The Electra Forums

Bought from jmm. Excellent playing guitar. You have seen it on here before. Has a fairly thin neck.
Plays and sounds like a dream. Came with a phaser and ohsc! Absolutely killer.

Practically brand new condition. First time I've ever bought a guitar sight unseen and unplayed. Couldn't be happier.

That is indeed an exceptional one. JMM always has good ones. The Betts model(this one) is much harder to find so congrats on a good one.

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

Nice

Yowsa, that's amazing. Bet that has a much better neck over it's similar looking MPC brethren.

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"GREAT Googiley moogilie Jack...jumpin jehosephat, hot dang and all".
- jdwhealton

What a score -

Congrats!

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RCSBlues

The neck is the best part. It's not thick at all. Although it's not tiny either. The whole guitar appears small and then you go to pick it up and then you're shocked by how heavy it is. Maple top on solid mahogany. shwing! Originally purchased in '82 (she's an 82. She might be a he. Naw she's a she) for $500. The guy that bought it originally ended up doing something for SLM later. JMM could tell it better. Its all in the forum archives.

Looks like gc has one for cheap.
Vintageguitars.net

i don't see it?

It looks very much like a black burst endorser but has MPC functions, neck looks and sounds just like the Endorser from the way you describe it (endorsers looked about the same, had dot inlays, and didn't have the chunky neck that Vulcans had). Is that an ebony board or rosewood? If it is ebony it does sound like an endorser. I am also curious if the pickups are MMKs or not. Prob not. If they measure around 8K they are not, if they measure around 10-12K they likely are MMKs. Also, MMKs tend to have black poles, and also have compensated spacing for their position (neck pickup poles poles are closer together, bridge poles are farther apart to match the strings).

Hey, really, WHO CARES? Man I can be a geek. What is important is it is a killer guitar - so have some fun with it.

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Thorny

There's an add that says they're super magnaflux pickups and rosewood fingerboard.

Electra X930 MPC and Dickey Betts:



MPC version with a dot neck.

Pic from eboink:

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RCSBlues

Endorsers have Rosewood fingerboards that have been stained to look like Ebony. You can tell how much one has been played by the amount of 'fade' in the dark stain. The Endorser does not hit the market until mid 1982 (Blackburst model with the peacesign logo), and the MPC's were most likely out of production by that time. Another myth is that flame maple goes all the way to the Mahogany, the flame (which is real wood, not photo flame) is a very thin piece of veneer laminated to a healthy block of less striking maple.

I believe the Dickey Betts Vulcan and X960 Ultima (which share the same back plates and switch setup) were the last of the MPC's before the program got pulled. Cheers, Mike.

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Electra Guitar Videos ===> http://www.youtube.com/user/mjm33mjm?feature=watch

You are right of course. I was just thinking about how it seems to be a "bridge" model or was evolving toward the Endorser. I wonder if it shared any of the features. I don't believe I ever had a dot neck Vulcan. I have had a LOT of MPCs, just not that one (or the Derringer one). I wondered if it shared any of the Endorser features besides some of the "look". Oh yeah, and the DOTS are different too - that Vulcan has typical 6MM or so dots, whereas the Endorsers (and other Matsumokus) had 4MM ones. I just now noticed that too.

You can also tell the ebony by the very fine grain. Some newer ebonies are not so dark too (speaking of modern guitars of today) but I digress. The rosewood used on MPCs tended to be fairly coarse grained and it also is likely a bit prone to wear (possibly a little softer species/variant). I have seen MANY Electras with deep grooves worn into the "cowboy chords" areas. It takes a lot of play to do that, but Electras frequently got a LOT of play because they were excellent guitars. My x330 was really badly worn when I got it. I don't know if the fret quality is any different or not. I suspect people play the $h!t out of their Electras. Most of them I have are not in such wonderful condition. You have a real prize there.

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Thorny