[jump5fan]

how good are the guitars that Memphis makes? we are going to be getting a used Memphis eletric guitar (don't know what model) from someone for free and i was wondering what everyone's thoughts are about Memphis guitars because i don't know very much at all about them.

[RipVanWinkle]

It really depends...Memphis guitars come in 2 flavors typically.

Many of them are really solid...set neck, or neck through with quality components.

Then, the more common ones seem to be much cheaper. From what I've seen, the cheaper ones are strat style with junk parts...but you never know...you may be pleasantly suprised

[gtrdave]

My first electric was a Memphis Les Paul copy.
Bolt neck, thin body, made in Korea...it was a decent guitar for me at the time.

[Major Tom]

Wide range. I have a MIJ 70's Memphis set neck LP copy made by Greco that is on par with a Gibson, honduras mahog, real maple cap, etc. what I call authentic LP recipe. In fact its "better" than Gibby was making in the 70's, since they were using 3 piece maple necks - very un-lespaulish. Some of the earlier japanese Memphii were ok, but not as good as the later stuff, like '76 and later. There were also some MIJ strat copies, probably teles too, that are supposed to be good. At some point they quit using the japanese mfr.'s and used Korean I think (or was it Indonesian?) mfr's, but not on par with what you see today from Korea. I've seen some that looked pretty junky. The bolt on Korean Memphis I bought as a project guitar had a plywood body, and needed some minor work - neck to body fit, frets, etc. to make it playable. It sounded good though, and ws a decent ax when I was done with it. Bottom line - it could be a gem or a turd. I'd say the majority of axes I see with Memhis on the head, probably 80 - 90% fall more toward the turd side.

Here's one I just bought on ebay. It looks to be an MIJ, post-1976 due to the headstock shape, very possibly from a different factory than the Fujigengakki-made one I have, It may even be Tokai made.

Keep us posted.

[Hopeful]

Originally Posted by Major Tom

Wide range. I have a MIJ 70's Memphis set neck LP copy made by Greco that is on par with a Gibson, honduras mahog, real maple cap, etc. what I call authentic LP recipe. In fact its "better" than Gibby was making in the 70's, since they were using 3 piece maple necks - very un-lespaulish. Some of the earlier japanese Memphii were ok, but not as good as the later stuff, like '76 and later. There were also some MIJ strat copies, probably teles too, that are supposed to be good. At some point they quit using the japanese mfr.'s and used Korean I think (or was it Indonesian?) mfr's, but not on par with what you see today from Korea. I've seen some that looked pretty junky. The bolt on Korean Memphis I bought as a project guitar had a plywood body, and needed some minor work - neck to body fit, frets, etc. to make it playable. It sounded good though, and ws a decent ax when I was done with it. Bottom line - it could be a gem or a turd. I'd say the majority of axes I see with Memhis on the head, probably 80 - 90% fall more toward the turd side.

Here's one I just bought on ebay. It looks to be an MIJ, post-1976 due to the headstock shape, very possibly from a different factory than the Fujigengakki-made one I have, It may even be Tokai made.

Keep us posted.

I think the one we have is in the turd category, especially the tuners. Take a pointy headstock with a short scale, single humbucker, volume and tone knob, and the sum of the parts might equal the $25 my son paid for it. At one point, I thought I had it set up pretty good, then the "tuners" went out of tune. But, they were the crappy open geared ones. I can say that we got what we paid for!

[jump5fan]

well we were going to get a memphis guitar but i guess the guy who we were getting it from gave us a nicer guitar. it is a Ibanez GIO. i'l post some pictures when i get the chance.

[funkStrat_97]

My first electric was a Memphis Strat copy. It was ok, but it was a cheap guitar with bargin basement tuners, the pickups consisted of six steel poles with a pair of ceramic bar magnets to energize them, and a pretty nice black metalic finish. I got many years of service out of that bad boy and in a strange way, I actually miss it sometimes. Before it was all over, I changed the neck and bridge pickups to Seymour Duncans (SSL -6 I think), swapped out the original tuners for American Standard units. I did this after upgrading my American Standard to Sperzel locking tuners and my original American Standard pickguard got swapped out too after replacing it with a pearloid gaurd. The Memphis also had a narrow (metric) string spacing and I replaced the bridge with a used Strat style trem that had standard spacing. The trem was blocked BTW. One thing that stands out about that guitar is that it was quite heavy.

One other thing; to my knowlege, Memphis does not actually make guitars. They are what is refered to as a "contract brand". The guitars themselves are made by various factories and manufactures (including Samick, which also make thier own brand) and contracted to be branded "Memphis" by whoever happens to own the brand name. I don't thing that Memphis branded guitars have been made since 1997 or 98 though.

[presbystrat]

Originally Posted by funkStrat_97

the pickups consisted of six steel poles with a pair of ceramic bar magnets to energize them.

Sounds like the pickups on a Standard MIM Strat.