My 1985 Jackson Rhoads - Kirk's Specs w/ RR Strap

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My 1985 Jackson Rhoads - Kirk's Specs w/ RR Strap

Hey guys,

I wanted to share with you my 1985 Jackson Rhoads, which has taken me years and years to find, but I can finally say I have one in my possession. Same year as Kirk's. I know it's not an ESP but too cool not to show. Enjoy.

Pushead

Killer!

alebtart

Dude that's killer! Looks to be mint as well! 

BlackJack21

Thanks, you can thank my guitar tech for that. I had him take off all the hardware and pretty much buff out any dull areas and surface scratches, and he did an amazing job! Even cleaning the hardware and polishing the frets turned out a lot better than I expected.

Llexileon

No nonsense metal machine! Jackson should reissue that spec \m/

Splinter288

Awesome!  Looks killer.  

Back in the days of watching Cliff ‘em all on VHS that was “the” guitar for me. So at the Philadelphia show in ‘18 when he was right in front of me I had to get this pic

BlackJack21

Awesome pic, yea I know Fade to Black on Cliff 'em All, and To Live Is To Die into Master on Seattle is what made me fall in love with it.

ESP 348

Congrats mate!! That is a bloody awesome guitar!

It looks in mint condition too!

And where did you get that guitar strap from? Did you have it made?

If you EVER want to sell it, be sure to let Pappy know eh.

BlackJack21

Thanks, yea I know it's in great condition for it's age. It didn't have any dings on it which made me happy, though there are still some light surface marks after my tech buffed it out, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.  Even the hardware is still original, the only thing I had to swap out was one of the pots, and the strap locks. The pickups show the most wear, and the input jack has lost all it's luster and is pretty dulled out, along with the string-thru hardware on the back, but still looks cool lol.

Yea I ordered the strap through Kirk's strap website. It's a custom order so it wasn't cheap lol. Era was the name of the person who made it, and she lives in Italy. Not 100% sure if she made Kirk's or not, but I assume so.

If I ever sell, you'll be on the list haha. 

ESP 348
BlackJack21 wrote:

Thanks, yea I know it's in great condition for it's age. It didn't have any dings on it which made me happy, though there are still some light surface marks after my tech buffed it out, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.  Even the hardware is still original, the only thing I had to swap out was one of the pots, and the strap locks. The pickups show the most wear, and the input jack has lost all it's luster and is pretty dulled out, along with the string-thru hardware on the back, but still looks cool lol.

Yea I ordered the strap through Kirk's strap website. It's a custom order so it wasn't cheap lol. Era was the name of the person who made it, and she lives in Italy. Not 100% sure if she made Kirk's or not, but I assume so.

If I ever sell, you'll be on the list haha. 

 

Thanks for the reply mate, that is bloody awesome!! Congrats again and enjoy.

Big Daddy B

Looks great! Outstanding condition. Original G&G case with duckfoot compartment pull too. Did you get the strap padded?

BlackJack21

Thanks man, yea I was surprised it still had the original case as well, and glad they didn't get rid of it over the years. It's not in the greatest shape either but it's still holding it's own lol. But that's when I knew it was a legit '85 since it was the blue case with the black leather compartment tab. I know '84s have the blue with the tan tab. I'm not sure about the other years. No I didn't get it padded, though it seems pretty comfortable as is.

Big Daddy B
BlackJack21 wrote:

Thanks man, yea I was surprised it still had the original case as well, and glad they didn't get rid of it over the years. It's not in the greatest shape either but it's still holding it's own lol. But that's when I knew it was a legit '85 since it was the blue case with the black leather compartment tab. I know '84s have the blue with the tan tab. I'm not sure about the other years. No I didn't get it padded, though it seems pretty comfortable as is.

My 83 has the blue interior as well. I had to check just now after seeing your comment. It's a tan tab. If I had to guess your s/n has to be RR03XX range? Maybe upper 02XX?? Kirk's black and gold 83 is #11. It has the same painted logo as ours. His 85 has the inlaid logo. Yours might be older than his.I prefer the painted because it reminds me of all the 80s players that had that....Robbin Crosby, Vinnie Vincent, etc.

BlackJack21

Here's a link to the serial numbers for Jackson, and a link to a forum mentioning the logo evolution. Mine is in the early 1000s, so I think mine might be earlier than Kirk's, but the inlaid logo didn't appear on Jackson's until the 90s, so his should be white like ours. 

https://www.jacksonguitars.com/support/neck-thru

https://www.jcfonline.com/forum/equipment/jackson-usa-guitars/2988-1980-s-jackson-evolution-logo-s

BlackJack21

 

Big Daddy B
BlackJack21 wrote:

Here's a link to the serial numbers for Jackson, and a link to a forum mentioning the logo evolution. Mine is in the early 1000s, so I think mine might be earlier than Kirk's, but the inlaid logo didn't appear on Jackson's until the 90s, so his should be white.

https://www.jacksonguitars.com/support/neck-thru

https://www.jcfonline.com/forum/equipment/jackson-usa-guitars/2988-1980-s-jackson-evolution-logo-s

Cool I had not seen that thread about the logos before so thought they were inlaid if not the gold painted ones. I'll try to do some research on the serial # of Kirk's 85. My 83 #RR0162. Did you replace the pickups yourself? When I took my 83 from SDs to Bone Breakers I discovered it was a factory respray of some sort of Carolina Blue color. It's interesting to look back at the history of some of these older guitars that survived the 80s.

metalhobo
BlackJack21 wrote:

