thanks for the replies.
Jedistar, no prob using the pics.
VintAxe, thanks for that info. I haven't opened it up yet to check, but I will do that soon. I've included a pic of the back to show the control covers. I found a site that had dozens of pics of 80s guitars, (front, back, headstock, close-ups, etc. for each one), and didn't see any that matched this one. If you, or anyone, has a pic of the back of a Kramer from that era and could post it here that'd be great. I don't remember what the site was and can't find it now.The person I bought it from told me she had a book that stated that those were the years they were sold but I have no verification of that at all. I do play with a guitarist who was in a touring band in the 80's that had a DM string endorsement who told me that they tried to get them to play their guitars at the time but they were playing Jacksons and didn't want to switch. I'll find out when that was. I do have a feeling that this thing's made of some cheap wood, as some of the scews holes are stripped; (jack plate, strap button on the horn). I can fix that easy enough.

[Chimploaf]

Well, I took the back covers off and had a look inside. The body is ply, not solid. The volume pot has B500K printed on it. The back tone pot has A500K. I can't see the middle one but assume it's the same as the other tone pot. I think the theory about this guitar being made in Korea is looking more & more likely. I did find this pic online of templates that Kramer used for some of their headstocks.