This Jackson Kelly has serial number J1056 and was produced at Jackson’s Glendora (San Dimas, CA) facility in 1985. Jackson relocated to a new facility in Ontario, CA in 1986 – 87 and while their quality was consistent with the San Dimas era built instruments, the San Dimas built Jackson guitars carry a premium for both collectors and enthusiasts. While some of the hype regarding San Dimas built Jackson guitars is more folklore than fact, these San Dimas built Jackson guitars feature the exact same hardware used on Charvel guitars; example tuners, strap buttons, knobs, toggle switches, routes and back covers. More importantly these guitars were built by the same people in the same facility where the San Dimas era Charvel guitars were produced.

The Jackson Kelly has an interesting design and resembles a Gibson Explorer body style that has been trimmed down. This particular guitar has been heavily modified and most of the original parts were rescued and saved for use in Charvel restoration projects. The factory finish on this Kelly was black w/white pin stripes on the bevels (edges) and it originally came with a 2 hum, volume, tone and toggle layout. It also came equipped with a Kahler locking tremolo. I sent this guitar to KAMN to get a cracked mirror inlay done on the face of the guitar a la Paul Stanley’s Ibanez Iceman guitars. The process involves routing the face of the guitar and inlaying carefully cut mirror pieces. Since the face is routed during the process, I asked KAMN to convert her to a single pickup, volume only layout and to add a stop tail piece a la Les Paul. This was ingenious on my part because not only is this one of my favorite layouts, but it also provided me with the correct toggle switch to restore one of my Charvel guitars back to factory specifications. This style of toggle switch is no longer made and they are hard to come by. Likewise, the input jack and tuners on this guitar will most likely suffer the same fate if I ever need them in the future to return a Charvel back to factory specs.

KAMN once again did a fantastic job on the cracked mirror top (he also did the same treatment on my Gibson Explorer) and it looks super nice, although it can be a pain to capture in pictures. To keep an all chrome look, a chrome pickup bezel, pickup cover, knob, bridge and stop tail were installed. I even added a chrome truss rod cover. This guitar is a true eye catcher and I especially like the look of the cracked mirror top seated against the black w/white pin stripe body and rosewood neck. Although she is a “Student” model and consequentially has simple dot inlays in the neck versus the fancy shark fin inlays, these do not take away from the overall look of this guitar. Like most early Jackson’s the quality is top notch and she sounds as good as she looks.