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Offset fans, here's a guitar I bet you've never seen - Mercury Guitars


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2011-08-26_14-46-48_279.jpg

 

And I have 2 :love:

 

P1000026.jpg

 

Anyway, got these about 8 or so months ago and couldn't really find out much about them. The guy who sold them to me lived in Tennesse and said that there was less than 100 made and that Guy from Fugazi had one as well as Courtney Love from Hole. After some scouring it turns out that Courtney does indeed play on in the first Hole music video and ended up ripping of this design for the Squire Venus, her signature model:

 

squiervenus.jpg

 

I think I like mine better :D

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damn, those are pretty. could you give us droolers a quick explanation of all the switches, and also, how do those pickups sound?

 

Sure, the knobs are tone and volume and the switches are for coil tapping. Those are actually humbuckers that are stacked on top of each other instead of next to each other :eek: They sound great, especially through voxy amps, lots of chime and really fat sounding.

 

The whole story is actually over on the Offsetguitars forum

 

Long story short the original builders have been searching for them for 20 years or so(these were originally built in the early 90's) because neither of them has one. I eventually tracked down the builder, Tim, and just sold him the green one and he's planning on building them again. It was hard to let go of but I think the guy at the very least deserves to have one of his own guitars. He said there was nowhere near 100 built, more like 13. The whole story is in that 5 page thread and Tim actually chimes in there too. I'm excited for him but he's genuinely elated and said he's gonna give me #2 that they build in the new run. I guess karma works out sometimes :idk:

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Long story short the original builders have been searching for them for 20 years or so(these were originally built in the early 90's) because neither of them has one. I eventually tracked down the builder, Tim, and just sold him the green one and he's planning on building them again. It was hard to let go of but I think the guy at the very least deserves to have one of his own guitars. He said there was nowhere near 100 built, more like 13. The whole story is in that 5 page thread and Tim actually chimes in there too. I'm excited for him but he's genuinely elated and said he's gonna give me #2 that they build in the new run. I guess karma works out sometimes
:idk:

 

Very cool! Pretty rad looking guitars.

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So Fender just ripped them off, wholesale?

 

 

Yeah Tim said they built a guitar for Kurt Cobain and managed to get backstage at Lollapalooza with it to give to Kurt. "My god, it's gorgeous, but I'm left handed" was Kurt's response and Courtney immediately said "I'll take it!" Now shortly after that Tim and his best friend Danny, that he was building the guitars with, got kicked out of their house in Georgia and there was damage to the property so the landlord took their tools as payment. They were 18 when all this happened and just kind of moved on. Courtney tried to call them to get another guitar made but they couldn't do it without the tools so that was that. 6 months later Tim opens up Guitar Player magazine and sees his guitar in a full page ad, except it's got a Fender headstock on it and Courtney Love's name on it. He doesn't seem bitter just shocked that it happened like that. You're 18 and design a guitar that Fender later starts making, pretty crazy.

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That is nuts, and scary at the same time. Fender are powerful mother{censored}ers. What was an unknown 18 year old kid gonna do. Pretty insane how they got the guitar to Kurt too.

 

 

Yeah, I actually talked to Tim on the phone last week and he said he honestly doesn't know how it happened. They just went to the concert with the guitar and then talked one of the security guards into letting them backstage cause they had a guitar for Kurt and then there they were, two 18 year olds with a guitar just hanging out with all the musicians and wannabes backstage, sounded like a pretty good laugh.

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Those are pretty dang cool! Little Ric influence, little Charvel Surcaster, but definitely doing their own thing...


Would rock. Definitely cooler than the Venus!

 

 

I agree with all of this. Those look very nice! Do you have any clips of how they sound? How are the necks on them?

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I agree with all of this. Those look very nice! Do you have any clips of how they sound? How are the necks on them?

 

 

I don't have any clips but the necks are phenomenal! Tim said around the time they started making these it was all superstrats and jacksons as the craze but he liked old offsets and the colors(that greenish one is actually 57 ford blue) and he based the neck on the comfiest neck he had ever played, his late 80's super strat. I should make a trip down to Riverside and let you fool around with it, I know you dig the old Fenders and offsets.

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The line isn't perpendicular to the strings so I'd say it is, but only just.


And yes, it is a nice guitar.

 

indeed... 'just' ;)

 

the wonky pickups and bridge help with the look too. :)

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