The 2020 Orlando Guitar Expo: Bring Home The Spoils Of Rock!!!

I've been lucky enough to attend the Orlando Guitar Expo for four years running now.  I've attended with a few purposes in mind.  1.  I usually had something I wanted to trade.  2.  I was looking for a few small items for myself.  3.  I looked for things I could buy cheaply and then resell.  This year I managed to do all three.

So let's get to rockin!  First up I was aiming to trade a Hagstrom Ultra Swede w/ OHSC for.... something.  The good news, was that, a lot of people were interested in it.  I had both attendees and dealers looking at it.  I must have showed it to twelve different dealers.  Every one of them said the same thing.  "Somebody will jump on that."

One reason they said that was because I had it priced extremely fair.  When going to the show you have to take a grain of salt with the prices.  I had it priced so that they knew I wasn't going to jerk anyone around.  And you know, people appreciated that.

I had one dealer who asked to see it, and I was happy to show it to him.  In fact, his booth had a big sign that said, "We Buy Guitars!"  So he was the guy to show it to.  He looked it over and said, "Due to the damage (it was dinged in a corner) he couldn't buy it. "  Then he said an almost throwaway line.  "I mean, I'd trade for it."

That's when I pointed out a guitar that I'm sure a lot of people passed by.  It was a D.B.Z. Bolero.  Now for those who don't know, I love Dean Guitars.  Their founder Dean B. Zelinsky started a new line of guitars called DBZ Guitars in 2008.  They were partnered with Diamond Amps, and later became Diamond Guitars.

But this looked to be a first year model with the original DBZ logo on the headstock.  I tried it out, and dug it.  It reminded me a lot of my Luna Apollo (owned by Armadillo Enterprises who owns Dean Guitars.)  Actually, the DBZ Bolero is the copy of Dean's Soltero.  But in all fairness, Dean Zelinsky designed it in 2006.

I asked the dealer how much cash plus the Hagstrom he would want for the Bolero.  He thought about it, and said he would take $200 plus the Hagstrom.  I thought about it, and said yes.  My "Guitar Show" price for my Hagstrom was $350.  I would have taken $275 cash for it.  So the fact that he gave me $300 credit is a total win for me.

The other good news, is that, the Bolero came with a DBZ OHSC.  And I have to say, it's a nice case.  So now, onto the pictures!

Next up, I talked to a dealer who had a bunch of parts.  He had a bunch of Dimarzio pickups that he just wanted to get rid of.  So he cut me a heck of a break.  He sold me four of them for $80.  I plan on keeping one, and will sell the rest.  I ended up buying one HS-3 and three Virtual Vintage Blues pickups.

Also included in the bag were a Fender single coil and a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails.  Unfortunately, neither of them were working.  But they were free so I can't complain.

The third dealer I bought from was a great seller who I had bought from before.  Again, I looked through his parts drawer.  I think I must have cleaned him out last year as he didn't have any pickups.  But I did manage to find a pitch pipe and a mandolin bridge.

At a grand total of nine bucks I wasn't going to argue with him.  He has always been good to me when I've talked to him at guitar shows.

Except for lunch that was all I managed to buy at this years show.  I made quite a few loops around the place.  It was actually much easier this year since the rain kept regular attendees from coming in early.  I didn't let the rain stop me.  It's Florida.  That's why I carry an umbrella at all times.

So I feel good about the whole thing.  I managed to trade the guitar I bought.  I brought home an awesome guitar.  I also managed to grab a pickup I had always wanted.  And I have a few pickups to sell on Reverb to recoup some of my money.  All in all that's a great show.

Awesome Guitar Weekend

I am going to try to keep this in a straight timeline as this might get confusing.  It first started with an awesome craigslist ad.  It seems this guy was selling one of the new Hagstrom Ultra Swede guitars (in trans black) for $195 with a Hagstrom tweed hardshell case.  I thought this was too good to be true, but he had a phone number.  So I gave him a call and got to talking to him.

It turns out this was the same guy I bought my Laney amp from.  If you read my blog then you will know I posted four blogs about it.  Namely about buying it and then cleaning it up, to finally getting it repaired. 

So the good news was I knew the guy.  The reason he was selling the guitar so cheap was that he lives in Winter Haven.  It's too far for people from Orlando to come there, and it's 50 miles from Tampa to boot.  But if you have someone dedicated like me, driving is no problem.  So I drove over there.

We got to talking and I really liked the guitar.  It actually reminded me more of a Gibson Nighthawk than it did a Les Paul.  Due to the basswood body, it's actually pretty lightweight.  It also has a neck that any shredder would enjoy.  Here the picture of it.

I changed out the pickups and added straplocks to it.  The only issue is that it needs a backplate.  I went to both Sam Ash and Guitar Center, and neither one of them had one.  Note:  It takes the wider SG type of backplate. 

Oh, when I pointed out a pretty good ding on the guitar, the guy knocked five dollars off the price.  He didn't have to, but he felt he should.  He really is a nice guy.

So now that I bought one guitar, it was time to sell another one.  I had an Ibanez Artcore that I never really bonded with.  So I decided to put it up on craigslist.  I was mainly looking for cash, but I did say if the right trade came along, I might be interested. 

Here's the Ibanez.

It's in dang good condition.  I can't find a ding on it, so if I was going to trade for something then I would want something pretty good.  Well something pretty good came up.  Namely this:

It's a 1999 Fender MIM Stratocaster WITH!!! a hardshell Fender case.  That's a win for me.  Except for one thing.......  I was supposed to be getting rid of a guitar since I bought one.  Now I have two new guitars.  I can't say I'm really mad at myself, since it's a problem some people would love to have. 

Now comes the fun part.  Deciding what pickups to put in the Strat.  I will say this, the stock ones aren't too bad.  They are usually just the most awful pieces of crap, but I actually played out with this guitar last night.  I had a lot of fun with it. 

So hopefully I'll get another blog out of working on the pickups for this guitar.  I'll make sure to take lots of pictures.