Check this out
http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e149371312

Someone is selling Haruna's n Mami's guitar. And the discription for them says only japanese can bid it.... Which I don't understand that part.

kenzo9 wrote:Check this out
http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e149371312

Someone is selling Haruna's n Mami's guitar. And the discription for them says only japanese can bid it.... Which I don't understand that part.

That's nothing new; people outside of Japan cannot buy anything from YJA themselves because the sellers will not ship internationally. You need to have a shopping service buy you stuff from there. Fees and especially shipping are going to be absolutely killer for something of that amount and size, though.

kenzo9 wrote:Check this out
http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e149371312

Someone is selling Haruna's n Mami's guitar. And the discription for them says only japanese can bid it.... Which I don't understand that part.

The seller doesn't accept bank transfers according to Buyee.jp when I tried checking it out. The same thing occurs with gig tickets last time I checked. I wonder if you could try bidding for this through another method, say Rinkya or fromjapan.co.jp. No harm trying.

But the seller is selling them together and not just the one, so that's already a snag.

My MAMI Stratomaster bid was fine on Buyee.jp (this is a site that let's you bid 'direct', and it's actually TENSO's bidding arm) as there was no 'don't accept bank transfer clause'. But to let you have a flavour of how much it cost for me to ship it to the UK together with the fees for buyee, the grand total was about 140 euros. The guitar is something else hehe.

thoseguiltyeyes wrote:

kenzo9 wrote:Check this out
http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e149371312

Someone is selling Haruna's n Mami's guitar. And the discription for them says only japanese can bid it.... Which I don't understand that part.

That's nothing new; people outside of Japan cannot buy anything from YJA themselves because the sellers will not ship internationally. You need to have a shopping service buy you stuff from there. Fees and especially shipping are going to be absolutely killer for something of that amount and size, though.

Was tired last night so I didn't quite write what I really wanna say. What I meant was why japanese only? Do they know we foreigners are using forwarding companies or buy services to buy items?

kenzo9 wrote:Was tired last night so I didn't quite write what I really wanna say. What I meant was why japanese only? Do they know we foreigners are using forwarding companies or buy services to buy items?

It has nothing to do with race/ethnicity or anything of that sort, if that's what you're wondering.

The main reason why sellers say things like that is because they will not ship anything internationally. Japan is notorious for not being willing to ship things out of the country. As long as the buyer is located in Japan, has a Japanese address, and can pay for the item in the way that they want, I'm sure they couldn't care less if a shopping service is the one buying the item who are then planning to forward it to someone in another country.

Isn't YJA only usable for japanese only if you don't include any buying service at all?

kenzo9 wrote:Isn't YJA only usable for japanese only if you don't include any buying service at all?

Well, essentially, yes. It was created to be used by people in Japan. For many auctions the sellers want to be paid by bank wire transfer, which requires a Japanese bank account, and, like I've said, none will ship things out internationally. It's just easier for the sellers to not have to deal with the hassle of handling international transactions. However, I don't think anyone actually cares about their stuff being bought by shopping services and going out of the country, as long as they get their money.

Anyway, this is going pretty much off-topic now...

I was checking out Ochanomizu's guitar shops the other day and lo and behold, Ishibashi (I think it was Ishibashi) had both the Skullsilver and Stratomaster just hanging there on the wall mixed in with all the other random Squiers. So if you're still looking, maybe go ahead and email them. Or email Ikebe. These guitars are still out there.

The one caveat is that the Skullsilver they had on the wall seemed to have some weird finish issues; the skull decal didn't seem to be applied quite right under the poly finish, or something. But maybe they have more than one. The Stratomaster on the wall looked fine, though.

Glad to see my Skullsilver wasn't the only one with some finish issues. My neck pocket was poorly painted and a little bit was chipped off. I'm assuming it either wasn't painted enough, or was painted too much that it had some over spray and chipped when the neck was being put on. It's barely visible and actually took me a few months to notice, but now that I've noticed it I can't unsee it. According to the photos I took when I opened it, though, it's always been there... 

