My guitar collection - G&L
Bob Page is co-founder of Buffalo Brothers in Carlsbad, CA which he previous owned and ran with his brother Tim. As related here, Tim loves to design guitars and is the spiritual father of this masterpiece, which came to fruition with input by Gabe Dellevigne, Greg Gagliano, Efrain Meraz, John Salcido, and George Fullerton himself. Like ASAT Trinity #11, most have a Vintage White finish, chrome hardware, and a surplus ASAT S-3 pickguard. But that was clearly not personal enough for Bob and his Trinity #24. He opted for the semi-hollow soft maple body without f-holes to be finished in Clear Red while foregoing any binding. Most of its hardware, i.e. the Saddle-Lock bridge, aluminum pickguard, control panel, and neck plate, have a black powder-coated finish also found on Tim’s Trinity #25. Even the Sperzel locking tuning machines on this guitar have a black anodized finish. Of course it still has 3 Jumbo Magnetic Field Design (MFD) pickups with the middle being Reverse Wound/Reverse Polarity. They are controlled by a 5-position selector combined with a push-pull volume control, providing the otherwise missing pickup combinations, and a single tone control. Bob had the control knobs adorned with a US nickel with buffalo depiction in bas-relief (all to be found on Tim’s Sunburst too) as well as adding his initials, “RDP”, at the bottom of the neck plate already stamped with “G&L Special Edition”. This guitar has a gun-oil tinted hard-rock maple #2 neck (7½” radius/1⅝” nut) with ebony fingerboard. It is one of the first receiving the PLEK treatment at G&L and has the non-compression truss rod. It comes with a brown tolex hardshell case and a Certificate of Authenticity looking a little different than the “standard” COA provided with other ASAR Trinity guitars (see Trinity #11 again). Tim provides an extensive writeup on the Guitars by Leo website at:
ASAT TRINITY SPECIAL EDITION #24
The story behind this guitar
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According to information and pictures provided by Tim, this is actually the very guitar shown to George inspiring him to design a logo. And George was kind enough to sign the back of the headstock on that occasion. As an additional historical side note, the ASAT Trinity Special Edition COA for #24 shown below is also the very last certificate of any kind George signed for anything associated with G&L. For a guitar which so much history, I feel extremely fortunate to have been offered the opportunity to purchase it from Bob. But why would he sell it you ask? Bob says he is more into acoustic guitars and a bluegrass picker. Something you might expect if you know he ran the acoustic department at Buffalo Brothers (Tim did the electric side of the house). If he had his choice of an electric, he rather would like to have an ASAT ’50. One problem there: only 10 are in existence! How does “the red one” sound? Fantastic! There is some “quack” in the in-between settings but with an ASAT twist to it. And the push-pull volume control allows you to combine neck and bridge pickups. Wow!
The story behind this guitar
2006
CLF43525 (#24 of 25)
none, marked ‘S3’, ‘EB’, ‘VF’, ‘#2’, ‘TG’
SEP 11 2006
