Advice is needed here.

[BJHolk]

Hello to anyone who is interested in my potential purchase of an Ernie Ball MM Silhouette Special that has been seriously neglected with corroded and rusty metal parts. It has no strings on it and all the plates are off of it so I'm thinking the owner ( who is no longer living ) had intentions of restoring it eventually.

The owner's mother and I got to talking about her son who had died from a heart attack last spring and the guitars that he had left in her apartment. I asked her if I could take a look at them and found this Ernie Ball among two cheap acoustic guitars that I'm not really interested in. I didn't know anything about this Ernie Ball guitar until I started researching and that led me to this forum.

I have viewed many videos of this type of guitar being played and I love the sound it makes. I'm not sure if this guitar will have that potential of sounding like that since the condition it's in doesn't allow me to play it yet. However, I'm very interested in buying it now if she gives me the opportunity to do so. She said she has a son and brothers who are guitar players and she wants to ask them first if they want them. They would have to pay for shipping and still have to do some serious work on them to restore them to playable guitars.

My questions are these;

How much money is that neglected Ernie Ball worth in it's neglected condition?

Would you purchase a guitar in this condition not knowing how it plays or sounds?

 

[DrKev]

I wouldn't purchase the guitar without better photos. I'd want to know what pickups and bridge it has and quality photos of the condition of the first few frets? My first guess is $500 to $1000 dollars depedning on condition (so far it doesn't look that bad) but if someone needs to put $500 into it for refret and new pickups it'll be on the low side.

 

[BJHolk]

I wouldn't purchase the guitar without better photos. I'd want to know what pickups and bridge it has and quality photos of the condition of the first few frets? My first guess is $500 to $1000 dollars depedning on condition (so far it doesn't look that bad) but if someone needs to put $500 into it for refret and new pickups it'll be on the low side.

Thank you for your advice. Here's one photo that I forget to share in here and I will get some better photos of the bridge, pickups and fret board.

 

[beej]

Ah, Rolls Burgundy. I had one like that- it was my first EBMM. With the Wilkinson bridge.

Hard to tell from the photo, but the frets look rough. If that's the case, factor in a fret job. (If you do this, I would recommend sending it to EBMM directly - they'll fix it up nicely).

With regards to the pickups, hard to know what's in there from that shot. The Silhouette Specials I remember seeing of that vintage had pickups with similar colours to the pickguards, so I would have expected white. But that doesn't mean anything.

In any case ... an old specimen in need of TLC (and possibly a trem bar, if it's not in the case). I would definitely be looking on the low side of what Kev said.

 

[DrKev]

If that's two row of allen screws on the humbucker that's possibly PAF Pro (which they used for a while). And that's a Schaller or Wilkinson trem? The molex connector is sticking out from under the pickguard so somebody has taken the picguard pff at spome point in time. I wonderif the silent circuit is still there. BTW, it's Candy Red (posted in the bass side serial number thread).

 

[beej]

Candy Red? Huh. Looks Burgundy from the photos.

 

[GWDavis28]

Isn't that the original red that the Silo Special was first offered in. They had metallic red, blue, green and purple.

Glenn |B)

 

[Tollywood]

Welcome to the forum. Looks like it's worth saving to me!