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Fender Coronado...


lazarusvt84

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Mother's Day 1984 my girlfriend and I were in a junk shop and there was a pile of guitars in the corner, mostly Pac Rim bad stuff. There was a hollow body there, that had been painted red and had gold glitter sprinkled onto it. It was rough, cigarette burns in the headstock, etc. The trapeze tailpiece had a big backwards F on it, which made me pick it up and check it out. I flipped it over and the tuners also had the F logo. Ditto the neck plate. I had bought a copy of American Guitars a few months earlier and vaguely recalled something similar. The price? $49.99. Yeah, I bought it.

 

I was able to wet sand the red paint off the headstock, revealing the original logo on the black face. I stripped the body and urethaned it natural. I made a new nut for it and did a little patching on the wiring. It was a wonderful guitar! I think the pickups were made by DeArmond and it just had a great feel and sound. The neck was basically a Jazzmaster neck.

 

If I can find pics I'll post them. I may even have a before and after.

 

I lost it in a horse trade but owned it a couple more times over the next couple years. The last time I got it back, it was in a grocery bag.

 

A friend had made a 2" thick maple Strat body and I eventually put the Coronado neck on it. I painted the body and headstock Cadillac brown metallic, with a cream Tele guard, a Bill Lawrence mini humbucker in front and a '52 Tele reissue pickup in the back, mounted in a Tele Bigsby bridge with Bigsby.

 

The body sat around for a year, then I was out of work so in desperation I threw together a frankenstein guitar to try and sell to buy food and heating oil. I sprayed the Coronado body black and mounted a '63 Jaguar neck on it, along with a 60s P90 and what I believe was an original PAF humbucker. I think I got $150 for it and was darned happy to get it. I shudder to think what those parts would have brought now.

 

Would I own another Coronado? Oh you bet I would.

 

Yes, I'm long winded. There's always a back story.

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On the left is the Coronado as I got it. On the right is after I refinished it. Also in the pic is the $100 basket case ES-295 I quasi-restored. Quasi because I didn't know it was supposed to be ALL GOLD, not Les Paul-ish gold.

 

14uyk5s.jpg

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This takes me way back. Didn't think I'd ever tell this story...

 

After I started playing electric guitar in the early 70's, my uncle played my LP Copy and went out and bought a used 67 Coronado II. It was 3-color sunburst. By around 1978 I didn't have time for guitar (cars, partying and girls filled my time) so I gave my guitar to my uncle. He really liked the way my LP Copy played.

 

Fast forward to the early 1990's. I moved out of state and hadn't seen my uncle other than a few times in the early 90's when I moved back. When he passed away in around 1991, his daughters gave me back my LP copy and also his Coronado. About 10 years later, my two boys (about 9 and 12 years old at the time) found them and started playing. The Coronado was nice but not what they were into at the time. We ended up trading it for a new Ibanez Joe Satrini. It was about an even money trade at the time, considering I was dealing with a music store. The Coronado was mint, played extremely well, just a bit on the bright side and really not what they wanted to be playing at the time (Metallica, AC/DC etc. at that age).

 

Anyway, that's what started me playing again after many years away from it. That's the only guitar I wish I had back of the ones that have passed my hands since.

 

The Antigua ones seem to be worth a bit more. I'm not real fond of the color of them though. Thed did Strats and I think Teles in Antigua too. That price seems to be in line with today's pricing if it's near mint. Chris Isaac is one artist that used to use them.

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My uncle Ruben had one and my mom always mentions it so I knew about it.

He liked it and regrets getting rid of it, same as Blue.

 

Damn, ya'll are making me paranoid about letting go of gear [flapper]

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My uncle Ruben had one and my mom always mentions it so I knew about it.

He liked it and regrets getting rid of it, same as Blue.

 

Damn, ya'll are making me paranoid about letting go of gear [flapper]

 

Don't be afraid to move on. Looking back, there are a lot of other guitars I'd rather have more than that one.

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I would sell a kidney to own a Coronado-especially a Wildwood Coronado II or XII-they had such a warm tone but for some very strange reason they didn't catch on but these days people are starting to find out,over 40 years after the fact,that Coronados were great sounding and playing guitars.At the time they were Fender's only hollow body electric and the combination of the hollow body and the unique sounding P-90 like (I believe) pickups gave it a tone all of its own. A few years later Fender came out with its first humbucker equipped hollow body-the Starcaster (not to be confused with the present Starcaster which is a POS quasi Fender.The mid 70s Starcaster was a great guitar with an offset body that gave it a look that you'd expect if a 335 mated with a Strat.Anyway Randy Bachman endorsed and used them in that timeframe and as far as I know,that's what he used to do the cool leads in BTO's "Blue Collar".

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1369704096[/url]' post='1380302']

My uncle Ruben had one and my mom always mentions it so I knew about it.

He liked it and regrets getting rid of it, same as Blue.

 

Damn, ya'll are making me paranoid about letting go of gear [flapper]

 

Don't let go of anything unless you're absolutely broke. I let go of a few and have some regrets about most of 'em. They are worth something now but they would also be 30+ years old now.

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Yeah, I'd agree that if you ain't in a real financial crunch, don't dump.

 

Also, a determination I made around 35 years ago: If you can't afford a new guitar or firearm without a trade - you can't afford it. I lost too many valuable historic pieces now worth perhaps well into the thousands and got maybe $15-200 for them in trades for "more modern" or "more appropriate" arms or guitars. Like that old orange Gretsch.

 

m

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