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The back story: I've been guitar shopping for about the last month. Several guitars piqued my interest but I just hadn't found one that really stood out as the obvious choice. Every guitar on my list had something about it that was a bit of a compromise. Being a data oriented individual, my solution to this quandary was to evaluate each of the 20+ guitars I was considering by applying a numeric rating to how closely they matched my preferences in several categories. The categories included neck shape, fret size and material, weight, novelty of tones or features relative to my other guitars, price, subjective appearance, and so on. I then used these ratings to give each instrument an overall score by applying a weighted sum to the individual factor scores. This score allowed me to rank order the guitars.
The top ranked guitar happened to be a mint condition used Suhr Pete Thorn HSS in finished in graphite metallic that was available locally. It is a visually stunning guitar, it has stainless steel jumbo frets, and it was a good price. I contacted the seller and he was able to sweeten the deal since it would be a local cash transaction. Obviously, that's a huge plus for both parties (no seller's fees, no shipping headaches / costs, no sales tax, and the ability to inspect the instrument in person before making the purchase). We had arranged to meet this past Sunday and I had the cash in hand to make the deal. Through a twist of fate, the seller forgot about our meeting and made last minute plans to be out of town for the entirety of the weekend. When I contacted him the day before the meeting to confirm that we were still on, he realized his oversight and apologized. That was kind of a bummer, but it wasn't a major problem and we made arrangements to meet this coming Saturday.
With another week to mull things over, I kept thinking about the purchase. Even though it was a great deal and I loved the way the guitar looks, I wasn't that enthused at the prospect of buying another HSS strat (I've got two of those already) that weighed 8 pounds (my personal limit on acceptable guitar weight) and that had a thicker neck profile than I was hoping for. None of those factors are deal breakers for me, but I just had this feeling that I might be making too many compromises. Looking again at my list of options, I concluded that it was objectively the best overall balance of what I was looking for compared to the others on the list. I was pretty sure that I'd like it, but was also nearly certain that it had no chance of becoming my favorite guitar. I decided to keep my eyes out for other options throughout the coming days and to expand my search. Although there were a few additional guitars that made it onto my spreadsheet, I didn't find anything that I liked as much as the Pete Thorn HSS.
While perusing the guitar emporium at TOP, I noticed a listing from Morgan Music stating that they have open build slots for Tom Anderson guitars to be delivered in June 2024. This is the same dealer through which I had ordered my current #1 guitar (an Anderson Angel). I had previously ruled out another custom build due to the combination of wait time and cost. Buying used in mint condition is generally a better bang for buck proposition. The prospect of a shortened wait time combined with my inability to find a guitar that I was actively enthused about lowered my inhibitions and I decided to submit a couple of build configurations for quotes. After a few of rounds of back and forth refinements, we were able to come up with something that ticked every box of what I was looking for that was also within a few dollars of my desired budget.
TL/DR: I decided to put in a custom order for a Tom Anderson Li'l Angel Player and I'm pretty excited about it.
It will have exactly the neck profile and frets that I want, will be finished in a cool color that is totally different from any of my current guitars, and it will feature a 24.75 inch scale length on a super strat platform. I love how easy it is to bend on short scale guitars and I love super stat ergonomics. I think that's going to be a great combination. Another way in which this guitar will stand out from my current collection is the decked 2-point trem setup. That will allow me to play double stops and tune to drop D while also being able to do dives and subtle pitch detuning. All of my other guitars are either fully floating or hard tail setups right now. I'm taking a bit of a risk on the weight aspect since you never know how that will turn out until it is done, but I've never seen an Anderson guitar that weighed more than 8 pounds, so I think it's a safe bet. I'm really hoping that it will be under 7 pounds since that is the case for many Anderson guitars I've seen. This build has a real potential to become my new #1 guitar. June is going to be a fun month for gear!
The top ranked guitar happened to be a mint condition used Suhr Pete Thorn HSS in finished in graphite metallic that was available locally. It is a visually stunning guitar, it has stainless steel jumbo frets, and it was a good price. I contacted the seller and he was able to sweeten the deal since it would be a local cash transaction. Obviously, that's a huge plus for both parties (no seller's fees, no shipping headaches / costs, no sales tax, and the ability to inspect the instrument in person before making the purchase). We had arranged to meet this past Sunday and I had the cash in hand to make the deal. Through a twist of fate, the seller forgot about our meeting and made last minute plans to be out of town for the entirety of the weekend. When I contacted him the day before the meeting to confirm that we were still on, he realized his oversight and apologized. That was kind of a bummer, but it wasn't a major problem and we made arrangements to meet this coming Saturday.
With another week to mull things over, I kept thinking about the purchase. Even though it was a great deal and I loved the way the guitar looks, I wasn't that enthused at the prospect of buying another HSS strat (I've got two of those already) that weighed 8 pounds (my personal limit on acceptable guitar weight) and that had a thicker neck profile than I was hoping for. None of those factors are deal breakers for me, but I just had this feeling that I might be making too many compromises. Looking again at my list of options, I concluded that it was objectively the best overall balance of what I was looking for compared to the others on the list. I was pretty sure that I'd like it, but was also nearly certain that it had no chance of becoming my favorite guitar. I decided to keep my eyes out for other options throughout the coming days and to expand my search. Although there were a few additional guitars that made it onto my spreadsheet, I didn't find anything that I liked as much as the Pete Thorn HSS.
While perusing the guitar emporium at TOP, I noticed a listing from Morgan Music stating that they have open build slots for Tom Anderson guitars to be delivered in June 2024. This is the same dealer through which I had ordered my current #1 guitar (an Anderson Angel). I had previously ruled out another custom build due to the combination of wait time and cost. Buying used in mint condition is generally a better bang for buck proposition. The prospect of a shortened wait time combined with my inability to find a guitar that I was actively enthused about lowered my inhibitions and I decided to submit a couple of build configurations for quotes. After a few of rounds of back and forth refinements, we were able to come up with something that ticked every box of what I was looking for that was also within a few dollars of my desired budget.
TL/DR: I decided to put in a custom order for a Tom Anderson Li'l Angel Player and I'm pretty excited about it.
It will have exactly the neck profile and frets that I want, will be finished in a cool color that is totally different from any of my current guitars, and it will feature a 24.75 inch scale length on a super strat platform. I love how easy it is to bend on short scale guitars and I love super stat ergonomics. I think that's going to be a great combination. Another way in which this guitar will stand out from my current collection is the decked 2-point trem setup. That will allow me to play double stops and tune to drop D while also being able to do dives and subtle pitch detuning. All of my other guitars are either fully floating or hard tail setups right now. I'm taking a bit of a risk on the weight aspect since you never know how that will turn out until it is done, but I've never seen an Anderson guitar that weighed more than 8 pounds, so I think it's a safe bet. I'm really hoping that it will be under 7 pounds since that is the case for many Anderson guitars I've seen. This build has a real potential to become my new #1 guitar. June is going to be a fun month for gear!
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