Be ready for the longest post on Jag-Stang.com history (I think, or maybe not now that I've gone back and seen how long this actual post is...I thought it would be longer)...I've got TWENTY guitars, including 3 that are 3000 miles away at mom's house, but will come home eventually when I have the time/money/resources to do it. I am in no ways rich, and most of my guitars are what most snobs would call "cheap overseas crap", but I happen to like cheap guitars, a lot, as modification is one of my past-times.
1.) Fender Jag-Stang w/ EMG Pickups
2.) Fender Jaguar w/ Seymour Duncan Cool Rails
3.) 66' Fender Mustang
4.) Squier Jagmaster w/ DiMarzio/Peavey pickups and Floyd Rose
5.) Squier Affinity Telecaster Special
6.) Squier Stagemaster-7
7.) Home-Built Mutt Stratocaster
8.) Home Built Mutt Explorer
9.) First Act Discovery "Kids" Guitar
10.) First Act ME-537
11.) First Act ME-636
12.) Harmony H-802 with Arbor neck and Lawrence XL-500
13.) j. Reynolds Lefty Stratocaster
14.) Dana/Zenta/Sears Telecaster Copy
15.) Lauren Acoustic
16.) Yamaha G-245S II Classical
17.) Epiphone AJ-8SCE Acoustic/Electric
18.) Casio DG-10 Digital Guitar
19.) Carlo-Robelli Superstrat
20.) 85' Kramer Focus 3000
Body shape/feel: The favorite body depends on weather I'm sitting or standing. I like the Jaguar and Jagmaster a lot sitting down, but live I prefer the Jag-Stang's body, it just fits perfectly, pretty much ditto for the Mustang too. The most uncomfortable is the Lauren acoustic, which was given to me for free.
Neck: The Jag-Stang wins on this one hands down, with my Mutt strat in a very very close 2nd, however, the Jaguar and Mustang come to an even tie in that I don't like 25.5" scale as much as I prefer the 24" scale. The worst necks go to the first acts or the Lauren, the First Acts feel like the strings are too high at the nut when they are not, and the Lauren's string spacing is so small it makes chords difficult, but as they are "playaround guitars", and I only have any current serious plans for the ME-636 anyway, I'll stick to those.
Colour/finish: The best finish on any guitar in my collection is tough to pick, since most of them are dented and dinged all to hell, especially if I play a particular guitar a lot. Plus looks are not as important to me as how they sound.
Neck pickup: The Jag-Stang by far, with the Jaguar in close second for this interesting high-pitched harmonic whine I get when playing leads on the rhythm circuit. The Jag-Stang does it all though, on one measly little single coil EMG pickup, with no coil tap or phase changes. Sounds very middle+bridge stratty when combined with the EMG 81 in the bridge with the right amp, which is another favorite sound of mine. The worst neck pickup...the First Act ME-xxx guitars, as they don't have one on them. I want to get a second ME-636 pickup to install on the 636 in the neck.
Middle Pickup: I don't use this one a lot, but I'll include it since there are some Strats in here. My pick is most likely the 85' Kramer, as while it does not yet have a phase reversal on it, that does not mean I can't hook one up very easily using the current switch holes and routing. Other than that, I tend to go for a very generic sound when using the midd+bridge. I rarely ever use the middle pickup alone, and usually when I do, it's only when playing blues.
Bridge Pickup: The best sounding one to me is the Jag-Stang, just due to to the combination of the pickups insane high output (being an active EMG 81 and all), and that the over-powering treble bleed on the volume knob allows me to back it down to a much thinner Telecaster-like sound when the job calls for. Hence why that is my main guitar since I'm on the bridge pickup most of the time. The second best goes to the Jaguar, though it takes first place when it comes to drop tuning because it still sounds warm and punchy like a Jaguar should to my ears, but unlike a humbucker guitar (ahem..."normal" humbucker guitar), it has a tighter sound when drop tuned, which is essential because I hate it when guitarists drop tune but make each note an indistinguishable pile of mush. I'm starting to like my Mustang for this reason too, added on to the overall of having phase reverse.
