Does anyone have experience with Shine brand guitars?

SUNBATHER

Hi,

I recently saw on offer a Shine SI802 model guitar, which I personally think looks very cool. The transparent yellow finish, the trem, the unusual shape all look good, but I always assumed (from my experience of using a really crap Shine guitar before) that they were one of those cheap knock-off brands with few redeeming features and not even worth the sub-£100 prices. This one apparently retails at £350, but I have also seen it marked to £120ish, on only one website and on eBay under that same website's page.

So I've searched posts here, on Youtube, Reddit and general websites and can find next to zero information about this guitar. I found only one post about someone fixing up a different model but that's about it unfortunately.

So, I thought I'd just ask instead. Any help would be appreciated! I'm not expecting to learn that they're incredible or anything, but some additional details would

Kittyfrisk

I understand that Shine is an in house brand from the Korean Saein factory, so the quality should be OK to good as they also made Epiphone's there too.

Funkfingers

Often, a staple of charity shop window displays. Comparable to present day Harley-Benton in the sense that the necessary fettling and a few minor component upgrades can produce a perfectly good electric guitar for not much money. 

The electronic components tend to disappoint. Locking vibratos will need replacing. That sort of thing.

english_bob

Looks like the Shine is the in-house brand for Saein Musical Instruments, who are one of those far-East companies who mostly make guitars with other people's names on, including Epiphone.

If £120 isn't a big deal to you it might be worth a punt, but expect to change the pickups and electronics and you'll be pleasantly surprised if it turns out you don't need to.

@megii has a couple of Shine guitars I think.

mbe

Shine guitars are made by Saein Co. of Korea who also have a factory in China. They used to manufacture Epiphone Les Pauls in Korea and they are generally will regarded.

So, like most Far Eastern brands, they produce the good, bad and the ugly. Shine have produced a few of their own designs and are chiefly marketed by Chase in Manchester. I bought two from them last year for £99 each, both made in Korea to a reasonable standard of quality.

There seems to be something weird about Chase's recent round of pricing. A superstrat I bought from them for the princely sum of £99 was recently marketed for £349. I just checked now and the price is £449! That one you're interested in is now £349.

Here's the one I bought for £99
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shine-Electric-Guitar-SIL405-Floyd-Rose-Tremolo-Grover-Tuners-Metalic-Blue-Z00/392942481627?hash=item5b7d3270db:g:Kg4AAOxy9X5TXpz-&redirect=mobile

SUNBATHER

mbe said:

There seems to be something weird about Chase's recent round of pricing. A superstrat I bought from them for the princely sum of £99 was recently marketed for £349. I just checked now and the price is £449! That one you're interested in is now £349.

Here's the one I bought for £99
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shine-Electric-Guitar-SIL405-Floyd-Rose-Tremolo-Grover-Tuners-Metalic-Blue-Z00/392942481627?hash=item5b7d3270db:g:Kg4AAOxy9X5TXpz-&redirect=mobile

With this in mind, if you had to put a price tag on it for quality would you put it at £99 or £400? That is a pretty serious range and to me suggests that the sellers are trying to artificially boost the value and make it look more appealing rather than a budget brand.

SUNBATHER

english_bob said:

Looks like the Shine is the in-house brand for Saein Musical Instruments, who are one of those far-East companies who mostly make guitars with other people's names on, including Epiphone.

If £120 isn't a big deal to you it might be worth a punt, but expect to change the pickups and electronics and you'll be pleasantly surprised if it turns out you don't need to.

@megii has a couple of Shine guitars I think.

The offer I was given was as a trade for a Squier VM Jaguar, which usually sell used for £230-280.

I am very confused by the pricing of these instruments - Is it built like a £120 guitar or a £400 one?

mbe

Let's talk about residuals.  No Shine is worth £250 second hand because they are simply not desirable in the same way that Squier VM and CV are. The £449 Shine I have, that cost me £99, would probably return £99 on the second-hand market if I was lucky. That's despite the Korean licensed Floyd Rose is superior to the Chinese FR on my Jackson Dinky,  the Grover tuners and EMG designed pickups.

 I got mine last year when I had some policy of satisfying my GAS with guitars costing less than £100 and the Shines turned up as well as a Quincy Flying V for £99 that now retails for £179. Another thing is these £99 guitars required hours of work to turn them into players.

