I’m not the biggest Baretta guy, even though it’s probably Kramer’s most famous model with its ties to Eddie Van Halen. However I am a fan of a good deal so I scooped this one up from - surprise - the Guitar Center used listings.
It’s not the most exciting guitar at first glance, but its simplicity does have a certain appeal. The black finished body is in good condition although it has a lot of polishing swirls and the color really shows any finger prints, scratches, or dirt even after a cleaning. I can tell this was a very well taken care of guitar though, even the case looks nearly brand new with barely a scratch on it, the neck is spotless, and the fretboard very healthy looking (clearly was cleaned/oiled regularly).
The previous owner swapped the hardware over to chrome, but it’s all period correct parts. Personally I’d prefer the black, and I do have a spare black Floyd Rose but I used my last set of black Schaller tuners on that flip flop blue Pacer Deluxe I wrote about a few weeks ago - I’ll see what I can find later but most likely I’ll be converting this back to black hardware. They also swapped the volume knob for an odd gold top hat knob with “tone” on it, so I swapped that for a spare strat-style Volume knob which would’ve been the factory correct knob type. I think I have a pair of black schaller strap buttons too.
Luckily the owner didn’t swap out the important parts, primarily the original Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB pickup, wound by Marcela Juarez, in reverse zebra color. I’m not one to believe some certain pickup or winder is “magic” as far as tone, but it’s just the truth that these pickups sound great and are worth a pretty penny if you can even find one. Out of the six 80s Barettas I’ve owned, half of them had this pickup removed which is a bit of a shame. I do really appreciate originality when it comes to collecting guitars, but with prices on vintage 80s Zebra JBJ’s running $250+, I just can’t possibly justify that kind of cost for what is essentially a $70 pickup with one cream coil. Even all black JBJ’s are running into the $200 range these days according to Reverb which kind of blows my mind. I know, with my attention to detail on collecting, you’d think I’d be into that sort of thing but I’m a bit too pragmatic for that.
I’ll take new photos once I get it moved over to black hardware, but I’m no hurry and the guitar plays great as-is so I’ll enjoy it for a while. I’ve had multiple black on black guitars, even including another Baretta with black/black so the chrome is a nice change of pace to add some pop to an otherwise plain instrument.