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Sunday, August 31, 2014

From the Past #2: Early Bacchus Live Road / Vintage Series

This Bacchus Live Road is the oldest one I have seen up close. There are a few things that make it different from the later Vintage Series models including lack of serial number and a medium offset tenon. I am not sure if it is a BLS-95 or earlier but my understanding is that the BLS-120s onward would have had a long tenon and generally had serial numbers. 

Two-piece maple top with a 1-piece mahogany back. The guitar was finished in lacquer.






I switched the larger Gotoh bridge for a Tokiwa vintage style ABR.


Decent fretboard wood with some nice looking inlay patterns. This had jumbo frets unlike the later BLS-59 guitars.


You can see some of the chips and scratches on the headstock but there was no headstock finish clouding like with some of the later BLS-120 models.

 Medium offset tenon.


1 comment:

  1. Hello!
    I happen to have a Live Road with almost the same specs like this in the picture. It is in heritage cherry (no flames) finish with 60s neck. No serial number and offset long tenon neck joint. The pickups were changed to Burstbucker 1 and 2 at one pont. Otherwise it is all original. It really sounds great with great sustain and classic vibe sound. Compareable to a Gibson.
    Mine Bacchus is not very heavy. Do you think they did weight relief? I have heard somewhere that they used Honduras Mahogany in these early Live Road copies.
    One more question: I have really no idea how much my guitar is worth. It has some dings here and there, som minor scratches, but it is in a really good condition. No broken neck. Could you please help me to identify the estimated value of my guitar.
    Thank you!
    Sandor

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