WTB DeArmond M-68

[Dylan McGee Jones]

Hello all!

I am looking to pickup a DeArmond M-68 in black/grey sparkle if anybody is considering letting one go. I bought one on Reverb last year and the buyer totally flaked and i got my money back. It was a bummer. See link below for reference.

Thanks!

DeArmond M68 | Reverb

Really cool guitar. Basically, a stop tail and bolt on version of the M75. The pickups sound great and the guitar plays well. Epiphone gig bag included.

reverb.com

Dylan

 

[Bonneville88]

Dylan, will keep an eye out - IME that's one of the models that doesn't show up
as often as some of the other bolt-on neck DeArmonds.

 

[Dylan McGee Jones]

Yea I almost had two actually, one was black/grey sparkle like the above image, the other was a M68 stoptail version in moon blue with white DeArmond pickups and a DeArmond soft case. I’ve never seen another, does this model exist anywhere?

 

[SFIV1967]

a M68 stoptail version in moon blue with white DeArmond pickups and a DeArmond soft case. I’ve never seen another, does this model exist anywhere?

Interesting. The 2001 catalog showed only those two images:



Ralf

 

[Dylan McGee Jones]

This is it, i should have grabbed it when it could. My guess is it is a M68, but they normally have block inlays and a harp tailpiece. Even the catalog has dot inlays like the image above, so again, awesome attention to manufacturing details lol! This could have been a prototype, it was for sale in Arizona and the Fender factory has lots of 'alumni' on the West Coast so who knows. The gig bag looks like a cheap Fender gig bag from that era as well. The headstock would indicate that this is a 00'-01'. Any info is welcome!

 

[Bonneville88]

Very interesting!
To me, it looks like someone removed the original harp on an M-68 and retro-fitted a stop tailpiece.
Edit - nope, the fretboard inlays are dot instead of block, looking at the other M68 pics I can find -
and there aren't many photos compared to the other DeArmond models.
Could have been a prototype -the rest look like this example below. Or the early production
had dot inlays and later switched to block?
No Chesterfield inlay on example below, perhaps that came and went also.

 

[Dylan McGee Jones]

Very interesting!
To me, it looks like someone removed the original harp on an M-68 and retro-fitted a stop tailpiece.
Edit - nope, the fretboard inlays are dot instead of block, looking at the other M68 pics I can find -
and there aren't many photos compared to the other DeArmond models.
Could have been a prototype -the rest look like this example below. Or the early production
had dot inlays and later switched to block?
No Chesterfield inlay on example below, perhaps that came and went also.

The M-68's don't have a Chesterfield inlay, but do have those cheap plastic bloc inlays, no binding on the neck, the better keystone tuners then the lower models, a DeArmond harp tailpiece, and clear pick guard with clear knobs. The one above also has a toggle switch installed, maybe out of phase switch? Definitely not original.

The Metallic Black model is interesting because there are examples that range from black, to grey, to green-ish. I even saw one with the 'pearl' DeArmond logo on the higher end models instead of the pained gold one. The color variation is probably due to how they were kept, but much like the M-75T with the sparkle tops, the environment can really change the color of the guitar.