Kenmac
Well-known member
Well everybody, here's the latest addition to my "guitarsenal". 
It's a 2007 Dillion Rosewood "Rosie" guitar patterned after the one that George Harrison used in the "Let It Be" sessions with the Beatles. First a little backstory on why I got this guitar. I didn't want to go the obvious route for a Beatles type guitar like Rickenbacker and Gretsch, not that I'm knocking them but I wanted something a little bit different. I've been gassing for a rosewood Tele since August when I saw a Tokai version of the Rosie on Craigslist Toronto. I e-mailed the person immediately and he told me he sold it the day before so I *just* missed out by one day. A couple of weeks later I saw another Tokai Rosie on Ebay and I decided to bid on it. Now, keep in mind this is the first time I ever bid on anything on Ebay so I didn't know about what's called "sniping". It happened to me, the auction was getting down to the last few minutes and I was the high bidder so I kept refreshing the page every 20 seconds or so to make sure I was still on top and with 9 seconds to go a German fellow outbid me by $10.00! To say I was angry would be an understatement. That's when I learned about "sniping". Well around the middle of November I happened to be checking out Ebay and I saw this Dillion Rosie that a person in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. was selling. I noticed he made some modifications to it and that seemed to keep people away from it but let me tell you, these modifications really improved the guitar. Here's what he said about it in the description:
"Purchased brand new just a few months ago. Modified with the replacing of the stock single coil by a very good sounding but generic PAF style humbucker in the neck position; also replaced weak stock bridge pickup with Fender pickup---not sure what model/origin, sounds very good though. Furthermore, replaced stock bridge with vintage style, 3-saddle bridge. 'Custom' plate mounted to conceal screw holes from the original bridge. Pickguard is ALL PARTS. Some scratches here and there, this guitar has been on the road. Neck is like a '59 Les Paul, medium frets, super smooth, amazing feel. A member has asked if the original pickguard was available. It is, and I will include it in the sale. This is a very nice guitar. Comes with gig bag. Thanks all for looking.
Features: Solid alder body Genuine Rosewood top & back rosewood fingerboard,graphite nut dyed rosewood maple neck Rosewood headstock 25 1/2 "scale bolt on neck Hand polished 2.7mm jumbo frets dye cast chrome gears & hardware pearl dot inlay markers 1 volume, 1 tone + 3 way selector."
I made 4 bids on it but amazingly he didn't raise the price on it. I got it for $399.00 U.S. which was less in Canadian funds. It was $349.00 plus $50.00 shipping. As far as the playability goes, it's just about perfect. The action is just right and it has the C-shaped neck similar to the Les Paul as he said in the description. I'd rank this right up there with the Tokai Love Rock that SneakyJapan shipped to me earlier this year. It's really that good. As far as tone goes, the bridge is classic Tele all the way. The neck humbucker takes you into Les Paul territory with its warm tone but this guitar really shines in the middle position. You get the warmth of the neck humbucker with the clarity of the single coil bridge and it's this position I use the most. Regarding the "Custom" plate, at first I didn't care for it but now I think it gives the guitar character along with the humbucker modification and as he told me, that modification is pretty common. Keith Richards, Andy Summers, Mike Stern and the late Albert Collins all had Teles with a neck humbucker pickup and a single coil bridge pickup so I figure I'm in pretty good company. BTW he did include the original pickguard but I'm not changing it back to two single coil pickups. This guitar sounds great with the humbucker/single coil combination.
