The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey,
Is this a good guitar and is $999.00 too much to spend?
Rob

1966 Fender 400
Eight strings, four pedals. A great starter pedal steel... if 10 strings sounds a bit daunting, 8 might make your ascension to pedal steel heaven a bit easier on the brain. The Fender 400 is known for its 60's country revival tone, and was made famous by Sneaky Pete Kleinow (Flying Burrito Bros.) and Ralph Mooney with Buck Owens. The Telecaster of the pedal steel kingdom, the 400's tone is more cutting and mid-rangey than a Carter, and makes for a great lead instrument. This one is original and in good shape but has had one pot changed and some wiring work done. Due to its size and weight, a $50 handling fee will be added if shipping is required.
With original hard shell case
On Consignment
$999 (US $999)
$1030 (US $1030) with credit card

Are you buying or selling this Fender 400?

rdh

Moved to Pedal Steel from Steel Without Pedals. That price sounds high to me, but that's without seeing or playing the instrument.

Yes, it's a good guitar and yes, it's too much to spend.
Save up a few more bucks and buy something more modern with ten strings and at least three knee levers.

It was a good guitar in its time, but even in 1966 8-stringers were approaching obsolescence. I wouldn't recommend it as someone's main guitar or their first guitar. Rather, it could be used for a vintage or retro-type band to get the "period" sound.

And 999 bucks is definitely on the high side of fair IMHO, more like "top dollar." There was a Fender 800 (S-10) for sale here locally and the asking price was $1200. More in line with what's "reasonable."

I agree with the Cartwright, you want knee levers and 10 strings.

I am an experienced player and normally play a D10, but I recently picked up a 60s 400 for the unique tone.

I tried it for a bit without levers and its very limiting, so I went to the trouble to add levers, see here, its a lot of trouble to do it right due to the changer limitations.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=235353

For typical E9 steel stuff, an 8 string steel with no knee levers is not the right place to start, you will want the notes available on the extra strings and standard pedal/lever combinations.

Paradoxically, an experienced player is a better fit for a 400 than a beginner IMO.

And the $1K price tag is high also.