Information on Alex Guitar

[TTG]

Hello everyone.

 

I recently received a guitar for servicing. There is claim that the guitar once belong to Alex. I thought I would investigate the matter.

 

Here are the details. The guitar is a deep red Signature guitar with black hardware. There are three nickel plated pickup switches for selecting between two single coils and a humbucker in the bridge position. The pickups are active and unlabelled but appear to be early EMGs. The guitar does not have serial number on it.

 

Does anyone have any information or possibly a picture of him using such an instrument ?

 

Thank you for your time.

 

Andrew

Edited March 14, 2007 by TTG

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Welcome, Andrew.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a pic of Alex with a red Signature guitar. He had a black one and a white one, but I've never seen any other colors. That doesn't mean he didn't own a red one, of course... And, I believe his Sigs had three single coils -- no humbuckers. Again, that doesn't mean Alex didn't own that guitar you have there.

 

My instinct says the guy is either lying about Alex owning it, or was misinformed by someone else. The fact that the serial number is missing is a huge red flag. No way to prove who previously owned it.

[Bluefunk]

Not sure if this is relevant- looks like a signature but it's difficult to tell whether it's red or that's just the lights... I also don't know what pickups those are!

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y288/Bluefunk/Lerxst1994.jpg

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QUOTE (Bluefunk @ Mar 14 2007, 08:02 PM)

Not sure if this is relevant- looks like a signature but it's difficult to tell whether it's red or that's just the lights... I also don't know what pickups those are! http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y288/Bluefunk/Lerxst1994.jpg

Sure that's relevant! Nice find! That's definitely a Signature. Look at his shirt -- he has yellow lights on him there, so the guitar is red. That's the first time I've seen him with a red one. And it's tough to see, but it looks like there could be a humbucker in the bridge position.

[TTG]

Thank you for the welcome.

 

My understand is that Alex had three Signature guitars during the Hold Your Fire tour. A white, a black, and a "dark vermillion" which is red. My thinking is it might be that tour guitar. This was during a time when I believe Alex was endorsing Signature guitars so he may have received some guitars from them without numbers.

 

QUOTE

Not sure if this is relevant- looks like a signature but it's difficult to tell whether it's red or that's just the lights... I also don't know what pickups those are!

 

Excellent! Thank you. There seems to be some discrepancies between what is in that picture and the one I have in the shop.

 

My machine heads are black those are chrome. My neck has dot inlays where that one appears to not have inlays except what might be a block inlay near the heel. My pickups do not have writing on them.

 

While the guitar may have belonged to Alex my guess is that this is not his tour guitar.

 

If anyone has anymore shots that would great just to confirm.

 

Andrew

Edited March 15, 2007 by TTG

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Here's a pic from a Signature tribute site. This model has a humbucker. Note how close the bucker is to the middle pickup:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v318/1001001/Guitars/sigredod.jpg

 

Now look again at the guitar Alex is playing:

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y288/Bluefunk/Lerxst1994.jpg

 

It looks like there's more space between those two pickups, which leads me to believe that guitar he's playing has a single coil in the bridge.

 

Andrew, Alex had his name in the 12th fret inlay on his white Sig. Not sure if his black one had it. In the above pic, the 12th fret is obscured (naturally), so we can't see if there's an inlay. Having your name (or whatever) in that inlay was an option for anybody, and since Alex was involved with the developement of the Signature company, it's easy to assume all his guitars would be personalized. I assume the guitar in your possession does not have such an inlay at the 12th fret?

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v318/1001001/Guitars/alinlay.jpg

 

The model name of the guitar was inlaid in mother of pearl at the 21st fret.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v318/1001001/Guitars/sig05.jpg

[TTG]

It appears in that concert shot that the inlay of his name or model name is in the 21st fret. This guitar does not have that inlay.

 

If it was Alex's guitar then it must have been one he had lying around but it is not that tour guitar.

 

Thanks to everyone for their help!

 

Andrew

Edited March 15, 2007 by TTG

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QUOTE (TTG @ Mar 14 2007, 08:32 PM)

I appears in that concert shot that the inlay of his name is in the 21st fret. This guitar does not have that inlay. If it was Alex guitar then it must have been one he had lying around but it is not that tour guitar. Thanks to everyone for their help! Andrew

See above. The 21st fret inlay is for the model of the guitar (in Alex's case, he played the Aurora). The inlay that would contain his name would be at the 12th fret.

[TTG]

No inlay at the 12th fret. Just a pair of dot inlays. Its looking less likely that this is the tour guitar. At most it was a guitar he had lying around. Good thing too as the work I have to do on it would have devalued the instrument quite a bit. I did not want to see a piece of history getting messed up.

 

Thanks again to everyone for their effort and time.

 

Andrew

Edited March 15, 2007 by TTG

[JoenataArctica]

is it still possible to obtain a signature guitar?

[TNT on PMS]

WOW, THIS IS A COOL THREAD . . .

TTG, do you have a picture of that guitar that you can post ?

It certainly is a lot of fun trying to authenticate .

That would be so cool if it was one of his .

There have to be a million and one ways to find out if it were one he used , even for just a short time .

 

 

[PW_Guitarist]

That is an interesting find - thanks for sharing. I'm a bit of a Signature buff so I thought I would chime in my 2 cents.

