To zero fret or not to zero fret?

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Oct 17, 2023 0:58:12 GMT -6 antares said:

And there with the Teisco reference you've reminded me exactly why I too associated zero nuts with mass assembled low end of the market guitars, but I still reckon I must have read it or someone told me at some stage, and I went on to hold forth in that unfounded fashion for years. I encountered zero frets on (EG) low end German built plywood or birch acoustics too such as Framus(?) I think the original Burns Electrics had zero frets as well. Although some folk seem to like them, the Burns I played some fifty years ago was a poorly set up unweildy dog of a guitar, so upon reflection I guess I know where the anti zero fret notion came from. Live and learn etc.

でつ e&oe ...

I have been sitting here and looking back on guitars that I have owned and played over all my years of playing. Seems to me, way back in the 70s I played a high-end acoustic that had a zero fret on it. Back then, I didn't think anything of it. I know a lot of cheap guitars back then had them as well. And at some point, someone told me that any guitar with a zero fret was a low end guitar. Hum…

Fast-forward to today, I have played on so many guitars with a zero fret on them that I can't even count. If I remember right, I think Ibanez was one of them.

     I think that the zero fret is now one of them personal preference things. It is no longer being looked at as something of a cheap instrument. Like has been said, it's been used on other stringed instruments for many years.

Heck, I do remember when basswood and popular woods were thought as low end guitars. Now look at it. I was told at some point that made in Japan, Indonesia, guitars were junk, to stay away from them. But look at them now. They have some of the best made guitars in the world. Even the counterfeit ones are impressive.

 Once again I say play what you like, build guitars the way you want. When it comes down to it, do any of us really know what is best? It seems the older I get, the more I come to realize that I don't know anything. Wish I were 17 again. Back then, I knew everything! LOL!

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LOL! I seen this where Dane talks some on the zero fret.