Thrifty Jon

I scored a couple of things at the thrift store, today:

A Pair of like-new Vans snowboard boots, for my nephew Kyle.  He and I are going snowboarding, when he comes out, at Christmas.  It makes more sense, to me, to just buy some used boots, rather than renting a pair.  This way, he can take them home and use them as snow boots, and for snowboarding back East, as well.

And this...

I kind of like the graphics job.

It's done up in a fairly artistic way.  I like how the big graphic below the sound hole emulates the shape of a traditional pick guard, for instance.

The back and sides are sprayed with faux-stone.  I guess that means it a rock guitar!  Har, har, har!

I don't know if the previous owner purposefully reduced to three strings for some reason, or if it was accidental.  I tuned it to E,A,D, and to E,A,B and played around with it.  It's possible to, at least, lay down a decent blues accompaniment for yourself, that way, in a very minimalist style.  So, perhaps that was part of the artistic expression, like David Bowie and his one-string guitar that he played on tour in the 70s.

I have no idea what make guitar it is.  It seems to be pretty decently put together, though.

I thought about scraping the stuff off of the headstock to find out, but I like the crow (which is right where I would expect to see a logo).  I think I'll just leave the finish, as-is, and maybe replace the tuners and string it normally.

Or, maybe not.  Maybe I'll string it with 3 heavy-gauge strings and make a "campfire bass" out of it.

EDIT:

I couldn't help myself:  I pulled the crow off of the headstock (and stuck him on another guitar).  The, with some careful scraping and application of brush-cleaner, I was able to uncover the name of the guitar.

Franciscan was one of those obscure Japanese brands back in the 1970s and 80s, which eventually moved production to Korea.  This one appears to have a solid top, and the older-style screen-printed logo which indicates it's probably of Japanese origin.

Like the proverbial cat, I just had to know.

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