Recent Arrival
Me very first Gretsch Sparkle Jet was from the pre-Fender ere of the early 90s. Little did I know then that those models were not built to any real vintage specs. They had some un-vintage features like:
- While chambered, the body was more solid (and heavy) that a true 50s or 60s Jet
- The headstock is much larger and has a horseshoe inlay, more common on thier hollowbodies.
- Hump inlays vs. blocks or thumbnails.
- Hot ceramic pickups, nothing like the original filtertrons.
- Master tone knob vs. the tone "mud" switch.
- Tone sucking roller bridge.
Still, I really enjoyed playing that guitar, but eventually moved on to the more vintage correct Jets that came after Fender took over.
Now, enough time has passed where Gretsch has looked back at this non-vintage model and reissued it as a vintage from 1989 (it's hard for me to wrap my head around calling a guitar from the late 80s/early 90s as "vintage"). However, they made some, IMO, significant improvements to the original model:
- While it's my understanding that the chambering is the same, the new model, at 8.5 pounds, is significantly lighter than the original.
- Pickups are a set of TV Jones Classic+ (bridge) and Classic (neck). A massive step up from the original.
- Adjusto-Matic pinned bridge.
- Treble bleed master volume circuit .
All in all, this is a great guitar probably built to deliver more rock than rock-a-billy tones. However, it doesn't take much adjustment to deliver both.
After acclimating to our climate for a couple of days, I now have it set up to my liking. It plays great up and down the neck and delivers. I prefer having the master tone knob vs. the tone "mud" switch. And I'm such a sucker for a gold sparkle. I'm glad this one is in the collection.
