Blast-from-the-past: April 2007

[duhvoodooman]

A few of you old-timer Fretters will remember the Fullerton guitars (the Music123's house brand) that they decided to discontinue nearly 13 years ago. The sale of their ST3 (S-S-S Strat copy) and ST4 (H-S-S "Fat Strat" type) models caused quite a stir around here! A bunch of us bought them for the original sale price of ~$50 (shipped!), and while they were far from premium quality instruments, they were (with a bit of TLC) very decent guitars that played and sounded way better than the price point would suggest. And then Music123 lowered the price to $27 to blow out the remainder of the stock, and several of us bought another one! Hey, for a price lower than the average Behringer China-made pedal, why not??? Here are a couple of the old "Fully" threads:

The original thread: http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/2957

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/3019

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/3258

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/7225

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/22430

So why do I bring up this piece of Fret.net history?? Well, the other day I needed to bring two guitars to our church's praise band rehearsal and so needed a second gig bag in addition to the one I usually use. I noticed that I had a dusty old Kaces faux-leather gig bag stashed behind a bunch of my cases, so I pulled it out. But it already had a guitar inside it. Specifically, this one:

http://www.thefret.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=2410&d=1576357478

Yup, my old ST4 "Fat Fully" that I had pretty much forgotten that I even still owned. And after playing it the last couple of days, I'm still amazed at how good of a playing and sounding guitar it is, especially for what I paid for it! True, I did some upgrading on it (graphite string trees, better nut, some inexpensive GFS pickups, and I wired in a push/pull pot to split the humbucker). But the neck is still its best feature (straight, smooth & buzz-free) and the electronics are rock-solid. So almost 13 years later and having owned many guitars since (some FAR more expensive), I still think that those Fullertons were a heckuva value!



2410

[tjcurtin1]

Yes, I do remember the Fully craze, Vood - tho I don't remember the headstock looking like that ... THat was an event that set me on a bit of a GAS craze for low-cost electrics. I sold mine ultimately to another Fret member, but yes, it really did play well. Of course, I read that there are now other sub $100 guitar wonders surfacing now and again.

[Jipes]

Always nice to re-discover a guitar in the closet that also what happened to Gary Clark Jr when he passed at his parents house and rediscover his Ibanez strat in a forgoten case he decided then to use it on the new album

[Zip]

No offence, but that is an incredibly ugly guitar.

If you sanded off the finish, could you just stain the plywood? ;

[Robert]

I gave mine to my sister-in-law's boyfriend. They split up and she has the guitar in her living room. She always invites us for Thanksgiving dinner and other holidays, so I do see it once in a while. Not a really good guitar, compared to a Squier or Epiphone (priced 10+ times as much), but for 30-50 bucks, it's fantastic!

[duhvoodooman]

No offence, but that is an incredibly ugly guitar.
No offense taken--heck, I didn't build it! Fortunately, it sounds and plays better than it looks....

[tjcurtin1]

I thought that the standard strat-style (3 single coil pups) had a different headstock - there is a photo in this link from Steve

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/22430-The-rebirth-of-the-Fullerton?highlight=fully+strat

[duhvoodooman]

Yeah, the ST3 headstock does look a bit better than the "limp ****" headstock on my ST4!!

[tjcurtin1]

I found a photo of the Fully with three single coils - my recollection is that I got it during the final blowout for $35. shipped...!

https://i.imgur.com/NYvCzrs.jpg

[duhvoodooman]

Hey, nice! That's the best looking Fully I've seen.

[tjcurtin1]

Traded towards something else, long ago...