Product: Samick (Gold) Skulls & Snakes & Swords
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
07/12/2008
at
05:01am
by
Iain hawkins
Email: iainhawkins at fsmail<dot>net
Features
:
10
Made in 1982 hand carved from one lump of word (Neck through body)
Samick's legendary Skulls & Snakes & Swords with gold hardware.
One volume & one tone control knob with five way selector and coil tap switch with fully floating Floyd Rose tremelo and locking nut. The artwork is fantastic and George Lynch obviously thought so too as this was the design he took to ESP for his signature model he would endorse and later display on his Lynch Mob album cover.
There is a very hot Seymore Duncan humbucker and two bar style single coils pick ups, one positioned right in the face of the main skull. (Note no eyeballs on the original)
Sound
:
10
This is a marvelous guitar with lots of shred potential. Looks stunning being played and sounds bright and rich through Marshall Head and Stacks. No nasty humming or buzz from a perfectly straight one peice neck, Black back paint showing signs of use as mine is very well travelled been round the world a few times. Never found any problems with it, however I do have a brilliant guitar tech who looks after it very well. The frets are chunky as a metal guitar should be and there are no signs of wear. I use Maxima Gold (009-042) strings to give it a richer sounding tone and they look the bollocks with all the matching gold hardwear.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
10
The action is kept low and the middle pick up on mine is disconnected and lowered out of the way as it used to get hit with my pick because of my playing style being so aggresive. The whammy bar has had all of the gold plating worn off too. Easily re-plated one day. The hand carved artwork is awesome to examine up close. The Swords have all got individual hand grips, and the Snake's scales are each ribbed. Very touchy feely. The skull's eye sockets still have brush marks in to prove the hand painted artwork credentials. The winged (Ticks) inlays up the neck shine when reflected light is played onto it so they could be mother of pearl or something similar.
Reliability/Durability
:
10
This is by far the rarest guitar I have ever owned and as such saw very little stage use, early in my career, but these days with falling values I have used it more significantly to get the benefit from the playability and electronics it has. Plus it used to annoy me just sitting on a stand by the amp or locked up in its case in the equipment truck. So I am using it as my main instrument again now and it has never let me down. I use many other brands of guitar including Jackson & ESP but this is by far my favorite.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Never had the need to contact anyone at Samick for any reason. Guitar quality stands up for itself. (Nuffsaid)
Overall Rating
:
10
The combination of good looks and durability and sound quality and general playability means I think this guitar is outstanding. Not for just any musician, as it does tend to be heavy metal focused but still, attracts much attention. Not many around anymore so dont expect to be able to get one. Sorry.
