Martin electric guitars ... what's the deal?

[woodman]

my wife called this afternoon from the Goodwill thrift store this afternoon and said she'd found a Martin guitar for $19.99. of course i nearly swooned, until she added that it's a Martin electric -- a Stinger ST2. i quickly googled it and found out they were made in Korea, but finished out and set up at the Martin plant in Nazareth. a couple of people on Other Boards had posted favorable comments about them, so i told her go ahead and grab it. shoot, any playable guitar is worth 20 bucks!

someone had obviously tried to hide it up on a top shelf with the intent of coming back for it later, but my gal spied what looked like a headstock and stood on the bottom shelf to pull it down. i'm glad she did, because it looks like a pretty decent axe. the body style reminds me of, goldang it, what's the name of that other Fender model, starts with S, i fergit. but the pointy headstock is strictly from hell, and the ugly truss rod cover compounds the felony.

it's got a bit of fret wear, so it's been played some ... otherwise in pretty good shape. gonna string it up tomorrow and see how it sounds. haven't gotten under the hood yet, either, but plugged it into an amp to see what works. tapped the polepieces with a screwdriver and established that the pickups are all hot, but it's got a NASTY ground hum ... who knows, that might be the reason the previous owner dumped it.

i wondered if anybody knows anything about this axe and its ilk beyond what i've gleaned so far.it looks fairly well-made ... neck pocket's pretty snug, and it's got a Strat-type whang bar bridge, but no whang bar included. the nut appears to be ivory. it's got a couple of dings but in fair to good shape overall.

if you know anything about these fugly ducklings, please lemmeno!

[buddywayne]

I know nothing about it, but for a twenty it has gotta be a deal.

[LameLefty]

Ask over at the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum. Someone there will know the deal.

http://theunofficialmartinguitarforum.yuku.com/

[studio1087]

The Stinger line was imported and it was a Martin 1980's offering.

With midi and keyboards and New Wave music, the 80's were very tough on companies like Martin and Larrivee. Chris Martin and Jean Larrivee both had a solid body electric offering in the 80's to help fill in some lost profits.

A good friend of mine had a Stinger bass in college. The Stingers were all black or white. I don't think that I've ever seen a Stinger color besides black or white.

The quality was about the same as a middle of the road Ibanez guitar. I have not seen a Stinger in a while. It's a nice guitar with a neat story behind it. Great find for $20! Congratulations!

John

[Telehackster]

That's $20 well spent.

At first I thought you were going to say that she found one of those EM-18s that came out in the late 1970s:

[outbreak]

wow that headstock is the worst ive ever seen.
nice buy for that price though just the brand names worth it

[eichaan]

I picked up a Stinger STX (their Tele-ish guitar) last summer for a C note. This is what it looked like when I got it (note the traditional Strat style tremolo, and coil splittable humbucker):


I got it because I really wanted a Tele, and because the neck was AMAZING. The body is plywood, and combined with the trem routing it makes for a lightweight, very resonant guitar. It even has a bit of a semi-hollow sound through the amp.

I upgraded the pickups through GFS. Now it has a splittable NECK humbucker, and a P-90 at the bridge. I think it sounds super!



Good luck with yours!

[olewichita]

good enough for johnny gtr. watson... tj

[CharlieO]

This is my 1961 Martin 00-18E. I'm constantly asked questions like "Why did you ruin that great old guitar by putting a pickup on it?" I didn't "ruin" it, and either did Martin. It's a great-playing and sounding guitar, and the pickup is actually quite nice. It was good enough for Muddy Waters, so it's plenty good for me.

Obviously, Martin's experience with electric guitars was limited and not very successful, so any one of them has appeal as a "curiosity", and they're actually pretty nice guitars.

I don't know who got the better deal, you or me. I paid $100 for mine, and every one that I have seen recently on the internet is priced between $3000 and $4000. Maybe yours will get to that level some day.

[toadman]

hey woodman, just be careful you don't put an eye out with that thing!! sweat deal man!

[casterway]

At the very worst, fix it up and give it to a kid that could use it.

[woodman]

man, Charlie, i really like your hundred-bucker! now if one would just turn up at Goodwill ....

[woodman]

popped the hood this morning and it became quickly evident why the thing was humming like mad ... the white wire is soldered to the ground lug and runs to the ground on back of the vol pot, and there's a jumper running from the ground lug to the hot lug. there is no black wire (or any other color). my questions are this:

* who in their right mind would do this, and why? and how is it the pickups are even working at all? initial testing revealed all three working, as well as the vol control, even though there's no connection to the vol pot except the ground. ***EDITED*** a closer look reveals that there's a tiny jumper between the vol pot ground and the middle lug of the vol pot. it just keeps getting weirder!

* on a Strat, wouldn't the hot wire go from hot lug on the jack to the middle lug on the vol control?

guess i might not get it strung up today after all!

casterway, that was exactly what i had in mind -- get it working and set up, then give it to a kid (of whatever age) who'll play it but can't afford one.