Losing a Kramer Baretta

skinfreak

Someone looking for a Kramer on parts brings back my biggest guitar regret. About 20 years ago I deliberately lost a white Kramer Beretta. The short on space and my then girlfriend wanted to know if I was going to be using it. I started with my dad and then months later he asked me whether or not I wanted to do something with it and I said no just get rid of it. I didn't know that much about guitars at that time and for some reason thought that it was a plywood body. thinking back I'm not sure it was I was just looking at the routing pattern and literally didn't know what I was looking at. 
I bought it for 50 quid in a shop in Redhill in 1998. The neck been so well played that the frets were virtually flat. now that I'm tinkering and learning much more about guitars this is my biggest regret. I'd love to get back guitar back as a project. And the headstock was definitely pointy pointy pointy.

Tex Mexico

Advice:

I've known a few guys who went looking for some iteration of their "first" guitar, whether the actual thing or something close enough to it, and in the cases where they got it they either did what you planned to. i.e. supermod, or tried to return it to playable condition and use it. It never worked out.

In the main these were early iterations of far-east production, and were accordingly absolute garbage. If you thought your Kramer was plywood there's a good chance it was. Kramer had some pretty fallow years in the time period you're talking about.

My suggestion is, don't go looking for the exact thing. Get something similar, only way, way better. That way you'll be in your mind paying tribute to your own history with the guitar while also not wasting your time with some shitty import that probably deserved to be lost.

https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/kramer-the-84-alder-electric-guitar-alpine-white?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&gclid=CjwKCAjw97P5BRBQEiwAGflV6aCUzcRZlxqIKw5VbxbnCgz8Wy3wHsSAkTZ0_lB2aEntsjOqNlqJ9BoCJjkQAvD_BwE

skinfreak

tbh my tastes have changed, but I am now buying parts to tinker and build etc when I had the perfect platform myself all those years ago. Could even have tried refretting it. It's just a daft decision on my part but that WTB post gave me a twinge ;-)

ICBM

I’ve worked on a couple, and they were truly awful guitars - I don’t think they were ply... from memory both had cracks from the treble side bridge post to the pickup cavity due to the ridiculous position of it. The volume knob is crammed far too close in there too, so the rear cavity weakens the body at the same place. Just terrible design. Thankfully I haven’t seen one for about twenty years.

I would also describe the headstock as droopy not pointy - there’s no point on it. Or more simply, ugly... like the slightly mis-shapen body that’s not quite a Strat but isn’t distinctively anything else.

I understand the nostalgia factor - I spent years looking for another Aria RS like my first one, eventually successfully - but I think you’ll be disappointed.

skinfreak

Banana...that the headstock. 

skinfreak

I went through my nostalgia phase with it by buying a musicyo Baretta. That was a totally different guitar although for the life of me why the fools but an EVH d-tuna on a floating trem was beyond me... That got sold for my DGT!

guitars4you

Crikey - I sold shed loads of Kramer Guitars in the 80's - The EVH craze - Striker, Focus and USA models - Only later I found out that all USA models were in fact fabricated in the far east by ESP, then sent to the USA for assembly/completion 

impmann

Kramer Barettas were very changeable in quality depending on what era and the price point it was aimed at that week.

Many *many* moons ago, I had an airbrush finished Barretta (naked lady... bit saucy, very 1980s) and at the time I thought it sounded and played amazingly. Apart from the Floyd... which whilst it worked well for all the cod-Eddieisms I could muster, always felt like a lot of faff for a trick that got boring very quickly... I sold it to a then mate as the artwork really wasn’t my thing, and the Floyd pissed me off. He rattle canned it Matt black and blocked the Floyd... worked well and sounded epic in his Bauhaus/Wire/KillingJoke inspired band. 

I’ve since played a couple of others and... well, they really didn’t sound or feel special to me. One was a “USA” one (as mentioned probably an ESP in a party frock).

Tbh, the Hamer guitars of the same period are far better and you can get lucky finding one that the vendor doesn’t realise what they have. 

guitars4you

impmann said:

Kramer Barettas were very changeable in quality depending on what era and the price point it was aimed at that week.

Many *many* moons ago, I had an airbrush finished Barretta (naked lady... bit saucy, very 1980s) and at the time I thought it sounded and played amazingly. Apart from the Floyd... which whilst it worked well for all the cod-Eddieisms I could muster, always felt like a lot of faff for a trick that got boring very quickly... I sold it to a then mate as the artwork really wasn’t my thing, and the Floyd pissed me off. He rattle canned it Matt black and blocked the Floyd... worked well and sounded epic in his Bauhaus/Wire/KillingJoke inspired band. 

I’ve since played a couple of others and... well, they really didn’t sound or feel special to me. One was a “USA” one (as mentioned probably an ESP in a party frock).

Tbh, the Hamer guitars of the same period are far better and you can get lucky finding one that the vendor doesn’t realise what they have. 

Crikey - again I sold and recall a few of those 'airbrush' finishes - Recall a 'claw hand' piercing a heart - A Marilyn Monroe-esq 

Like the line 'ESP in a party frock'