Blast-from-the-past: April 2007

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.ph...0&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!



Attachment 2410

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.

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

No offence, but that is an incredibly ugly guitar.

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

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!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zip

No offence, but that is an incredibly ugly guitar.

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No offense taken--heck, I didn't build it! Fortunately, it sounds and plays better than it looks....

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.ph...ht=fully+strat

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

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

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

Traded towards something else, long ago...