tangklewood tse501 les paul

[lotty]

HI all,

I've seen a used Tanglewood TSE501 starfire for sale at £100, delivery included (free return if found faulty and about £3.50 return if I just don't like it).

No idea what year it is from or anything else about it save the pictures. As you can see it looks great although it has a couple of knocks, which the seller shows clearly in the second pic (they don't bother me at all). It does, however, have a worrying crack. superficial or otherwise, between the headstock and neck. 

Any ideas about the importance of that fault or just about this model of Tanglewood would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot

 

 

[EdwardMarlowe]

A friend had one of these; both being lefties, we went out to Holiday Music (when it was still in Leytonstone) one Satuday afternoon about twenty years ago. I believe she paid about £89 them for it, second hand, so the price sounds about right. (I've long regretted not buying that Eko Ranger 12 string that I played that day too... especially now they sell for so, so much more than it was priced at. Anyhow...) Hunting round the web I see that model up for sale anywhere between £100 and £199, so £100 seems fair on that basis. Friend's guitar was a nice thing to play. It was clearly a cheaper guitar than the Epi Std of the day (comparing directly to my 98 MIK), but it was also priced at a full retail of something like £189 back in the day. Played nicely and sounded pretty good, though. 

As a general rule, Tanglewood electrics were pretty nice, and at least as good as equivalent model Epiphones. I always found them well set-up, rarely rough frets. It'll be very rare the model that will have any collectible value in years to come I suspect, but if you like it it's well priced for what it is, and it has a bit of the "Melody Maker" type charm. Don't pump a huge amount of money into anything that's not reversible (i.e if you did switch the pups, keep hold of the originals in case you ever sell - modded guitas rarely make their money back).