Last year there seemed to be a perception that electric guitars were starting to die out. Fast forward to now and the perception is that electric guitars are the thing to have due to Covid restrictions challenging people to find new ways to pass the time. 

SUNBATHER

Thanks. I find the whole thing pretty strange, having never given much thought to "cheap" brands before recently spotting a nice looking Tokai. Having said that, my main guitar is a Fernandes, which many people would turn their nose up at but it behaves and sounds just as you'd expect a guitar in the ~£400-500 range, which is what it cost. For this guitar, the used market doesn't really concern me because I can't see myself parting with it anyway.

So by that logic, if a guitar comes along that costs £200 but acts like a much more costly model, then you're winning, even if the resale value is bad. The name on the headstock is just a decal, and is relatively meaningless outside of the big brand names.

In a roundabout way I suppose I'm asking if you think your Shine is a decent guitar. You say it needed some work, and I guess cheaper guitars need a few upgrades, but overall, would you buy another Shine, or would you buy one at a higher price?

mbe

The SIL405 really only needed a setup but the other one was set neck and I had to file the TOM bridge down to get low action because the neck angle wasn't quite right.

All I can say is that I would buy them again, for £99 but they don't thrill me like, for example, my low-end Jacksons do. Shine make a nice semi-hollow model that I might be tempted for £200. I used to have a Japanese Tokai Strat which was probably on a par with your Fernandes and agree they are on a par with say USA Fender Strats.

Here's an auction for one similar to the other Shine I got..
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shine-SIL-680-Electric-Guitar-PRS-clone-Virtually-Unplayed-Condition-/133520773693?hash=item1f1675523d:g:mJgAAOSwcAFfYfhP&redirect=mobile&nma=true&si=7ZGiuoxetduZ6a%2BKiRwUKcTncrQ%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

steer

There was a guy on another forum from a few years back that reckoned his hundred quid Shine was the best thing sliced bread - and he owned all sorts of high end stuff. I recall that he was not adverse to tweaking and upgrading bits & pieces. 

I think if you like the look of it, then go for it.

SUNBATHER

steer said:

There was a guy on another forum from a few years back that reckoned his hundred quid Shine was the best thing sliced bread - and he owned all sorts of high end stuff. I recall that he was not adverse to tweaking and upgrading bits & pieces. 

I think if you like the look of it, then go for it.

This is what I'm leaning toward. If the guy is local I'll check it out, but I think he's actually gonna be too far away and I'm not too interested in long distance trades or posting guitars.

The variation of opinions on Shine as a brand are what is throwing me though. Like I said above, I've never dabbled in "off brand" gear before so its hard for me to judge the actual value here.

boogieman

I remember first seeing the Shine brand at the Guitar Show when it was still held at Wembley, so probably early 00's? Korean made, seemed reasonably put together and some nice designs, but definitely a budget brand not much different from Korean Epiphone or the low end Squier stuff. I wouldn't think they're worth £400.

Sassafras

You won't get your money back on them if that's what you're worried about.

mbe

Sassafras said:

You won't get your money back on them if that's what you're worried about.

I don't think the OP is bothered by that. I think it's a case of working out where Shine stands in the quality stakes.

For me personally, I just wanted to see if I could could get players' guitars for less than £100 last year. I netted 3, wouldn't matter if I gave them away though as I enjoy turning sows' ears into silk purses and thrashing about on them.

SUNBATHER

Sassafras said:

You won't get your money back on them if that's what you're worried about.

Yeah I'm not especially concerned about that. If it gets used more than my current Jag, it'll be worth more to me. Plus, i like the idea of having an OK guitar become good after making some of my own modifications!

RobertDeluce

I have owned  Martin, Fender, Takamine, Gibson, Yamaha and several other guitars. My Shine SH-944 SB compares favourably with the best of them. It came with Grover heads, a top notch mini humbucker and high quality gold coloured fittings. The finish is super with quality bindings and lashings of mother of pearl.. It plays beautifully. Forget the Taylor T series but even the Shine doesn't come cheap anymore. The same model sold recently on a guitar auction site for £1,200-00. 

guitarjack66

RobertDeluce said:

I have owned  Martin, Fender, Takamine, Gibson, Yamaha and several other guitars. My Shine SH-944 SB compares favourably with the best of them. It came with Grover heads, a top notch mini humbucker and high quality gold coloured fittings. The finish is super with quality bindings and lashings of mother of pearl.. It plays beautifully. Forget the Taylor T series but even the Shine doesn't come cheap anymore. The same model sold recently on a guitar auction site for £1,200-00. 