 

I knew Alex had a red Signature, but I never saw it up close (thanks for the pic, Bluefunk!). I have a picture of the 4 Signatures from the HYF tour from the April 1988 Guitar World, but the red one is not there. There are 2 deep blue/black, one deep purple and a white one. Only the white one has black hardware. Also, all of Alex's Signatures were bolt-on flat tops.

 

One clue is the fretboard dots - two of them have standard dots (the white and the purple ones), the other two deep blue ones have small micro-dots with a plate at the 21st fret. The off-the-shelf Signatures have micro-dots and plate at the 21st fret, so I always thought the standard fret dots were custom for Alex. None of his guitars had the vanity name plate on the 12th fret, so I thought that was just something in the Signature brochure.

 

Another clue is the switches - Alex's 4 guitars in the pic all have 3 micro-switches, but the one in Bluefunk's pic seems to have a 3-way switch (some of the Signatures had that option).

 

However, the pickup config was always the same on all of Alex's Signatures - 3 single coil Roy Evans pickups that said "Signature" on them, and a built-in preamp in the cavity. I suspect the humbucker at the bridge (Odyssey model) makes it unlikely to have been Alex's - he played the Aurora (3 singles with preamp). The Pegasus also had 3 singles, but no preamp.

 

My guess is it probably isn't Alex's, but I still feel bad it will be modified. These guitars are rare.

 

Hope this helps - any pics of the guitar in for servicing?

[TNT on PMS]

Such an interesting Thread!

I was hoping to see a pic when I came home from werk , to compare .

That would absolutely be something special to find out it was one of Alex's Ax's .

There was a similar situation a few years ago, a guy had this NY Yankee Jersey up for auction , was a Mickey mantle signed jersey, the guy that was auctioning it believed it to be just an autographed jersey, as people were looking at it and reserching it , it was found to be a GAME USED 1951 MANTLE JERSEY [ His rookie year ] and the way they found out was the placement of the NY on the crest , no two are exactly the same , but by looking at pics , and the actual herringbone style stitching in the pinstripes , it was found to be a Game Used . . . .a huge difference in worth !

So . . . . lets keep on digging, you never know what ya might have !

 

[TNT on PMS]

Man ! this stuff excites me so much. . . I can't wait for the next post !

[Tonyvenn01]

Greetings all......

 

I thought I'd check in with what I know about Signature guitars. I am a member at a few other guitar Forums, and its always a nice day when I get the chance to talk "Sigs"!!!

 

I currently own 2 Signatures...an Aurora and a Crusader, and over the years, I have owned 4 Sig guitars and a Sig bass.

 

Here's my Webshots page where you can take a peek at the 2 Sigs I currently have (plus some of my other gear)

 

http://community.webshots.com/user/tonyvenn

 

The "Aurora" model is complete with the little Panther patch like Alex's in "A Show Of Hands". That patch is a whole other story!!!

 

When researching Signatures on the net, I was lucky enough to come into contact with the founder himself, Russ Heinl.

 

Mr. Heinl is a photographer and was/is a friend of Alex's. Legend has it that Signatures were born one night while the two were "tweaking" out a bolt-on super-strat (I think a Kramer but I'm not sure)

 

Anyhow...they got it down to what Alex wanted (at that time) and Heinl started making them.

 

If I remember correctly, Larrivee and Godin assisted in the manufacture of some components, but they were assembled in Aurora, Ontario....just north of Toronto.

 

The very first serial number for production models was #0925. Don't read too much into that....because my Crusader has a blank neckplate with no serial number....sooo....

 

Signatures were exceptional guitars. They were made to take on the other "Super-Strat" companies of the 80's...Ibanez, Charvel, etc.....but unfortunately, their name wasn't well known, and they couldn't compete. Also...the 80's could be argued as a time of "style over substance". On that note, even though Sigs were built rock-solid with superior parts, they looked just like any other Strat at half the price...

 

Signature didn't last too long....and the final straw was when Alex lost "Great White" in a stage accident. Apparently, it was dropped during a 'hand-off' snapping the neck near the headstock. Signature was able to get a replacement neck to him on the road, but by then....it was too late.

 

Alex made the switch to PRS a short time later. If you look closely at some of his first PRS', you can see that the bridge pickup was replaced with an Evans single-coil.

 

It is believed that Signature only put out around 500 guitars total.

 

The "First Generation" were flat-top designs with bolt on necks. The "Second Generation" were carve-top designs with either a bolt on or neck-thru design (and the exposed natural edge binding---kinda like PRS---hhmmm). Harware was Signature-branded Schaller stuff (tuners, trems...) Pick-ups obviously were Evans...but the active stuff were alledgedly from Fernandes. Fretboards were ebony, nice and slick-a joy to play on.

 

As for Lifeson, he is most associated with the "Great White" Aurora model....active pickups. However, I had read that his guitars had just standard Evans pick-ups, and the active set-up was an option for customers.

 

Oh...how do they sound??? Dial in a little distortion and chorus and you can NAIL Alex's tone from Grace Under Pressure thru to Presto----no problem

 

Oh well.....that's it for me....excellent topic!!! Thanks for the floor.

 

 

Tony