I spotted this online and figured I’d roll the dice on it. It arrived in a case with no packing/bubble/paper inside or in the box either - by some insane stroke of luck, nothing was damaged (thanks GC). It’s a very early Baretta I, F39xx with the first run of Claw inlay necks.
Some quick history: The Baretta evolved from the Pacer Special as a single humbucker guitar built for straight forward rock and metal players - obviously heavily influenced by Eddie Van Halen. The first models actually called “Barettas” came out sometime in 1984, although there are some guitars that are very similar (the so called non-tilt “grails” from late ‘83, but there was never any official document calling them Barettas at the time). Pickups were originally Schallers but quickly became Seymour Duncan JB’s - always in reverse Zebra color. These Barettas initially had the tilt-back banana headstock shape, then the pointy with block logo in the early E1xxx plate range, then gained the Pyramid or “descending” logo somewhere around E9xxx. At the same time, a new body shape was designed for the Pacer custom - this is usually called the “sololist” or “sharp radiused” body - and by E7xxx this spawned a submodel called the Baretta II. These also started with the block logo pointy necks, then pyramid logos shortly after introduction. Neither the Baretta or Baretta II got recessed floyd routes until roughly E13xxx. Around this time, the Baretta was renamed “Baretta I” to follow the same naming convention with the Baretta II. Serial plates from around F1xxx until F3xxx were lost - never used on factory production Kramers, though these plates still pop up quite often as they were sold at the firesale or to various collectors. By the time the serial plates turned black (instead of chrome as before), the Baretta I and Baretta II both had recessed floyd rose bridges and additionally, a body contour carved out of the lower horn to improve upper fret access. The Baretta I retained this body shape from this time all the way up until Kramer went out of business in April 1990. Baretta II’s got one last upgrade, moving from the large soloist body shape down to the “7/8” sized dinky body shape by F5xxx, which had the same features (lower horn cut and recessed floyd rose bridge). Very late 7/8 bodies have the lower horn carved on both sides of the body - but that’s a topic for another day.
The first claw inlay necks with the 12th fret Kramer logo appeared in this F39xx range, and that’s what this guitar has. In fact, out of the hundreds of vintage Kramer’s I’ve cataloged over the years, this is the earliest factory serial number example I’ve seen of a claw neck. These necks were available all the way until the end of the Baretta in 1990.
For anyone interested, as an avid Kramer collector I do keep a catalog of Kramer serial numbers and guitars for sale, and reference the VK registry (which hasn’t been updated in a while - good thing too) along with archived forum posts and other resources. It’s fairly common for people to buy vintage Kramers and swap necks or sell other parts, so nothing is a sure thing anymore - it’s been 34+ years since any Kramer left the factory so who knows what could happen in that amount of time. I’ve done this myself, for example I swapped the maple neck from E8377 to my Deluxe E8192 - a relatively harmless change that is still completely period correct. However, there are people who don’t know or don’t care about period correct history so you have to watch out for things that are wildly off - and with Kramer, documentation was poor, catalogs didn’t reflect many changes or even whole models, warranty neck replacements and lots of other oddities and small batches mean that it’s a convoluted mess to collect these - plus the confusion attracts some bad actors who want to take advantage of the situation. There are some signs, patterns, and trends that can be tracked though - I can spot a modified guitar with great accuracy, unless the whole thing is exactly period correct in which case I don’t really care if a neck was swapped for another because there’s no difference - Larry Luthier could’ve grabbed either one in the factory on that day in 1987 depending on how many beers he’d had so why do I care now 40 years later exactly which neck it came out of the factory with. What does bother me is parts that are used way outside of serial range, for example a claw neck on a C-plate body or some other mismatch of parts that was never possible (ex. Pacer Deluxes were never available with claw necks or reverse headstocks from the factory).
Here’s the timeline for referencing these Baretta models. Remember that serial numbers are only a guideline, some were used out of order, one box pulled off the shelf first and so on, but it’s still a useful way to track feature changes.
C32xx first year non-tilt “Barettas” released, very few made and quickly changed (apparently EVH didn’t like these being sold). Based on a Pacer Special with Ibanez Destroyer-style headstock (modified from a beak headstock neck).
C45xx non-oversized non-tilt banana headstocks show up, not just on Barettas but rarely other models too
C55xx angled banana headstock shape appears along with “Baretta” model name in catalogs and flyers. Beak headstock still in use for most models at this time, but eventually all models used the Baretta-style banana headstock shape.
E0xxx Banana necks phased out for Pointy. Block logo, some missing “American” script on logo, some have one-piece or skunk-stripe construction before 3-piece necks introduced. Switch to Seymour Duncan pickups.
E2xxx to E6xxx recessed back plates
E68xx Baretta II introduced, uses large soloist body of the Pacer Custom
E9xxx Pyramid logo replaces block logo
E13xxx Recessed floyd routes appear
F4xxx Claw necks and Baretta I lower horn scoop introduced (the Baretta featured in this post falls into this area)
F45xx Soloist body guitars (Baretta II, Pacer Customs) get lower horn scoop
F54xx Soloist body downsized to 7/8 “dinky” body, collared floyd arms show up on production guitars
F94xx 7/8 body contours added to rear of both horns, similar to Proaxe
G0xxx Proaxe introduced, mahogany 7/8 contoured body plus angled neck plate, and change to 24 3/4 scale
Hopefully that helps clear some things up for other collectors. Thanks for reading.