Dearmond M75 Purple Haze Mystery & pernickety stuff

[LeFinPepere]

hello! Bought this used DeA M75 used, 3 days ago, cleaned it and took some pictures. Hope this might be useful to Dearmond aficionados and lovers of obscure details on Korean-made pseudo-Guild guitars.Could not afford a NS Bluesbird itb (I'm afraid they are going to be discontinued!), could not resist the Moon Blue DeA with the harp,very glad about it.(But the BB is still lurking in my mind!)Now , here it goes, photos and commentaries, no precise order, hope I will do it right, not sure if this is a thread or what, who cares?

Front view -body

THE harp!

Rear-view: back is obviously at least 2 pieces of wood.Now, trouble is , I do not know where to type my text, pics go moving around haphazardly as I do, I will edit it as best I can, if you have some tips, thank you, I 'd like to have pics and commentary side-by side in a regular manner, but , as I feared, the dreaded informatical-tool seems to function in a way that I can't figure,why can't I close that preview-thing? Ok, I post this as it is , ,and send the rest of the pics in new posts...

 

[GGJaguar]

Welcome to LTG! Your DeArmond is very pretty, I love the purple color!! Thanks for sharing.

 

[LeFinPepere]

Thank you GGJaguar, but it is NOT purple, it is Moon Blue!(Or is it Tyrian Purple?Or"The Color Formerly Known As Purple"? Definitely not "Eggplant Blue"!!

 

[matsickma]

Yep...definitly not the purple!
These M75 Dearmonds are nice guitars and were a great addition to the Guild import models when Fender to trying to expand the Guild line. The Gold Tone humbuckers are great pickups and more in line with HB1 than the humbuckers of the day. They are not heavily wound so can be a liitle bright. I have still held on to my Sunburst DeArmond M75.
A subtle note is that, if I recall correctly, is the Goldtone humbuckers only were installed on the Korean made model guitars: Jetstar, M70, M72, M75, M77, Starfire Custom (aka SF4), X135 and X155. The Indonesia made guitars, which have bolt on necks come with chrome cover or black bobbin humbuckers. They are the more heavily wound ceramic magnetic types with thick distortion. Their is an exception to this rule. One the Korean made X145 and one or two Indonesian humbucker guitars a 3rd humbucker which had the Gretsch shaped "H" cutout in the humbucker cover. I have never heard this pickup but assume it is different from the models I mentioned earlier.
I only mentioned this about the 6 string guitars with humbuckers. Their are other models with single coils or 7-strings that are seperate from the 6-string midels.
M

 

[matsickma]

Update: Forgot to include the excellent Korean made S73 (aka '70's S100 Polara type guitar.)
M

 

[walrus]

Very cool, LFP! Congratulations!

walrus

 

[LeFinPepere]

Very cool, LFP! Congratulations!

walrus

Thank you Walrus!

 

[LeFinPepere]

Yep...definitly not the purple!
These M75 Dearmonds are nice guitars and were a great addition to the Guild import models when Fender to trying to expand the Guild line. The Gold Tone humbuckers are great pickups and more in line with HB1 than the humbuckers of the day. They are not heavily wound so can be a liitle bright. I have still held on to my Sunburst DeArmond M75.
A subtle note is that, if I recall correctly, is the Goldtone humbuckers only were installed on the Korean made model guitars: Jetstar, M70, M72, M75, M77, Starfire Custom (aka SF4), X135 and X155. The Indonesia made guitars, which have bolt on necks come with chrome cover or black bobbin humbuckers. They are the more heavily wound ceramic magnetic types with thick distortion. Their is an exception to this rule. One the Korean made X145 and one or two Indonesian humbucker guitars a 3rd humbucker which had the Gretsch shaped "H" cutout in the humbucker cover. I have never heard this pickup but assume it is different from the models I mentioned earlier.
I only mentioned this about the 6 string guitars with humbuckers. Their are other models with single coils or 7-strings that are seperate from the 6-string midels.
M

Thank you , this means I bought a MIK Fender in disguise!

 

[GGJaguar]

Thank you GGJaguar, but it is NOT purple, it is Moon Blue!

I know, but it looks blue-purple on my computer monitor. I still like the color very much no matter what it's called.

 

[gjmalcyon]

I had the exact same guitar - harp tailpiece, deep blue, DeArmond USA gold tone pickups. Fun to play but heavy.

You often find these guitars separated from their original DeArmond pickups - people buy the guitars, pull the DeArmonds and sell them separately, then stuff in some crap pickups and sell the guitar.

 

[LeFinPepere]

Not on this one ,they did'nt!

 

[LeFinPepere]

This guitar weighs 4 kgs 50 grams , or 8,92 lbs. Not over-heavy. 4 kgs of feathers , or 4 kgs of lead? depends on my mood!

 

[LeFinPepere]

Oh, yeah, forgot about the harp: it functions like a trash-can! All kinds of dirty , sticky, brown stuff get trapped at the bottom of it, where the D is, I unscrewed the thing to clean it, and I swear it was full of disgusting goo from 20 years ago!

 

[krysh]

Oh, yeah, forgot about the harp: it functions like a trash-can! All kinds of dirty , sticky, brown stuff get trapped at the bottom of it, where the D is, I unscrewed the thing to clean it, and I swear it was full of disgusting goo from 20 years ago!

too bad, now you have destroyed the mojo.....

 

[LeFinPepere]

ah, no, I 've got my mojo workin'!

 

[Bonneville88]

Congrats on a cool guitar! Love my set-neck DeArmonds and Squiers,
been growing the collection

 

[SFIV1967]

Congratulations! Made in 1999.

Has an Agathis body with a carved maple top and a mahogany neck.

The Moon Blue one was also in the 1999 catalog:

Ralf

 

[Guildedagain]

C'est le pied ;]

 

[LeFinPepere]

Congrats on a cool guitar! Love my set-neck DeArmonds and Squiers,
been growing the collection

Nice! The one on the left is the Purplepink (can you say that?)sister of mine. I have an eye on the squiers, I think there is a x155 copy, sometimes for not much money...

 

[LeFinPepere]

Congratulations! Made in 1999.

Has an Agathis body with a carved maple top and a mahogany neck.

The Moon Blue one was also in the 1999 catalog:

Ralf

Oh, yes , it sparkles with Total Sonic Response!(Sounds like some war-movie scene "General,we're surrounded! What can we do?"-"I think we can try the Total Sonic Response, Mr President!"-But....you know that means...the end of the Civilized World!!...)