Here's a link to the serial numbers for Jackson, and a link to a forum mentioning the logo evolution. Mine is in the early 1000s, so I think mine might be earlier than Kirk's, but the inlaid logo didn't appear on Jackson's until the 90s, so his should be white like ours. 

https://www.jacksonguitars.com/support/neck-thru

https://www.jcfonline.com/forum/equipment/jackson-usa-guitars/2988-1980-s-jackson-evolution-logo-s

so the MOP inlaid logos actually did exist in the '80s, they were just exceedingly rare. they became standard on usa instruments in the '90s. but virtually all '80s jacksons had the white screenprinted logo.

https://www.jcfonline.com/forum/equipment/jackson-usa-guitars/2539680-jackson-usa-with-no-made-in-usa-text-on-neck#post2539820

BlackJack21

metalhobo thanks for this info. I'm not really familiar with the Jackson line and found that forum which talked about it becoming the standard in the 90s, and never saw one from the 80s before with it. One of my friends told me he thinks Marty Friedman's first Kelly (which he believes is an '89) had the inlaid logo, but I don't know the truth behind that nor have I looked into it, so like you said there are probably a few floating around like that.

Big Daddy B
BlackJack21 wrote:

metalhobo thanks for this info. I'm not really familiar with the Jackson line and found that forum which talked about it becoming the standard in the 90s, and never saw one from the 80s before with it. One of my friends told me he thinks Marty Friedman's first Kelly (which he believes is an '89) had the inlaid logo, but I don't know the truth behind that nor have I looked into it, so like you said there are probably a few floating around like that.

Yeah I had thought Kirk's was inlaid based on some old pics I had seen from Day on the Green (or maybe it was a Donnington gig) but in the above pics you posted it is clearly the original "shadowed" script logo. The placement of the MIU is also identical to my 1983 one. You can see from the top and bottom XL pics above it can almost look like both depending on the angle. Nice job finding quality pics to enlarge.

BlackJack21

Yea and I also noticed and read that the early script logo have the "N" and TM placement slightly covered by the machine head as well.

I think he actually has a Jackson Rhoads with the inlaid logo, but I have to look for that image again and it's not his original.

Big Daddy B
BlackJack21 wrote:

Yea and I also noticed and read that the early script logo have the "N" and TM placement slightly covered by the machine head as well.

I think he actually has a Jackson Rhoads with the inlaid logo, but I have to look for that image again and it's not his original.

So on my '83 the TM is not covered but on the Relic reissue it is. Attention to detail! Although on the relic the logo itself seems a bit downsized. On the 83 the B and E tuners do butt up against the hump and tail of the N however on the relic there is space on the hump and the tail not even close. I will try to upload some closeups.

 

1983:

Relic

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Big Daddy B

Hey does yours have a side marker on the 1st fret? My 83 doesn't but the relic does. 

BlackJack21

Haha I just looked, no it doesn't have it on the 1st fret. Weird I didn't notice that lol. I didn't replace the pickups, but it seems like they were added in the 80s shortly after. Jackson those days came with SDs and Kirk custom ordered his with EMGs, so most likely someone added this after since the chances are slim that someone custom ordered this the same year with EMGs. But they are '80s EMG 81s, so I don't know the exact year, but the reason why I think they were added later was because the pickup cavities were sanded slightly more on the sides to fit the EMGs it seems. I didn't see another color underneath just a weakly painted black and wood where it was sanded a bit. I had them add the shielding paint in the cavities since it was pretty loud when I was playing it the first time. So it's much better now.

But also if you watch some of Kirk's gear runs, Justin shows off the Jackson a few times and you can see at certain points more that it's the painted white logo which also matches up with the timeline.

BlackJack21

Also I don't think you'll find these early Rhoads models with factory installed EMGs unless it was a custom order. These were catered to Randy's specs since it was his model and at that time more people wanted it like his, so my gut tells me Seymour Duncans were in all these things (I'm talking about '85 and before) at one point, unless like I said it was a custom order.

ESP 348

This is all very interesting information guys, thanks for sharing.

Alamodome

What a gem!!!  Congratulations on that guitar what a find I love the matching strap as well. 

BlackJack21

Thanks man! Yea I know they both go so well together, I'm glad I ended up buying it as well.

Llexileon

Looks like Kirk modded his recently with a brass nut and locking tuners, plus I suppose those newer green logo EMGs are now his signature set. Cool to see he's still tinkering with all this stuff. 

Breadfan32

Sweet score!  Nice 

BlackJack21

Thanks man! 

BlackJack21

Did you ever see James playing one of Kirk's Rhoads before? This looks like Kirk's reproduction of Randy's original model since it has the gold logo, gold bridge, and smaller shark fins, but not 100% sure.

Still pretty funny seeing James use it nonetheless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeQhHrPPh4U

Pushead

Yeah, that's the show where James' guitar tech fell and dislocated his shoulder right before Sad. I'm not sure if as a result of the fall James' D tuned Snakebyte broke, or if they were just trying to get him a guitar quick while the paramedics were working with Chad (the tech.) It was odd to watch him with the Rhoads.

BlackJack21

Gotcha, yea I was wondering what happened for him to have to use it lol.

Big Daddy B

Sorry just saw you had the video link already. Kirk actually has 2 black and gold ones. He has one with gold knobs and one with black knobs. I am not sure if the black knob one is a PCS model or one of the very first ones they cranked out to look like Randy's. I think his also had the black knobs and smaller inlays (so did the PCS models from the early 90s that had a serial number starting with PCS). Here are Randy's...

 

Premier guitar had a gallery of them: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/GALLERY_Randy_Rhoads_Original_Jackson_Concorde_Vs

 

 

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