G&L SC1 – Robert Poss ‘clone’

Looks like someone else is as much of a fan of Robert Poss’s SC1 as I am…

Late last year, I was killing some time by trawling through ebay… looking for things I don’t need, like more guitars. One of the first things I type into the search bar is “G&L SC”, as I’m still madly in love with my G&L SC1 & Sc3 and am always keen to see more of these rare birds. More often than not it’s the second series SC3’s that pop up, with the Strat like outline. So I nearly choked on my tuna sandwich when I saw this pop up…

At first glance, it’s a former Robert Poss SC1, exactly like mine. The price was ridiculously low… $300. The Sc1’s with the tremolo are quite rare, so I was amazed at the low price & the low bid count. On closer inspection I could see why… this poor guitar had been butchered and then roughly put back into shape. It definitely wasn’t a collectors piece and definitely wasn’t a Band Of Susan’s axe.

This photo shows a few things wrong. The guitar had been routed for a humbucker at some point, then filled again and a MFD single coil put back in. The guitar had been painted a faint pink (no SC1’s came in this colour) and lastly the scratchplate had been roughly cut and also cut in the wrong material.

Some more point came up… the powder coated metal control plate had been replaced with the same plastic material that the pickguard had been hacked… I mean cut… from. Also the cool original G&L ‘radio knobs’ had been replaced, one with an MXR type knob, the other with with a some generic hex knob that looks like it came from Radio Shack.

Interestingly, the powder coating on the neck plate had been worn off. I’d never seen this happen before, so it was cool to see. (Yes, I’m a sad nerd.)

The neck was in FANTASTIC condition. I love these necks. These necks are why I may never buy a Fender again. It’s hard to explain how good they feel, they’re modern yet vintage, solid yet subtle. Beautifully carved with no sharp edges.. the best way to describe them is like a sucked lolly. Plus the figuring on this neck was better than my SC1 and it still had the original Schaller Kluson-alikes and string tree bar.

I asked Robert if this one one of his former guitars and he replied “Upon closer inspection, the pickguard is most definitely NOT one of mine. It is someone imitating it, a bit crudely.” which was pretty much my conclusion as well. The guitar ended up going for around $350, and while it had been butchered, this was still a great looking, playing & sounding rock machine and someone got a bargain. I had to stop myself from buying it by running out the room when the bids were ending.