One more thing which was very interesting to me. When I received the guitar on December 5th I was looking it over and noticed it had a Fernandes neckplate on the back. I wrote back to him informing him about this and he said: "The Fernandes plate is my 'good luck' plate----I wish I'd remembered about that. I used to have a Fernandes Telecaster that I liked very much. The guitar was destroyed in the parking lot of the fairgrounds where I was playing that day and the only thing I was able to salvage was the neck plate. Ever since that time I installed the neck plate on every Tele I owned." He asked me if I wanted to send it back to him but if he didn't get it back, not to worry about it. Needless to say I did send it back to him and he was very appreciative about that. Dillion is making some really nice guitars and no, it's not "boat anchor" heavy either. You can see more pictures of the Rosie here: http://s145.photobucket.com/albums/r227/Netskenmac/Rosie/
It's a 2007 Dillion Rosewood "Rosie" guitar patterned after the one that George Harrison used in the "Let It Be" sessions with the Beatles. First a little backstory on why I got this guitar. I didn't want to go the obvious route for a Beatles type guitar like Rickenbacker and Gretsch, not that I'm knocking them but I wanted something a little bit different. I've been gassing for a rosewood Tele since August when I saw a Tokai version of the Rosie on Craigslist Toronto. I e-mailed the person immediately and he told me he sold it the day before so I *just* missed out by one day. A couple of weeks later I saw another Tokai Rosie on Ebay and I decided to bid on it. Now, keep in mind this is the first time I ever bid on anything on Ebay so I didn't know about what's called "sniping". It happened to me, the auction was getting down to the last few minutes and I was the high bidder so I kept refreshing the page every 20 seconds or so to make sure I was still on top and with 9 seconds to go a German fellow outbid me by $10.00! To say I was angry would be an understatement. That's when I learned about "sniping". Well around the middle of November I happened to be checking out Ebay and I saw this Dillion Rosie that a person in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. was selling. I noticed he made some modifications to it and that seemed to keep people away from it but let me tell you, these modifications really improved the guitar. Here's what he said about it in the description:"Purchased brand new just a few months ago. Modified with the replacing of the stock single coil by a very good sounding but generic PAF style humbucker in the neck position; also replaced weak stock bridge pickup with Fender pickup---not sure what model/origin, sounds very good though. Furthermore, replaced stock bridge with vintage style, 3-saddle bridge. 'Custom' plate mounted to conceal screw holes from the original bridge. Pickguard is ALL PARTS. Some scratches here and there, this guitar has been on the road. Neck is like a '59 Les Paul, medium frets, super smooth, amazing feel. A member has asked if the original pickguard was available. It is, and I will include it in the sale. This is a very nice guitar. Comes with gig bag. Thanks all for looking.
Features: Solid alder body Genuine Rosewood top & back rosewood fingerboard,graphite nut dyed rosewood maple neck Rosewood headstock 25 1/2 "scale bolt on neck Hand polished 2.7mm jumbo frets dye cast chrome gears & hardware pearl dot inlay markers 1 volume, 1 tone + 3 way selector."
I made 4 bids on it but amazingly he didn't raise the price on it. I got it for $399.00 U.S. which was less in Canadian funds. It was $349.00 plus $50.00 shipping. As far as the playability goes, it's just about perfect. The action is just right and it has the C-shaped neck similar to the Les Paul as he said in the description. I'd rank this right up there with the Tokai Love Rock that SneakyJapan shipped to me earlier this year. It's really that good. As far as tone goes, the bridge is classic Tele all the way. The neck humbucker takes you into Les Paul territory with its warm tone but this guitar really shines in the middle position. You get the warmth of the neck humbucker with the clarity of the single coil bridge and it's this position I use the most. Regarding the "Custom" plate, at first I didn't care for it but now I think it gives the guitar character along with the humbucker modification and as he told me, that modification is pretty common. Keith Richards, Andy Summers, Mike Stern and the late Albert Collins all had Teles with a neck humbucker pickup and a single coil bridge pickup so I figure I'm in pretty good company.
BTW he did include the original pickguard but I'm not changing it back to two single coil pickups. This guitar sounds great with the humbucker/single coil combination.One more thing which was very interesting to me. When I received the guitar on December 5th I was looking it over and noticed it had a Fernandes neckplate on the back. I wrote back to him informing him about this and he said: "The Fernandes plate is my 'good luck' plate----I wish I'd remembered about that. I used to have a Fernandes Telecaster that I liked very much. The guitar was destroyed in the parking lot of the fairgrounds where I was playing that day and the only thing I was able to salvage was the neck plate. Ever since that time I installed the neck plate on every Tele I owned." He asked me if I wanted to send it back to him but if he didn't get it back, not to worry about it. Needless to say I did send it back to him and he was very appreciative about that. Dillion is making some really nice guitars and no, it's not "boat anchor" heavy either.
You can see more pictures of the Rosie here: http://s145.photobucket.com/albums/r227/Netskenmac/Rosie/
