Product: Mason Bernard BE-140
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
10/05/2009
at
10:00am
by
Noel
Email: ngmusa at hotmail<dot>com
Features
:
10
Piano Black finish in a cutaway form.
Electric / Acoustic.
Grover style tuners.
Thin neck with rosewood fingerboard.
21 fully accessible frets.
Not sure on wood composition.
I believe these guitars were made in the late 80's / very early 90's. Bernie Rico of B.C. Rich fame made these guitars after licensing B.C. Rich to Class Axe.
Personally, I give the quality a 10.
Sound
:
10
For a fairly thin guitar is sounds HUGE, rich and full and has tone-aged extremely well.
The internal pickup translates the full rich sound perfectly. Atypical of acoustics of the era.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
10
The action is nothing short of perfect for an approximately 20 year old guitar. The action is lower than any other acoustic I've ever owned with no buzzing or any sort of handicap due to the low action.
Reliability/Durability
:
10
This guitar is 20 years old and plays like brand new and is RUGGED!!!
The action has been retained perfectly.
The hardware is mint and tuners are shop-tight.
I'm not sure I would gig with this guitar unless I had one identical to it as a backup. Not due to reliability but AVAILABILITY! These guitars are dangerously rare! The electrics are scarce (300 or so made) and these are far more rare.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
I've never needed any sort of support from B.C. Rich or Mason Bernard.
Rugged instruments!
Overall Rating
:
10
I've been playing for 20+ years and own another M. Bernard MB-1 Electric. Currently, I'm collecting these gems as there's nothing like them and, funny enough, not many people know about them so when you do find them they might not be asking much. If you can find one under $1000 and it plays well, GRAB IT. The day is coming soon when these will be worth 5 figures due to the rich(no pun!) story behind their creation and the extremely high standards to which they are made.
If you own one, chances are it was at least handled and inspected by Bernie Rico himself if not hand made by him.
These guitars are dangerously rare and if I lost it or it was stolen I would be well out of luck. No need to bring the royal family to a gig.
A simple google search might bring one or two results on this particular model and a few details on the mb-1. The electrics are scarce (300 or so made) and these are far more rare. In fact this is the only one I've heard of. I cannot reveal how I found this one lol!
