After Leo had passed away March 21, '91, Dale Hyatt saw it fitting to honor him with a special instrument: the ASAT Classic Commemorative. He expected these instruments to display the best G&L could deliver and receive a lot of attention in production and assembly. Hence he kept a separate log for the Commemoratives and at times the first page of that log has been posted on this forum. Different sources state that at most 350 ASAT Classic Commemoratives were built to comply with the 350/150 split between guitars and basses after a lawsuit by Fender Musical Instrument Corporation was settled in February 1993. However, likely the 350 number is an overestimate in its own right and the real number may be more around 250. We will never know for sure since the sales logs were not as meticulously maintained after Dale retired from G&L on November 4, 1991.
This post aims to give you a pictorial tour around the first of them all, the Lacewood ASAT Classic Commemorative built for Mr. Dale Hyatt himself.:
The guitar came in its original shipping case which had a hole right where the handle bar is so it is 'easy' to tote around:
The case is not as fancy as for #26, but after taking it out of the box it was time to take the usual mug shots:
Here some close-ups of the body:
One might notice the screw of the 3-way pickup selector missing. It had come lose in transport but fortunately all pieces were found, one part rattling around in here:
Everything got put together properly again but I decided to forego shooting new pics. Gene Englehart left his initials and assembly date (10-17-91) in many places, the pieces of tape in the cavity among them. Also notice the piece of shielding on the bottom.
Of course the date stamps were looked for:
The "#2" for the neck got split up between the heel and the butt. You can also see what is under the gold plated pickguard.
Now lets go around the neck:
Some other interesting tidbits that came with the guitar are the original hangtags:
Of course we used some magic to be able to show front and back in one pic. 'GRE' are Gene's initials again and 'ay' is Amanda Ybarra, a long time G&L employee at the time and who stayed there until her retirement. Another extra is a (original?) photo print of the ad used on the back of the check-list tag and of course letters of provenance. How these letters came about and who did what and when is a long story which I'll keep to myself, at least for now.
Well, I hope I have proven that the instrument exists and hope you enjoyed the tour.
- Jos
..... do I need to bring a pick ??....lol
