1990-1991 G&L guitars with Final setup tag Initials

I've posted this in a few sections...
I'm looking for specific 1990 - 1991 G&L guitars with "J.W" initials on the final production tag. Is there a place to find this collection of pics/info?
I worked along with Gene Englehart in final setup from mid '90 to late '91, it was just us 2 slinging out the guitars, he was baddass! I've never owned a G&L and I only setup like 800 to 1000 of them but thought it would be beautiful if I could find and buy one with my sig on it... Any help is greatly appreciated..
Thanks, Jim

Welcome Jim,
I'll keep an eye out for a "JW", I'm sure there's more than a few in our collective closets.

I feel I should say thanks for helping make some of the coolest instruments on the market

cheers,
Elwood

JW,

This is a very unique and interesting request. I have seen your initials on some tags.
That had to have been a good time for you and I also thank you for your nice work.

y2kc

Thanks guys!
I wish I would have stayed with them but being a youngster and restless looking for more $$ per hr. I moved on to other things.
I'm looking for an S-500, SC, etc.. Any of the strat style guitars will do... or an ASAT...

Funny thing, I was talking to John Cruz & my employment @ G&L was brought up and he said, "wait, what? what year?"
I said "mid 1990-to end of 1991"...
He said "Ahh man, I applied there and they said the spot was just filled not long ago so I got the job at Fender""...

He is now one of the top Fender Master builders... LOL, I did him a favor I guess, funny how things work out.
I've built several Warmoth strat style guitars for myself and always remember back to Gene @ G&L and the good times we had setting up special orders..
When the Buck owens ASAT came rolling out for us to set up, it was told to us who it was for & Gene immediatley grabbed it and said "this one's mine".. LOL
We did a cream colored ASAT for Scorpions' Matthias Jabs not long after that.... Gene grabbed that one too.. He and the solder lady signed the neck pocket too.. I was only there for 6-8 months at the time so who was I to argue..
Matthias returned the ASAT for unknown reasons so I assume it was sold elsewhere..

I'm not trying to brag and drop names but here's a true story.
From 2012-2018 I had several opportunities to meet and hang out with Matthias Jabs at his shop in Munich, he had a few G&L guitars on the wall and I told him that I worked at G&L way back when and asked him about the ASAT/Tele, He remembered like it was yesterday. He said "I was wanting to try something different, it was an off white color and looked and felt great but I didn't like the action or tone. The nut was cut too low and the action was too low for my style of playing, it just didn't work out."
So I got my confirmation after 25 years of wondering why it came back.

So there's the history on that ASAT, be on the lookout for a cream 1991 ASAT with Gene's name and another female name, I think "Amanda" was her name in the neck pocket.. She was one of the solder girls in the next booth over...

I remember specifically Gene spending a lot of time on that ASAT and saying, "He's going to love this".. Gene loved low action so he set it up like so.


Oh man, I kinda wish I stayed there.
Thanks for taking the time to read my story and helping me with my quest...
Jim

Last edited by Jwalker000 on Sat May 25, 2019 6:45 am, edited 2 times in total.

Those are great tidbits of history,
thanks...keep 'em coming

Those are great tidbits of history,
thanks...keep 'em coming

A quick comedy story..
There was a very small run of necks coming through that required some attention by us.. We had to remove the neck and check fret hieght which ended up with filing and polishing.. At one point Gene started to sing out loud on every neck he had to dress... in Steppenwolf tone...."Born to be Filed".... When the neck was all good and strung up he'd play the song and sing "Heavy metal thunder"... The Boss man (not Leo) would come out and tell us to stop playing around and to do our job. I want to say it was dale but it's been a long time.. LOL

They didn't like us to do any kind of Riff playing, only fretting every note was what they wanted... Less playing, more production... Good times!

I have a 1990 SC-3 that I picked up used a number of years ago. Amazingly it still has the inspection tag in the beat up case. I'm not sure that the case is original. The initials on the tag appears to be "G R E".

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KvgwTLY425_nMmGtpi-mpbGtU0G88K-u/view?usp=sharing

Both of my older G&Ls have final inspection tags signed B. Carlson. Don't know why but from time to time I wonder about that.
Whoever you are B. Carlson, you did good work!

Interesting to see what a tag looks like - both my guitars had extensive lives before me, so any of that is long gone.

Interesting to see what a tag looks like - both my guitars had extensive lives before me, so any of that is long gone.

Click on the link at the end of my post to see the one for my SC-3. I think the GRE who signed mine just may be the Gene Englehart he mentioned in his first post.

... I think the GRE who signed mine just may be the Gene Englehart he mentioned in his first post.

Correct. GRE is Gene. I have quite a few of his tags, including one of of the 'Buck Owens'. Still have to check whether I have any hang tags signed by Jim.

Thanks Yo,
B.Carlson must have been hired after I left. There was only Gene & I in final set up. I have seen Tags from "claimed" 1990 guitars with "B.C" on the tag as well as 1991+ with "B.Carlson" sigs.
This is stretching my memory of my short time there now.
Gene's cousin started working there just before Leo passed. I forgot his name but he was still there when I left. So he couldn't be the B.C on some of the tags from late '90 up to a few months into '91 unless said guitars were actually later '91's. (did that make sense?)
I didn't see Gene's cousin lasting too long there due to him & Gene bumping heads a few times a week, cousin was an assertive aggressive dude, lol.
But if he is in fact B.C then good for him..

BTW, what kind of price tag do you think those guitars are going to have?
Thanks, Jim

Thanks Yo,
B.Carlson must have been hired after I left. There was only Gene & I in final set up. I have seen Tags from "claimed" 1990 guitars with "B.C" on the tag as well as 1991+ with "B.Carlson" sigs.
This is stretching my memory of my short time there now.
Gene's cousin started working there just before Leo passed. I forgot his name but he was still there when I left. So he couldn't be the B.C on some of the tags from late '90 up to a few months into '91 unless said guitars were actually later '91's. (did that make sense?)
I didn't see Gene's cousin lasting too long there due to him & Gene bumping heads a few times a week, cousin was an assertive aggressive dude, lol.
But if he is in fact B.C then good for him..

BTW, what kind of price tag do you think those guitars are going to have?
Thanks, Jim

B. Carlson would have actually been just before your time there. I know my ASAT was late '88 production and the Skyhawk was I believe '89 or '90; you must have just missed them.

I should think cost wouldn't be too much of an obstacle. Of course it varies depending on the model but some of the older G&Ls are a ludicrously good bargain. It's possible you could find one at something like $650-800. The tricky part will be finding one with the inspection tag you're looking for. I imagine those are often lost over time.

Good Luck!

B. Carlson would have actually been just before your time there. I know my ASAT was late '88 production and the Skyhawk was I believe '89 or '90; you must have just missed them.

I should think cost wouldn't be too much of an obstacle. Of course it varies depending on the model but some of the older G&Ls are a ludicrously good bargain. It's possible you could find one at something like $650-800. The tricky part will be finding one with the inspection tag you're looking for. I imagine those are often lost over time.

Good Luck!

Thanks for that info.

I just picked up today an F100 Series II; SN G000851; neck date October 16, 1980; body date October 11, 1980 with initials in pencil on the body of WL.

Found one... New, never Sold is what it says in tha ad. Here's my sig in case anyone comes across another one. 1991 SC-3 . https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/106GKBMK0thiQbhfHMjY5s7S9pqu_IguG?usp=sharing .

Cool!
Nice looking SC-3