Burny Super Grade MIJ RLG???

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Iperfungus

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Hi guys,
I found this amazing forum while looking for more information to give a date to my Burny Les Paul.
I've got this guitar from a guy here in Italy and he tolds me he bought it on eBay from Japan and it is a RLG90 model with VH-1 pickups from late '80s or early '90s.

So far, I was convinced about the aboves but after reading Nil's Burny paper...well, I'm confused more than yesterday.... :lol:

Here we go with some pictures of the guitar:

Burny1

Burny2

Burny3

Burny4

Burny5

Cutaway

The body is a solid 3-pieces mahogany, with thick maple top and a thin book-matched flamed maple veneer.
The neck is one piece of mahogany (no separate cap) with nice rosewood fingerboard and pearl trapezoid inlays.
The binding around the fingerboard covers fret edges too (fret binding).
The Burny logo on the headstock is pearl as well.

Original tuners were plastic Kluson-like (now changed to locking Sperzels) and the original bridge you can see in the picture was a vintage style (it has been changed with a Schaller tune-o-matic due to a lack of harmonics on the high E string and problems in setting octaves).

The capacitors are small green ceramic ones, not black paper in oil ones.

The pickups have grey wires, metal coloured base plate, 4 mounting screws on the back and, as you can see, Gibson-like adjustment screws (slotted, no Phillips heads).
The tone is amazing and I don't really care, but it would be nice to know if these pickups are VH-1 or what else and if the magnet is a ceramic or AlNiCo one.

So, could it be that's a RLG90 from the late '80s or early '90s?
I can only say that from the TRC shape but....who knows?
Otherwise, what it is??? :eek:

Thanks in advance for your help!!! :wink:

Max
 
Hi.

I have a very similar Burny Super Grade.
I guess it is a RLG 60 or 70.

If you want the exact year,look in the pickup cavity. If there is a serial number, it can help to identify the built year.

I guess it is from 1989 to 1994.

No high grade features (3-piece back, veneer top), but a rather good sound, imho.
The pick ups are good too, imho.

Enjoy this guitar, and treat her well ;)

See you
Burny

By the way: see http://www.japanguitars.co.uk/burny%20info.html
 
Hey, thanks mate! :D

Unfortunately, there's no S/N inside pickups holes in the body...

But I assume your statements about the guitar are right.
This should not be a RLG90, maybe a RLG60 or RLG70.
Even if there's fret binding...

Anyway, I've to say that this is a great guitar with real, full Les Paul sound.
The stock pickups (they should be new versions of VH-1, so sounding like VH-2/VH-4 according to Nils paper) sound good and they have a very nice rock tone and fine clean sound.
The bridge pickup is less acid and it has good mid-rangy character, making solos actually awesome to play...while the neck pickup as a good "woman" tone but not too many basses, and that's good to me.

It would be interesting to compare this guitar to yours, just to see...

But I found that this Burny has nothing less than a Gibson...and it plays better than most of current Standards and Classics.

It is not so easy to find these MIJ Burny guitars in Italy and in Europe (you can only buy current Korean or Chinese models in some shops), the only way is order from EBay....but I've been lucky enough to meet a guy here that owned this beauty and wanted to change it for one of my guitars (a good not-expensive handmade guitar with Floyd Rose and SD pickups).
I was excited no more by that guitar and I wanted that Burny like crazy...eheheh...so, it has been easy.

I just had to change machine heads (bad enough) to locking Sperzels, the tune-o-matic to a Schaller and now this is a weapon to play!

Anyway, I'm happy to have found another pool of crazy MIJ addicted guys... :lol:

And be sure...I threat all my guitars better than myself!

See ya!
Max
 
By the way...this one is exactly like mine (except for the Super Grade Model logo on the headstock, missing on this guitar, the machine heads and pickups that are not stock on this one):

http://cgi.ebay.it/Burny-RLG-90-LPS-LP-Standard-Flame-Cherry-Duncan-PUs_W0QQitemZ200122452518QQihZ010QQcategoryZ38086QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

So, EBay sellers sometimes sell...********?
I mean...this one is sold as a RLG90 with veneer top...but then it should be a RLG60 or RLG70...boh??? :roll:
 
It is a bit strange not having the Super Grade script, however I'm pretty sure that RLG-90s did have a veneered top.

I would be keen to know if this is not the case. :-?
 
Glamrockmegastar said:
It is a bit strange not having the Super Grade script, however I'm pretty sure that RLG-90s did have a veneered top.

I would be keen to know if this is not the case. :-?

This means that mine could be a RLG90 then...
Furthermore, the body seems to be 2 or 3 pieces from the pics, but I cannot be sure...

Mumble...I've to check bridge pickup's cavity again looking for some S/N... 8)
 
Iperfungus said:
....
http://cgi.ebay.it/Burny-RLG-90-LPS-LP-Standard-Flame-Cherry-Duncan-PUs_W0QQitemZ200122452518QQihZ010QQcategoryZ38086QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

....

Bad paintjob, imho.
 
burnyIII said:
Iperfungus said:
....
http://cgi.ebay.it/Burny-RLG-90-LPS-LP-Standard-Flame-Cherry-Duncan-PUs_W0QQitemZ200122452518QQihZ010QQcategoryZ38086QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

....

Bad paintjob, imho.

Yes, I agree.
It's more like...clownburst! :lol: :lol: :lol:
But I just noticed that is a 2002 model...and mine should come from the end of the eighties or the very first half of the nineties.

Mine seems more a good cherry sunburst than a bad clownburst, even if peraphs the red is more marked than an original '59 Gibby LP. :wink:

What do you guys think about?
 

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