Joined:
April 2003
Posts: 608
Location: Caribou, ME | I just got this one in today, a 1978 AE-14-1 (sunburst electric). I've never seen a finish like this on a Applause. It's not in any of the catalogs or brochures. I have BROWN ones but not brown stained. I figured it might have been a one-off experiment or something and received a sunburst model designation label for reasons only known to whoever stuck it in there. It's is clearly not sunburst in any sense of the word.
It gets weirder. I removed the neck and it is clearly 3 tone sunburst under the fingerboard extension. I looked closely with a loupe. There is no seam in the finish where the brown meets the sunburst and it even still has traces of "monkey dung" or whatever Alison called it, used to seal the gap between the neck and bowl.
In my opinion there is no way a traditional 3 color Applause sunburst can fade to a transparent brown like this. I have 10 or 12 sunburst Applauses and I can testify that they vary greatly, from an almost 2 color sunburst to a cherry sunburst to at least one that looks like it was hand rubbed as opposed to sprayed on. It's a curious study all by itself. I have not seen any evidence of color fading whatsoever, in any one of them. But this one.... I don't know. I'm happy to add it to my collection. Very close to 50 now. |
Never seen this color before....