Vibrato: Jag-Stang and Mustang tie for this one, with the Jaguar 2nd best. The Fender Dynamic Vibrato I have been abusing for almost 10 years now still stands up fine and stays in tune perfectly, while I have a pile of Floyd Rose trems that are less as used yet almost twice as old, and break strings, go out of tune, and have problems due to the same wear and tear the Mustang vibrato has but seems to work fine in spite. The Jaguar trem is it's own special beast with the 3rd bridge, allowing me to do some really wacky stuff including behind the bridge harmonics. The worst vibrato out of the lot goes to my Strat bridge guitars, which are still not that bad, but are very tempermental, and the problem is, with so many makers and tiny details, they each like something a little different, and that makes the task of setting them up to stay in tune rather difficult.
Sentimental value: The most sentimental is my Jag-Stang, that one is the only one that I actually call by a name other than what's on the headstock most of the time, and the guitar has lots of stories about/in/on/around it, as well as it was my first reliable guitar that always sounds good regardless, that guitar also just plain fits me to a T, most people tell me they can't see me without it.
The other sentimental ones are the one I learned on, the Yamaha, which also has ties to my father, whom I can't really say much about here. The 85' Kramer is another keeper because it's the one I learned everything I know about guitar on, from playing, to wiring, to modding, to fixing, to even abusing the hell out of a guitar. The Jaguar is yet another being as it is the guitar I anxiously waited TEN YEARS to get my hands on as I could not afford one till I moved to Washington. I'm also growing an attachment to my Telecaster and Mustang for the same reasons as I do the Jag-Stang, they just seem to keep on working and working and working without fail.
The rest are mostly experiments, or guitars that I was interested in for awhile (the first acts), or have a specialized purpose (the lefty strat, 7-string, kids guitar, Casio DG-10, and the H-802 fall into that category, as well as all the acoustics).
Problem is, I have a hard time letting go of a guitar after I have it, I play all of them a lot, and my youtube vids are sort of a testament to that. Me and the band were talking about recording sessions for an album in the future, ALL of those guitars save for the 3 3000 miles away (maybe), will be there.
Monetary value: The Mustang and Jaguar are the most re-sellable for the most money, though I've got a TON of requests via Youtube for the Jag-Stang as they are so hard to find. The least value goes to anything home-brew, the Kids Guitar, the Lauren, and the H-802 which is about as much a parts mutt as the home brew guitars.
Additional money sunk in: The 85' Kramer wins this hands down, being the pice of crap it was when I got it. It went through 12 packs of strings the first week I had it (roughly $80 worth), It cost me $30 to have the burrs filed off the tuners on the 3rd month I had it, six months in I had to replace the floyd Rose locking nut, that was another $30-50. Then I had to sink in roughly $40 more for a replacement humbucker, only to redo it all again the next year for a little over $100. Then there's the $20 kahler vibrato it had on it for awhile, which was yanked for a floyd rose once again (and now the same FR demons are popping up once again). Also include strap locks into that and all the electronics I've torn apart and hours of labor I've put into that damned thing. I love it for the years I played it, but I hate it because it seemed to have had the reliability of an 80's Ford Tempo GL. The least money I ever sunk into a guitar goes to the First Acts, but that's because I have not started modding them yet.
If selling, the first to go: The Lauren, First Acts, Zenta, or J. Reynolds, as I don't play them much. Some are un-sellable from a construction standpoint like the H-802 which is pracitcually thurstonized every so often with lots of stickers and random stuff.
Out of the lot, the Jag-Stang remains my #1, with the Mustang and Jaguar at close second, and I'm anxiously looking forward to assembling a custom Jazzmaster with a Squier Affinity Strat neck and a souped up bridge pickup that is designed to sound like a souped up Jazzmaster rather than a humbucker in a Jazzmaster body. I'm intending to stick with those four models since they are the ones I like the most.
