But unusually they also did a copy of his double cut Danelectro, complete with a Bad Ass bridge.ĭanelectro’s are funny guitars… they’re hollow, built of masonite and other cheap materials and are actually pretty fiddly the make so it shows Fernandes’s commitment to copy EVERY famous rock star guitar… no matter what it was. Fernandes did replicas of his most famous guitars. Guitars gods don’t get much bigger than Jimmy Page. This particular guitar was only $230 when I saw it!

The Fernandes version can be bought today for about A$700. Gibson did a version of guitar 16 years later for a LOT more money. I’ve played a few Burny Explorers (Burny is Fernandes’s other brand name, usually used on their Gibson copies) and they are fantastic. I have no idea why Clapton did this, but Clapton fans being the rabid collectors they are needed to have this guitar and in 1985 Fernandes were happy to oblige. Next up is a replica of Eric Clapton’s chopped Explorer. I’m not a huge Van Halen fan, but I would happily play one of these.

This guitar was for sale on Yahoo for roughly A$650, which is insane value. This guitar looks to be based on Fernandes’s normal Strat copies, and so the quality is spot on… probably on par with the Fender Japan guitars of today. Eddie’s original has a Floyd Rose prototype, while the Fernandes has what looks to be a Rockinger tremolo which looks really similar. 🙁įernandes really nailed this guitar… the stripes are 98% correct and even the tremolo looks pretty much right. This is the guitar on the back of the Van Halen II album cover, and is also the guitar Eddie gave Dimebag Darrell to put in his coffin when he was murdered.

The first example is Fernandes copy of Van Halen’s famous yellow and black striped super Strat. Let’s have a look at a few of the guitars I’ve found for sale. A lot of these Fernandes models I’ve never seen outside of the 1985 catalogue I found, but a few are still available on the Japanese Yahoo Auctions site, which I trawl through manically every month or so. But unlike any other guitar company, they also had an amazing range of guitars based on the signature axes of the world’s biggest guitar gods. Actually I think they did them a little better than Greco. Like Greco & Tokai, they copied the usual Les Pauls, Strats, Teles, P Bass etc. Nowadays, Fernandes are known for their Ravelle and Vertigo body shapes, but in the 70’s & 80’s they were (in my opinion) making the best replica guitars in the world. So, I thought I’d revisit this article in more depth, as it’s something I’m still fascinated by. Guitarnerd is nearly 2 years old, and my first article was about the awesome Fernandes guitar company.

Dating fernandes guitars