Masterbilt 2nd's

[big jimmy]

Looks like some of these are going really cheap on flea bay. Like under $300.
At the moment I have the dr500p. But thinking about the 500m or 500r.
Anybody snag one of the 2Nd's? And how much difference is there between the DR/AJ models?

[dqami]

I bought one off of Ebay. The only defect I could see is the gloss finish wasn't perfectly applied but you had to look real hard and be very anal about it. They had stamped 2nd on the back of the headstock so hard that it kinda cracked around the imprint.

As far as DR vs AJ, the AJ to me is a much better playing and sound guitar. Unfortunately, I bought the DR before playing the AJ. I ended up selling the DR for less than I payed. They even sell the 2nds at GC now for about $350 plus tax. I may buy an AJ sometime in the future.

[tcarp]

I have an AJ500M in vintage 'burst that I got about 3 years ago when they still came with cases. The back of the neck is marked "second" but I'll be damned if I can figure why. I paid just under $400.

Almost sold it last year but the deal fell through an hour before I was to meet the buyer. Glad I kept it. I've buffed the body to a nice gloss, replaced that god awful fugly pickguard with a Martin style Greven tortoise, added an ivoroid neck button and end pin and a set of plain no-dot bone pins. I plan on removing the stock Grover 14:1's and replacing them with Grover 18:1 Sta-tites.

This is one helluva guitar....I have 2 Martins and I'm proud to display the Epi along side them.

Tom

[LoveBandit]

I also got the AJ500M in the vintage burst marked 2nd on the back of the headstock. I, too, could not figure out why it was a "2nd". Then I started polishing the top with a very safe polish (Meguiars Cleaner/Wax for clearcoat) and all of a sudden the rag went through the black part of the burst and a huge 3 inch scratch appeared down to the light-colored spruce. I about pissed my pants on that one....apparently the guitar had been badly scratched in production and fixed so you could not even tell (unless you polished it heavily like I did, of course). It took a LOT of work to get it to look right again (I had to spray the top gloss after I made the scratch black again). The rest of the body polished nicely and the guitar really sounds and plays well now. I added Tusq bridgepins and a Tusq saddle which I actually prefer to the bone saddle that it came with. What I really like about it though is it isn't so expensive that I can't take it on a hot, stormy day or bang it up a little. I used to be like that with my more expensive acoustics. -LB