Darryl Hattenhauer
Venerated Member
From what I can gather (out in the berry patch) Corona was the first place to use the cases with the oval label on the side by the handle. Were any of those used on guitars from Jim..., I mean from Westerly?
MY two Westerlys' cases are gold paint logo'd. The D40's got the oval plate. the F65's an '01 shipped in December of '01 so that's about as close to the end of Westerly production as you can get. My money's on no oval badges prior to Corona. :wink:Darryl Hattenhauer said:From what I can gather (out in the berry patch) Corona was the first place to use the cases with the oval label on the side by the handle. Were any of those used on guitars from Jim..., I mean from Westerly?
ALL of my cases are TKL. So it was TKL from '96 at least. Also, to answer Darryl's hypothesis, I suspect most of the guitars were ordered and shipped WITH cases. ALL of mine were priced "with case". You could buy a standalone case or a standalone guitar, but there was a discounted price when ordered as a "bundle". But I was never even offered a standalone guitar. They didn't want a spare "Guild" case lying around, they already had it.Chazmo said:The change probably occurred when TKL became the vendor. Was that part of the move to Corona? I know that TKL was used by Tacoma and New Hartford until very recently.
You should know that by December of '01 just about everything was already gone. I have a letter from Fender saying my F65ce was literally completed ("passed inspection") in October and shipped in December of '01. That's what I meant by "about as late as you can get". Nothing was shipped out of Westerly after that. I think the "ramp down" was such that there was no need to send oval badge cases to Westerly. There's also the possibility that it was fully intended to distinguish the Corona production with a new case "look", just like the label re-design and the launch of the reissue flatback D25.Darryl Hattenhauer said:I doubt if all of the last Westerlys came with the old cases and all of the new Coronas came with the new cases. That's because the supply of old cases probably didn't run out with the last Westerly guitar. Instead, they probably either sent leftover Westerly cases to Corona, or sent new Coronas to Westerly.
I've got an awful lot of credibility at stake here. I'm pretty deeply invested in the accuracy of that answer, regardless of how many smileys I've put up til 'now. JIM, DON'T LET ME DOWN! :lol:twocorgis said:IIRC I think West's burst D55 was one of the very last guitars manufactured in Westerly according to Hans. Assuming it came with the OHSC, that might be a good indicator. Maybe Jim'll chime in here.