Please help - AM i getting Conned??

[pumbationz]

Hi guys - you may have seen this post before (no its not de ja vu, rather me trying to get as much knowledge as I can for this matter)...and I'm dying for a cloud (for now at least). :blink:

Reading some other posts....a $1000 for the cloud???, please someone tell me the low down here because I feel like I might be getting "done". I've been in contact with this fellow selling a cloud and I dont know what to think.

This is being sold for $3500 (without coleectibles in background). This is his email to me..

“ the guitar is one in my private collection that i guess i would sell---it is aone piece pearl white in perfect condition--as for the lyrics we will guarentee authenticity for life--they came from a member of princes band--i can send some pics if you want---i offered the cloud to 2 other clients who are also very interested--i did offer it to you first and will honor that if you wish to purchase it--if not please let me know thanks ”


Any info you guys may have will really help - PEACE :peace:

http://startifacts.com/tony/jan31/prince.jpg

[mr gumby]

i'd say not as the ones made by the fan club had dots on the fret boards and this has o+> on them as i understand it only his real ones made for him had this feature....3500 though is now only £1700 buy it !!!!!

[unique]

for that amount of money it's not unreasonable to ask the seller to provide further pictures, with closeups of the back of the headstock, and the back where the neck hits the body, and closeup of the front body showing the pickups

there were very few knut koupee official replicas made, i think about 23, and not many made for prince. prince's original set were called "north" "east" "south" and "west" (the blue one) and had labels on the back of the headstock

it's very unlikely a band member would have an original cloud in the first place, never mind give it away or sell it. it's even unlikely a band member would sell one of the cheaper replicas. i think this is a replica that normally sold for $1000/1500. there weren't that many of the cheaper replicas either. there was some quality control issue with the last batch i knew off, and they decieded to give them away in competitions rather than sell them. they aren't that great to play as the horn part is too close to the neck so you get your thumb stuck

unless your happy paying £1700 for a replica, i'd avoid it. also remember customs duty and vat, and shipping and insurance charges on top, so you could be talking £2k delivered

[madhouse]

Not an expert on guitars. I did have a contact who was a guitar maker, and was very confident that he could make much better cloud guitars than the ones Prince was retailing. However I dont know anthing about guitars and I havent kept in touch with him. You need to get a guitarist on the case, they know about the pick-ups and the finer details. Even then I guess its one thing seeing a picture, and another having it in your hands...

[comedyteeth]

No way is this guitar worth the money. This is one of the first-run Shecters and nothing special at all.

The first Shecters had Symbol fret markers and the later batches had dots. This doesn't make the first batch worth more though as the quality control was terrible and the hardware/electronics used were sub-standard.

There are several points on this guitar which make it easy to identify; firstly the head. This was made smaller and more squashed than the original so that it could be made from a standard Shecter neck blank (ie the same one they use on all their guitars).

Secondly the neck pickup is mounted from the front, not the back as it should be.

Thirdly, the bridge is wrong. The bridge should be a Schaller 457. The bridge fitted is a cheap Gotoh copy (ie not even a real Gotoh - Gotoh hardware is superb).

Last but not least, the machine heads are too small. Shecter put cheap Grover machines on the Clouds where they should be Schaller. Also the pickups are cheapo 'Duncan Designed' units and not the proper active EMG's.

OK, I think I'm done ripping Schecter Clouds to pieces!!! Just remember, they are cheap, nasty, Korean made guitars and if they didn't have the Prince association would sell for about £300.