Welcome to the forum Mr Shine!

OilCityPickups

I can only speak for the pretty much PRS inspired Shine that one of my customers has had me look after for years ... I started by winding pickups for it, but I have done other jobs on the electrics when they have come up. Quality wise it equalled if not surpassed PRS SE ... beautiful guitar. Yes the supplied pickups were a bit characterless  - as in:  fairly faithful copies of PRS SE ;-) 

BillDL

SUNBATHER said:

....... The variation of opinions on Shine as a brand are what is throwing me though. Like I said above, I've never dabbled in "off brand" gear before so its hard for me to judge the actual value here.

You will get the same variation of opinions here and on other similar forums, I'm sure sometimes some of the negative and dismissive comments are made even by those that have never held a guitar of the brand being spoken about.  The very mention of a guitar as a budget price can be very polarising.

The way I look at it is that for the most part similar woods will be used in budget guitars that sell for around £100 up to something like £350.  They may use more pieces in the body on those sprayed with opaque lacquer, decorative veneer instead of thicker caps on guitars with translucent lacquer finishes, and rosewood substitute woods or composites for fretboards.  They are all shaped on CNC machines, so they are consistent and in that basic wooden form the basement priced models aren't that dissimilar at all from those that end up selling for three or four times the price.  The quality of the lacquer finishing is usually consistently good across electric guitars even at the budget prices, but you may get more instances of overspray on bindings and other small blemishes on the lowest priced ones, but it's rare to get a bad lacquer job even on the cheapest solidbody guitars these days.  Sometimes on the lowest priced guitars you will have some roughness around the area where the neck blends to the headstock because fine sanding takes time and costs money.

Where the savings are made is with the finnicky and more time consuming jobs like the fretwork and filing nut slots accurately to depth.  The frets are usually pressed consistently into the slots, but less time is taken polishing them and dressing the ends.  Smaller pots are usually cheaper (although not necessarily worse) than full sized ones and are most often used, cheaper wire or cables may be used, mylar capacitors may be used instead of more expensive orange drop types, and pickups are usually generic production line ones (sometimes good, sometimes less good).  The wooden parts and how they are fitted together are really what counts because many buyers have already irrationally decided they will need to change the electrics even before playing the guitars.

The tuners are most often the cheaper variety that have a bit of play on them, but are usually perfectly usable, and the other hardware is usually of generic OEM supply that works well enough but won't usually be as good as that found on guitars above maybe £350.

I recently bought an SX branded Strat copy and I am VERY impressed by the fit and finish despite the really low price.  GuitarGuitar recently had in a batch of SQOE branded guitars that were very well reviewed despite being about the lowest priced guitars on their website.  It's much, much rarer to get a bad budget guitar these days than it was a few decades ago, but there's always going to be a risk that some are better than others and you got one of the less good ones.

BillDL

OilCityPickups said:

I can only speak for the pretty much PRS inspired Shine that one of my customers has had me look after for years ... I started by winding pickups for it, but I have done other jobs on the electrics when they have come up. Quality wise it equalled if not surpassed PRS SE ... beautiful guitar. Yes the supplied pickups were a bit characterless  - as in:  fairly faithful copies of PRS SE ;-) 

Exactly.  I watched the following official PRS video in which the staff in PRS Europe show the setup work they do on their SE range before they go out to the dealerships.  When asked more or less how much work needs done he says it varies quite a lot depending on how the guitars are when they arrive with him.  He has to dress the fret ends, cut the nut slots to the correct depth, smooth off the edges of the nut, adjust the truss rod and set the action and intonation, just as needs to be done on many (possibly most) guitars that are much further down the price chain.  He says "I think we are probably one of the only companies that do it".  THIS is what justifies the price difference in the PRS SE you buy from a retailer vs a very much cheaper guitar that is very similar in every respect but still needs some or all of these things done, and I have to wonder whether ALL the SE guitars going out to dealerships are treated to the same degree.