G&L Legacy 1997

Hey folks... seems I've been on this board for a good while not participated since I don't own any G&Ls. Recently I've had an interest to try one. I found a tele but did some research and didn't want a fender profile, seems some of these have thin and some are more traditional, so I'll wait for a thin one.

However I AM looking at a strat. I looked around a bit and everything on this guitar seems legit, like the PUPs seem original.

But I would welcome any inputs about this guitar from the experts here! Thanks in advance!

https://reverb.com/item/41109043-g-l-legacy-1997-metallic-purple

Last edited by Razzle on Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It seems that not only the serial was sanded off of the back of the headstock, but it's got a 'B' serial number on the neckplate = it's from a bass? I have seen where they ran out of neckplates for guitars and used what they had. I can't tell for sure tho, dunno

It seems that not only the serial was sanded off of the back of the headstock, but it's got a 'B' serial number on the neckplate = it's from a bass? I have seen where they ran out of neckplates for guitars and used what they had. I can't tell for sure tho, dunno

Hey folks... seems I've been on this board for a good while not participated since I don't own any G&Ls. Recently I've had an interest to try one. I found a tele but did some research and didn't want a fender profile, seems some of these have thin and some are more traditional, so I'll wait for a thin one.

However I AM looking at a strat. I looked around a bit and everything on this guitar seems legit, like the PUPs seem original.

But I would welcome any inputs about this guitar from the experts here! Thanks in advance!

ttps://reverb.com/item/41109043-g-l-legacy-1997-metallic-purple

First, congratulations on your first G&L instrument!

Let's go over what you have:

Here is a corrected link to the seller's link:
Because our site will open links directly with https: links, we need to open the link in a new tab, so I use the nturl BBcode:
g-l-legacy-1997-metallic-purple

What you bought is a 3-bolt 1997 Legacy with non-stock pickups for a Legacy. A previous owner replaced the G&L CLF-100 single coil Alnico pickups with G&L S-500 MFD single coil pickups. Notice that there are wiring schematics for both the Legacy and the S-500. The seller is obviously not well versed in G&L instruments.
See this reference post in our G&L Knowledgebase forum: List of pickups used in G&L guitars

About the serial number stamped on the guitar neck plate with a 'B' prefix, here is the information about them in this reference post in our G&L Knowledgebase forum: Serial number significance.

Note: Many 3-bolt guitar neck plates in the range of 52000 to 55000 were mis-stamped with a B-prefix instead of the
usual G-prefix. It was a vendor mistake and the plates were used rather than wasting them.

The body finish is Sparkle Purple which was a Standard finish in 1997. See these links from our Gallery-> 1996 - 1997 Memorabilia:
Album: 1996-97 Catalog and Album: 1997 Retail Price List.

I checked to see if your guitar was previously registered in our G&L Registry and found it had not been registered. So, please do add it to the G&L Registry.

Hope this helps.

First, congratulations on your first G&L instrument!

Hope this helps.

Thank you very much for that Craig!

Sorry about that, I emdedded the link correctly but I've fixed it now.

Well I haven't bought it (yet), it would be my first if I do!

So that sounds like goodness, in that the MFDs I've heard are very good PUs that although aren't exactly like a sparkling strat sound are very much liked. I happen to play typ with gain and I kinda dig the ceramic, I have some other HB PU's that are ceramic that I kinda like, can't say I've had ceramic single coils. I thought I saw something on a special circuit for them but I think I was looking at something else, so I assume the wiring for these is just normal PU strat wiring? So is this correct, that the MFDs in this thing are typically considered better than the AL5's? What's your experience with the tone of these?

And what can you say about the neck profile from your experience?

Yea I had checked the registry when I was trying to figure out the S/N and didn't find it, if I do get the guitar I'll be sure to register it.

Yea the seller received a huge pile of guitars from an estate sale so he doesn't have the history, and yea he doesn't know G&L's. I thought he put up an excellent ad. He said the guy had tons of them and many of them were case queens, the owner obviously modded this one but it sure seems like it's in great shape for the era.

Anything else you can comment on on this guitar would be appreciated also.

thanks again, those links were great and informative. I -did- look at bit before I submitted this thread. lol