The Melody Bird Is For Sale Starting At $2399
The one-off MelodyBird is ready for its customer to specify the rest of the details and take delivery. Pricing starts at $2499. To find out what you get for your money, what the options are, and to see some more cellphone photos of a guitar that really should be photographed by a professional, click the jump.
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The MelodyBird started as a way for Chris to blow off steam during his work day. With a steady stream of replicas and custom work going out the door, to say nothing of the MelodyBurners in progress, he was looking to do something completely unique.
So. It's a set-neck reverse-Firebird I style guitar. There are ten main pieces of wood involved:
Deep chocolate Brazilian Rosewood fretboard with no markers and handmade flame-maple binding. If you're out of the United States, the MelodyBird is probably not legal for export due to CITES. I apologize for that.
A white limba (Korina) center block with walnut trim stripes, aged mahogany wings, and a flame maple trim cap. This was time-consuming to assemble, to put it mildly. It's hide-glued, of course.
A walnut/flame maple/walnut three-piece neck, angled and routed properly.
It's nitro-finished and mirror-glossy. No relic treatment here, and don't ask Chris to do that, either. In fact, if you buy the guitar and you drop it, we're just going to keep that a secret. He's very attached.
Base configuration for the MelodyBird will be with a Seymour Duncan humbucker of your choice at the bridge position, Steinberger 40:1 tuners, CTS pots, and nickel TonePros hardware. Set up that way, it's $2499. But you have options:
Sheptone pickup $50 extra
Route for neck humbucker and add Sheptones at both positions $150
Throbak MXV series pickups $300
RS Guitarworks wiring or JonesyBlues wiring $50
SKB travel case $200
No electronics --- $300 credit
Inquiries should be sent to sales@melodyburner.com, which I finally managed to get working (I'd forgotten to edit the Exim configuration at my local mailserver, oops).
I need somebody to buy this so it doesn't get added to my collection, so let's get cracking. There's a money-back guarantee for qualified buyers --- contact me for details. As much as I'd love to have the Bird on my wall, it so happens that Chris finally finished my mahogany '59 replica, which you can see here:
I suppose if someone wanted the Vee I could sell it to them and then buy the Bird out of stock with the money, right? So if you're interested in a very historically accurate, Sheptone-equipped '59 Vee that just happens to be made out of heavily ribboned, fifty-year-old mahogany instead of Korina, feel free to drop me a line on that, alright?