GUITARTRASHORTREASURE
Action Jackson
Hey Zach,
Wayne Charvel started a guitar shop in Azusa, C
became known for building custom, high quality
and necks. Grover Jackson came to work at Cha
and bought out the company about a year later
moved Charvel to San Dimas, California).
At the 1979 NAMM show, Jackson debuted the
first custom Charvel guitars and in 1981, the first
Charvel catalog was released. Charvel was different than most guitar companies at the time
because their guitars were all custom-built – the
amount of available options was simply staggerin alifornia, that
guitar bodies
rvel in 1977
(Jackson also
g.
I read Trash or Treasure every month and I thought you
could help me figure out what I have here. I know that it
is a Jackson and it looks as though it is from the sixties.
However, I’m pretty sure Jackson wasn’t making guitars
that far back and I can’t find any other markings on the
guitar. Can you tell me what I have and if it is worth anything now?
arrangement in the early nineties, Charvel is now mainly a custom shop
based in San Dimas while Jackson produces a wide variety of electric
guitars ranging from entry-level to signature U.S. models. Charvel and
Jackson continue to be a mainstay in Fender’s empire of guitars.
Thanks!
Tom in Kansas City
Hey Tom, thanks for reading. While the story of Jackson guitars
starts in the mid-seventies, your guitar is far from that era – let
me start with a little history of how Jackson came to be through
Charvel guitars.
Charvel/Jackson guitars are usually associated with the hair metal
era; the guitars’ pointy bodies, hockey stick-shaped headstocks
and sharkfin inlays provided a perfect accompanyment to the faster,
flashier form of rock that was popular in the eighties. In the early nineties, Charvel developed something totally unlike their flagship series
with the Surfcaster, and it was greeted with great success. This was in
part due to the acceptance by Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame, who
ordered several of them for his band at the time. However, Charvel was
in a downward spiral at the time and by the mid-nineties they had discontinued production. Instead of killing off the Surfcaster, they moved
it over to the Jackson line where it was produced until 2005. According
to Jackson’s 1999 catalog, the Surfcaster “represents the best of the
vintage instruments combined with the reliability and playability of the
modern guitar.” The Surfcaster features a semi-hollow body with a
unique soundhole and a combination of pickups that included a lipstick.
Your guitar is a Surfcaster SC1 and was the first Jackson Surfcaster
to be released. It features a mahogany body with an ash top, bolt-
on maple neck, 24-fret rosewood fingerboard with sharkfin inlays,
“traditional” style headstock with three-per-side tuners, a combina-
tion bridge/tailpiece, Duncan designed pickups with a humbucker
in the bridge position and a single-coil “lipstick” in the neck, two
knobs (Volume and Tone) and a 3-way pickup switch. Jackson
describes the finish on your guitar as Transparent Black.
In 1983, Jackson released a line of guitars with his
name on them; they were very similar in style and
features to Charvel, except Jackson’s guitars featured neck-thru bodies while Charvel used only
bolt-on designs. In 1985, Jackson licensed both
brands to the International Music Company
(IMC), and in 1986 he sold both brands to the
company. By the late-eighties, IMC further
differentiated both brands, moving all of the
higher-end models to the Jackson side and
leaving Charvel with mainly entry-level and
medium grade guitars. IMC also began producing Charvel models in Japan and Korea, which
marked a turning point for Charvel, as the bulk of the
instruments were no longer built in the U.S. Throughout
the nineties, Jackson continued to flourish while Charvel slowly floundered to the point where they ceased production in the mid-nineties.
In the fall of 2002, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC)
bought Charvel and Jackson. With the purchase, they revived the
Charvel trademark. This is why Charvel and Jackson are so closely associated with each other today. In fact, instead of printing individual Charvel
and Jackson factory catalogs, IMC often printed one large catalog
featuring both trademarks’ entire line of instruments. Also, unlike the
Surprisingly enough, the Surfcaster is one of the few gui-
tars from the nineties that has actually seen an increase
in value over its original selling price (most values are still
below the original retail price, but none of these guitars
were sold at full retail because of standard discounting). The
Jackson SC1 is worth between $700 and $800 today and
the Charvel Surfcasters are bringing even more money.
If you’re a Jackson/Charvel fan, and you’re looking
to merge both vintage and modern worlds, the
Surfcaster is a solid treasure to have!
Zachary R. Fjestad
is the author of the Blue Book of Acoustic Guitars, Blue
Book of Electric Guitars, and the Blue Book of Guitar
Amplifiers.
Questions can be submitted to:
Blue Book Publications
Attn: Guitar Trash or Treasure
8009 34th Ave. S. Ste #175
Minneapolis, MN 55425
800-877-4867
bluebookinc.com
guitars@bluebookinc.com
