Background

I am the original owner of this Dean Z Standard. I purchased it on September 24, 1977 at Sam Ash Music in Hempstead, Long Island, NY. My assumption is, as the Hempstead store was Ash's flagship store, this was most-likely the first Dean they brought in. At the time, Hamer, who started this "Explorer revolution" had a price tag of two grand. No way. Then these "affordable" guitars came out at a fraction of the cost. Still a lot of money for a young kid. I traded in two 70's Fender Tele Customs and cash to get it.

About the guitar

The serial number is 77 0110, making it the tenth commercial unit manufactured, though Dean kept the first one (a Vee) for himself.) While researching what I could about early Deans, it was almost impossible to find the same exact information from any two sources. The bottom line is, these early units were made by any means necessary, meaning they used whatever parts were available, and some features changed and evolved as the process moved along. My guess is no two were made exactly the same - something was always being tweaked.

This guitar is 100% original. Other than the strings, nothing has been changed, modified nor altered. For a 45 year-old guitar, it is in amazing condition - other than a few chips in the finish, and all located on the back of the guitar. Pretty remarkable. (see "The Scars" in the Gallery section.)

The back of the neck is finished in a darker shade than the rest of the back. No idea why. There are no breaks nor any repairs, as shown by the black light photos (see "The Forensics" section in the Gallery.) Because there was no rhyme nor reason to what they did with each of the very early guitars, they may have been experimenting with finishes, or perhaps were unhappy how they first finished it. We'll never know. It is exactly the same as the day I bought it. There is no visible fretwear - that's how little play it's gotten over the years.