Not only that, but whatever adhesive that was used for the frets was also smeared over the neck and across the inlays, and some dirt or dust has also been trapped under the finish on the fretboard, as well.

But anyway, to anyone that wants to buy these guitars, be warned that despite bearing Scandal's names, they are still $400 beginner guitars. They do play great and sound fantastic, and I love mine a lot, but if you can check out the guitars in person, try and get a nice one, or if you buy online, make sure they have a decent return policy in place just in case.

I think I'm pretty lucky when I buy the Skullsilver from Tom Lee Music. The first one I tried have the pickup selector mounted in reverse! Although I can fix it myself, the guy at the store let me try all 4 of the Skullsilvers they have. I picked the best 1 of the 4.
Except some minor fret buzz need adjustment but the frets are properly dressed & leveled.
My only complain is the bridge pickup is lack of output to my taste. I'll give it an upgrade later with my spare Dimarzio pickup. But I have to build confidence first on desolder the metal cover for the new one without burn out the coil inside haha!
Maybe I'll just keep it as a part of Scandal's collection. Since I still can't get used to the narrow C shaped neck profile and short frets.
One advice to all Skullsilver owner here! If you want your axe closer to the real thing, try replace the scooped jack cup with a square jack plate. It's simple I did it with one by Dimarzio.

After more than a month of waiting...



じゃじゃーん！

The HARU-colored SCANDAL monogrammed strap and logo pick didn't come with it, but luckily we already had some that we picked up at the Queens are trumps hall tour + Budokan two years ago.

Also, our friend has a studio and a MAMI Strat replica that he made a while ago so my boyfriend and I headed over and took a few shots all dressed up:



Fun fact: I'm wearing a cosplay of HARU's summer 2014 outfit, RINA's/HARU's/TOMO's Nike shoes, MAMI's summer outfit socks, and copied RINA's current manicure.

Beautiful, that picture of you with the Skullsilver, do look like Haruna. [ as long as i don't click the link photo =X 
Anyway, welcome to the "Scandal's Signature Guitars Owners Club"!!!

Looks like Haru's guitar came in pretty good shape and the cosplay does look great! Do you play, Jade? 

And congrats to the people who've gotten their instruments this time around~ It's always exciting to feel the neck of a new guitar in your hands. When you plug the axe in the amp for the first time and listen to it roar, it's always a great feeling!

sugoi~

You look like Haruna Jade... 

Hehe I'm a little jealous with you guys that can buy this guitars... They are expensive for me... HAissstt... .wew.

BrokenByDefault wrote:But anyway, to anyone that wants to buy these guitars, be warned that despite bearing Scandal's names, they are still $400 beginner guitars.

Yeah, I'm kind of afraid to open my Skullsilver now, that seems to be the hardest one for them to really get right. My Stratomaster neck pocket is probably the same as your Skullsilver, though; it's chipped a bit, but the paint and finish is applied over the chips so I have to think it was their router or sander that did it, and then they just went ahead and used the body anyway. In a $400 guitar with these features, corners are gonna have to be cut somewhere and QC seems to be one corner being cut. I was mentally prepared for minor things like that, though; you can't really see it unless you look.

The Skullsilver I saw in the store had one edge of the skull decal turned white, from what looked like being pressed incorrectly against that edge (you know how vinyl turns white when you fold and damage it). No way to fix that and it was easily visible. That body really should have been stripped and finished again, but they're not gonna do that at these prices, especially with a sparkle finish.

Anyway I think you have to just be prepared for some minor blemishes.

Gosh - all these minor horror stories with regards Squier's QC for the Skullsilver. Lucky for me, I think my Skullsilver was just fine (hardware, finish, the lot) - I didn't even have to get the frets dressed at the edges. The MAMI JM was the worst of my set with Bluetus coming second - both of which turned out fine after getting a luthier sorting a few odds and ends to it. Goes to show it's a big gamble when it comes to online shopping.

