Gold Hardware Wear Factor

[Stan Malinowski]

I'm considering gold hardware on my next Anderson. I've had bad luck with the gold wearing on some other manufacture'r's guitars, anyone have gold hardware on their Anderson and how is it holding up?

[pluto]

Originally posted by Stan Malinowski
I'm considering gold hardware on my next Anderson. I've had bad luck with the gold wearing on some other manufacture'r's guitars, anyone have gold hardware on their Anderson and how is it holding up?

Stan, like you, I've been wary of gold hardware. I think the main reason is that I live in Hawaii where there is a lot of humidity. I've had gold hardware on two used Andersons I bought. The first one was from 1993-I bought it about 5 years later and it was tarnished, but not too badly. After playing it a couple of years more, it did get noticeably worse but then again I used to keep that guitar outside of its case. The second one I bought in 2002-it was about 2 years ago and was tarnished. I ended up sending it to Anderson a couple of months later to get chrome hardware because of the tarnish issue and also because I just like the looks of chrome more. I also noticed an Anderson at my dealer's store-it's been there for a year and a half and the gold looks like it's getting tarnished even though it's been in the store. I think it's just the nature of gold and just being in Hawaii. You should see how nickel hardware tarnishes here on the PRSs.

[gregc]

If you're going to play the guitar and wear is going to bother you, forget the gold. Either order something else or don't worry about the wear. Embrace it...... or just look at it.
gregc

[Stan Malinowski]

Greg,

It is not really the wear that bothers me, but how fast i wears. I love worn, beat on guitars - I have 3 Strats which look like they were thru a war. I have found that gold hardware that tends to wear fast ends up looking cheap real fast, while quality palted gold hardware that gradually wears with playing over a long period of time looks classy!

[pluto]

Actually, if it bothers you that much and you absolutely want gold hardware, at least you know it's easy to get replacement parts from the Anderson factory. A couple of years ago my dealer got replacement tuners from them, that they didn't even use anymore. That's one of the reasons why I like Anderson guitars so much!