My guitar collection - G&L
When craftsmen at G&L’s Custom Creations Department had finished the prototype for the Korina Collection ASAT Junior II, R&D technician Duane Boulanger quickly realized this particular Gibson-esque model would be a natural for the double humbucker treatment. And voilà, the ASAT Deluxe II was born. Unlike this 4-bolt ASAT Deluxe, the pickups on this one are no enigma: a Seymour Duncan (SD) ’59 (SH-1N) humbucker in the neck and an SD JB Trembucker (TB-4) in the bridge, both with covers. Cosmetically, the ASAT Deluxe II is identical to the ASAT Junior II: 2-piece korina body, single-ply Gibson-like pickguard, rear-loaded 3-position pickup selector with Gibson-style volume control and tone control, TonePros Tune-o-matic bridge, quartersawn, light tint gloss finished hard-rock Eastern maple #1 neck with PLEK’ed 12” pau ferro fingerboard with Jescar Medium Jumbo 57110 frets and 1⅝” nut width. Instead of a toggle switch, this model has a push-pull tone pot to enable coil-splitting. My guitar has the late production S/N plate and small CCD logo on the back of the headstock and comes with a spec sheet and correct Silver Certificate of Authenticity signed by then director of manufacturing and Custom Creations Steve Grom. See this 2017 archived snapshot of the Korina Collection ASAT Deluxe II webpage for more information.
Korina Collection ASAT DeLuxe II
The story behind this guitar
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Look at the date on the neck heel: Tuesday, July 19, 2011, the very same day G&L made the announcement of the release of the Korina Collection. An order for both this guitar and a Junior II was put in with Buffalo Brothers the following Friday, and I was already told at the time they were extremely popular. No surprise! In any case, although ordered first, by mid-January it had become the missing part with all other guitars and the Korina ASAT Classic prototype already in. Given the neck date, it seems most necks for the collection were ready to go in July 2012, so the wait must have been due to the availability of korina. Finally, the guitar arrived at the store just after Winter NAMM 2012. Boy, the long wait was worth it: beautiful wood and esthetics again. Surprisingly, when I took off the neck, it apparently was intended for a Junior II. There must have been quite a few excess ‘Junior II’ necks since the ASAT Deluxe Semi-Hollow TV Jones prototype also has one. Makes one wonder whether there are any necks in existence explicitly designated to be used on the Korina Deluxe II. The sound of this guitar is plain out glorious. The Junior II may be the interesting new kid on the block, but this model is a rocking machine and absolute tone monster. Not only do you have fat bucker tones at your fingertips that will easily overdrive your tube amp, but the coil-split tones are wonderful too: more Strat than Tele but with depth and far from tinny.
The story behind this guitar
2012
CLF063742 (one of 100)
07/19/2011
JAN 12 2012
