It's the Christmas round up.

One potato two potato three potato four..

Had a bit of a play on these few the other day while escaping the heat at Sky Music, Melbourne's most recent Fender dealer. They do have a massive (overwhelming) number of guitars. If you were a serious buyer and not just a tyre-kicker like myself you would probably need to go in everyday for a week to make a choice. I spent an hour in there and of the many I tried that I liked the look of here is just a sample of my instant thoughts on these instruments unplugged.Plugged in would take another week. Read all about these gorgeous looking spuds.

First the Modern Player Telecaster® Thinline Deluxe. These are from the Fender Modern Player Series out of China. A little more up-market than the Chinese Squier Classic Vibe series. I don't know what was particularly modern about it but with the P90's it is sure to rock. The thinline body was really light and finished in a see-through charcoal, very nice looking. Unfortunately someone at Fender thought painting the inside of the body you see through the distinct Fender style F hole a semi-gloss black. This looks just crap I'm afraid. Have you ever seen a nice Gibson L5 with a black interior? The neck was the typical Tele one piece maple neck with medium dumbos in quite a dark tint. Sticky poly. It must be a chemical reaction thing between the poly and human fluids that make necks of the poly variety stick to ones skin. You usually think of shiny as being slippery, not the case with polywaffle. Six Kluson-a-like tuners to keep us in tune (or out of tune) and not one but two ye-oldie Tele string trees. The guitar had a nice resonance acoustically. This would be a nice player and you wouldn't have to be modern to enjoy it.

The Gretsch G100CE Synchromatic™ Cutaway. I had been waiting for yonks to come across one of these. This is the Korean made low-end Gretsch jazzers box. Finished in pale orange wash, with a light grain laminated spruce top, The guitar features a completely hollow body so there is no 'sound post' to suck away the sound. Nice to see it comes with flat wounds. The guitar sounded nice and crisp and with the single floating pickup (a single coil) strapped to the end of the fingerboard it should work well for a pure jazz tone. The lightly applied mat finish certainly gives this guitar life but I couldn't help thinking that areas of the body will naturally relic to a gloss after time. There is a lot of choices out there for a sub thousand dollar specialist jazz guitar, the G100CE is at the top end price-wise but it is also at the top end in quality and value too.

We all love a Les Paul so for a bit of fun I took a look at the now discontinued Epiphone Les Paul PRO/FX. They had two, one in a honey burst and one in a tobacco lung burst. I'm afraid this just felt like a bad $199 Chinese copy, hang on, I think that is what it in fact is. Whoever thought to put a dive bomber Floyd wobbler on a Les Paul? No wonder they discontinued it.

And finally yet another variation on the Tele theme. Another south of the boarder made plank but this one sports an ash body and has what Fender are calling a thin skinned polyester finish. I think the thin layer of poly actually does work. This instrument was certainly much livelier that the standard Tele's with their winter coats of tone sucking high gloss. The Baja has been around for a bit now and is part of the Classic Player series, probably the higher end of the designed by the Fender Custom Shop, Mexican made models. This has the original base-ball bat neck with a soft V that you would either love or hate. This Baha black sheep comes with some pretty trick electrics, a four position switch, a push on push off switch hidden in the volume knob and a pair of Custom Shop pickups. It all sound a little trick for the average Teleister but this is a honkin' good guitar.
So there yer go, another guitar day. I'll have one each of the Fenders plus the Gretsch jazzoblaster, the Epi Floyder would make a nice ornament.