TalismanRich

There is actually a copy of the movie in the Internet Archive. It says it's the UK version. Vanishing Point - Internet Archive.

Vanishing Point - 1971 A weird kind of movie, where the "hero" is supposed to deliver a Dodge Challenger to California. Of course, he's doing it at Cannonball Run speeds, so the cops are chasing him across the desert. The final scene has them pulling a pair of bulldozers into the road to stop him, which is the last pic that Bolero posted.

It was actually the radio station that triggered it for me. I really don't remember the pics of the Green Frog Grocery, or Ray's beer joint. But I remember SuperSoul talking to Kowalski over the radio, trying to get him home. Also, Delaney and Bonnie were doing gospel music out in the desert with the snake handler. As for the beer... make mine A&W! 😉

Does this movie involve a white Dodge Challenger R/T? I think I have it, but the odds are vanishingly small. But the point is, I THINK I know where it came from. It was on the news.

Is that the last Green Frog Grocery store?

Brian Setzer has a few of those. Too bad he doesn't play bass!

I'm surprised that Sweetwater didn't see the cracked pickup ring. An indentation under the pickguard is a different matter. You would have to remove the guard to see that. That's one weak point with the elevated pickguard. If you press hard enough, it can bend enough to allow the screw to hit the surface of the guitar. Putting felt on the guitar under the screw might not be the best thing. You need to make sure an adhesive doesn't react with the finish. That said, I've replaced 4 pickup rings that have cracked. When the Schaller ring on my 157 cracked, I took a new ring ($4), and drilled four extra holes so that I could keep the 4 adjustment screws on the Schaller pickups. I hate soldering to the back of the pots. I've thought about just doing the joint where the tab gets grounded to the case and then solder to that lab. It would all be the same point electrically and wouldn't risk overheating the case. It would be nice if CTS would just make a little tab on the back to use as a soldering point.

Limited editions often have upgraded wood, and different pickups vs the standard version. I think almost all Millenniums have multiply bound body and bound headstocks. Some have no diamond inlay, most that I've seen have the diamond inlays. Of course with preowned guitars, pickups can and often are swapped out since it's so easy and everyone has their favorite. Heritage would do limited edition runs of maybe 30 or 50 guitars with tweaked specs. They might change inlays, or offer a special color. LE models will usually have an extra number above the serial number. There isn't a ton of difference, at least not enough that I would pay lots of extra money for an LE. I have one of the 2000 Millennium LE. The biggest difference from the standard 2000 Millennium is the hollow trap markers, and a special inlay in the headstock. While nice appointments, neither does anything to make it play or sound better.

Its weird. Last night it was a crawl. This afternoon, it clicked in about 2 seconds. Maybe I'm logging in at the same time as all the webcrawler bots.

Is anyone else experiencing extremely slow response times? It's taking a minute or 2 to load some pages. Other sites are clicking normally, it's just the HOC. I'll click a topic, go off to another site, and come back after it quits spinning.

Lavern, if you are using a PC just download Irfanview. It's a freebie, and is perfect for things like resizing. It's the Audacity of photo editing... not the most comprehensive tools available, but for quick and dirty stuff they are perfect.

Great. I normally only go to HTTPS sites, but this was the one exception. Occasionally a browser update would just tell me "WHOA! DANGER AHEAD". Now I'll only get that warning from the porn sites!

Everything is looking pretty tidy. I try to do that once in a while. It lasts a few weeks.... 😏

But, at this point, you would need to clean up the tweed before putting on the shellac. You don't want to just seal in some old dirt. On the other hand, it's a road warrior. It might start a new trend... reliced amps. It worked for guitars.

Hangar, you missed a golden opportunity to engineer some lazy suzan action on those shelves. Then you could just spin to the one you want! A shelf system like that would never work for me, all my amps are combos.

I would guess either 2 or 4. It's been to long to remember which one was reliced. I can't see you with either the black one, or the cherry burst. You're a lemon type of guy!

Is Gibson really using PIO capacitors these days. The original ones were totally fake. They were selling $3 capacitors for well over $100 because they put them inside a bakelite case and painted some stripes on it. It was a classic PT Barnum scam. There are only a couple of folks making PIO caps these days. Luxe and Emerson are the two that come to mind. Others are doing oil filled caps, but they are usually polypropylene/foil inside. The caps from 70 years ago used castor oil. I think a lot today are using mineral oil. I wonder if anyone had done a study to see which oil sounds the best. 🤔 I was also of the impression that Gotoh tuners were very good. I do like the look of the plastic keystone buttons on Klusons. I tried to change the buttons on my 535, but the plastic ones weren't solid, so I took them off and put the originals back on. Are both using CTS pots? Do they have the standard CTS nomenclature on the back? I wonder what taper they are each using.. 15%, 25%, 30%?

I think a pair of Pearly Gates would be the way to go for a raunchy rock and roll machine. I remember when a lot of folks used the JB/59 combination. Maybe use a 250K pot on the JB to cut some of the highs. I've heard that's a very typical mod.

That's one's got it all. Great looking natural finish, wooden pickguard, nicely bound headstock. I like it!

...which is crazy because people take out the HRWs and then sell them for big money. It's true that one man's trash is another man's treasure.

I swapped out the original Schaller pickups from my 535 for a pair of Sheptone Tributes. I can't say it was an earth shattering difference, but they were a different flavor. SD 59 are a pretty typical Alnico V PAF from what I've heard. What type of "character" are you looking for? Maybe looking at an Alnico II Pro or Seth Lover would work better.

If your mode of operation is to flip guitars, and you bought while prices were peaking, you have two choices: hold on to the guitar, or lose money selling it for less that you bought it for. I think I paid $1150 for my used H535. Granted that was almost 15 years ago, but the prices were still in the $15-1700 range until the pandemic craziness hit. Then prices shot up about 30 to 40%. I guess people wanted to spend all that free money that they got from the government. How they need to spend their own money, that they have to work for, so things aren't so free. I also think that some of the folks out there are finally realizing that by the time you add all the Paypal/shipping/Reverb or Ebay fees on something, you end up with a $2000 guitar selling for $2400. People look at the inflated prices on Reverb and think that's the normal price.

I would think that most Schaller gear should be metric, as it's made in Germany.

I wonder sometimes why my H140 doesn't say "Clown Burst" on the control cover..... 🤔 My H-535 says Faded Cherry, which is apparently different from Transparent Cherry. Some of the newer 535s seemed to me more opaque than transparent.

The neck pocket looks solid. I don't see anything of concern. I don't think I've ever heard of moisture affecting the color of the grain. More likely that's just how the wood was stained. The fret sprout happens when guitars dry out, which happens if you're not in a humid climate or tightly control the humidity. The binding will minimize the problem, although it's not unusual to see some small cracks in the binding at the frets after many years. As long as the binding is still glued securely, there would be no problem. I have those cracks on one of my neck's binding and it's never caused any problem. $2400 seems like a high price for a 2003. There are lots of used 535s in the $2000 range. There's a similar guitar near Cleveland for $2100. Some negotiation could probably drop that.