Here's my blemish. The finish is completely gone right on the edge, and you can see some of the fret adhesive smeared on the neck near the inlay, too. Not too sure what caused it, but if I had to guess, someone didn't take enough care when putting the neck on.

I'm finally sick  of being so upset over it that I'm in talks with a fender authorized Luthier who can hopefully help touch it up so that my eye doesn't go there all the time. Probably won't be an invisible repair, but it's better than bare wood, at least.

While I am devastated, I'm just glad that it's a perfectly solid guitar in every other aspect, my luthier did nothing but a basic set up to fix the fret buzz from shipping, and now it's perfect. It could've been a lot worse, judging by some of the Skullsilvers out there...

Third Sun wrote:unforuntaly i had like ( literally !) 1000 viruses on my PC, so i couldn't check on S-H 
yeah i might just keep searching or waiting for someone to sell the guitar ( Hope never dies !!! )
i'm not that interested in the other instruments, but thanks mate  .hail.

Do you still want a MAMI Stratomaster?

Be quick, dude: http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/d158269426

Frickin' awesome:



I'm working on my last review (for Skullsilver) now, it'll be on my blog. Mine has no unfixable problems, although my frets are all rusty, which is super-annoying and really weird and probably will cost money to have fixed. I've never seen a new guitar ship with rusted frets before.

I actually really love Bluetus. It's probably my favorite of all of them.

@spacecadet your blog is always a joy to read and informative. Looking forward to your review for the Skullsilver!
By the  time I bought my Skullsilver the Bluetus is still available. I think I missed a nice item now.

@spacecadet damn that's goddamm awesome.

I actually took the plunge myself on Tuesday out of sheer impulse. Was browsing for some other stuff on YJA and was reminded of this. Story in spoiler, since I don't actually think I need to say it but I want to lol

Spoiler:

Actually i came across spacecadet's blog while researching this. I was actually considering between the Bluetus (I wanted to learn bass) vs Skullsilver (I just think it looked badass, plus I had a bit of guitar knowledge), and I wanted to wait for his reviews on both, but since Ikebe said only one Skullsilver was left I went ahead with that without thinking haha. I'm hoping I don't come to regret this, _{especially since (off topic) I'm losing my job in a month and will be without income (if the news came a day earlier I might not have been so rash)}

Congrats, guys! All three guitars look great together!

Metalleo, that's awesome that you managed to get the last one, that's so lucky! You definitely won't regret it, though, they really are great guitars, especially when they're set up well!

In regard to  my Skullsilver, my luthier quoted $200 to fix the chip. I might just go and get it done when it needs it's next set up, because I'm a bit iffy about exposed wood near neck pockets, and I don't want anymore to chip off. And that'll give me some time to see how the finish combined with a basswood body actually holds up, so if I find that the finish chips easily, I probably won't bother fixing it.

sorry to hear about that, metalleo. but if it gives you any comfort, the skullsilver is a pretty decent guitar for what it is. we've seen the few remarks here on the dings the guitar can have, no thanks to their inconsistent QC, yours might be just fine. i know i've said it before, mine was just nice and didn't need anything doing and i do enjoy playing it.

hopefully that's the case. even if there are any flaws I don't know if I will notice it. I'm a complete newbie to electric guitars (this is my first, I've been playing only my classical guitar for the past 4 years, and I'm still at a pretty newbie level with that), so I don't know what I should look out for, unless the flaws are really obvious. I probably will post up some pictures after I get it for all you experts here to examine, I was always planning to conduct a product shoot for it when I receive it anyway .picture. .

they just sent it out today by EMS, so I probably will get it early next week if customs is kind to me, I haven't shipped in anything so expensive before so I don't know what customs will do to it. hope the guitar looks great without any obvious flaws, and hope I don't feel the pinch after I receive my final pay end of the month T.T