I first saw this graphic, "Pyramid Eye" when I was at GMW to pick up a different guitar. Dan (Lawrence) had just painted a similar graphic on another customer’s guitar and I remember commenting on how cool it looked. After looking through my collection for potential refinishing candidates, I had the brilliant idea of grabbing a Baretta from eBay for this project. Being impatient, I searched on eBay for Kramer Barreta's that had a buy it now (BIN) price and approximately four minutes later I had purchased a late 80's blue Baretta. The guitar had a few dings, but because she was going to be refinished it did not matter. I had the guitar directly shipped to Lee at GMW where she was converted to what you see today. Interestingly, this guitar features the later Kramer Baretta "Pyramid" style logo, which in hindsight, compliments the "Pyramid Eye" graphic nicely.

Being impatient unfortunately has its consequences and there are a few things I regret about this project. First, the prices for Kramer Baretta guitars have tanked since I purchased this guitar in 2000. Today (2004), Kramer Baretta's can be purchased for a mere $250 or so. My biggest regret however, is that this guitar has a recessed Floyd Rose tremolo layout. Being recessed, the area of the body under the tremolo is removed to allow the trem to "float” so the Floyd Rose can be pulled up or pushed down. I do not like the look of recessed tremolos and wish that I had waited and purchased an earlier Baretta which did not have a recess tremolo route. Furthermore, I prefer the look and feel of the earlier banana style necks over the later "pointy" styles, and in addition, I much prefer the earlier block letter logos over the "Pyramid" style Kramer logos. This is the price I pay for being impatient and if I had to do it again, I would have waited and used either an earlier Kramer Baretta or one of the new "1984" reissues for this project.

Once again GMW's work is flawless and the resulting graphic was stunning. The grand tally for the guitar was $850 included the refinishing fee, $525 which includes body prepping, spraying the solid color, graphic and reassembly of completed guitar plus the guitar price of $325. In today’s market, I suspect this guitar would only bring $350 tops! Economically this was not my smartest move, but I never did it thinking of resale value or the money.

The Baretta is probably one of the most underrated guitars that has influenced rock history and it is easy to forget that Kramer guitars dominated the music landscape back in the 80's. The Baretta was introduced in early 1983 after Kramer wanted an Eddie Van Halen signature model. The Baretta layout consisting of a single humbucking pickup, volume only control and a Floyd Rose tremolo revolutionalized guitar manufacturing and defined a generation of EVH wanabe guitarists. The Kramer Baretta is perhaps the most copied guitar design since the Fender Stratocaster body style.