Well, OK - I never got to finish The Blue Moon One again yesterday, as basically real life intervened once more, but I did take delivery of the rather cute Shergold Nu Meteor I mentioned last week.This was part of the 'deal' for The Pink Panther One and I must admit I'm chuffed it went that way.
But the guitar; Well, Shergold were a British guitar maker - with links to Burns - and the Nu Meteor was an upgraded version of 'The Meteor'.
Not an enormous success it has to be said and was only made between 1979 and 1981 according to the Shergold site, with only 40 guitars ever being made, with a list price in 1980 of £234.86.
OK, 40 guitars doesn't sound a lot, but around here feels something like mass-production.
As for my one - well, originally the Nu Meteor was a three single coil jobby, which was a new departure for Shergold, but my one has been converted to dual humbucker and has a home-made scratchplate.It surprised me (reading about it) that the Schaller tuners are likely to be originals, but I know the previous 'keeper' put a new bridge on this one, so all in all, not an artifact.
In terms of build - well, the body is a lot better looking than I expected, given the luke warmth of the response when this came out.
It has a kind of faux neck-thru look to it, and looking under the hood, the body is actually built that way, but the neck is bolt-on so I'm guessing it was 'design' rather than something practical.
The body itself is meant to be made of 'obeche, maple and mahogany' apparently, with the neck being maple and the fretboard rosewood. The pickups it comes with are DiMarzios, though originally it would have had Kent Armstrong single coils.There are some lovely touches to the guitar. I love the screwed on metal plate with the serial number and the headstock is beautiful - always loved them, and lets face it on such scarce guitars having the name of the model on the truss rod cover is always helpful.
Sound-wise, it is surprisingly mellow. The guitar is quite small - it apparently has a three quarter sized neck, though scale length is 24.75 - but the action is low and it really plays nicely.
The pickups surprised me as I was expecting something ludicrously high gain, but they are actually quite mellow (or can be) and tone-filled. It is a very easy guitar to play, if that makes sense, you just pick it up and lose half an hour without noticing.
But what to do with it?
Well, in truth I'm in two minds. I guess I should sort out the scratchplate, you can see the original outline on the body by the amount of fading around the scratchplates shape, but whether I should put it back to it's original state and go for three single coils or just put some screw holes in the existing one so that it is no longer held on by the strings, I don't know.
As for the finish, well I must admit I really rather like it as it is, it has aged nicely over the last thirty years and to be honest nothing immediately springs to mind - which is unusual as the first thing I usually think when I get a guitar is that it would look lovely in purple paisley with a matching scratchplate.So we will have to see. I have invested a fiver in some New-Old-Stock Shergold knobs from Ebay, and have stripped it down and given the fretboard some lemon oil and the body/neck a good clean and polish.
The Shergold web site is well worth a look, by the way, if you are vaguely interested in old guitars. And if this example is anything to go by, if you come across one cheap somewhere - and looking on Ebay the more expensive models only go for a couple of hundred quid - it might be worth a punt.
The Shergold web site is HERE... and I'd like to thank them for all the background info...
