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The Brazilian Saga - Historic Makeovers 2016 R8

andreaobh

New member
Joined
Mar 24, 2019
Messages
4
Hi everyone!

Sorry for the long post, but this is a loooong story of the best guitar I’ve ever played.

Around December last year I was convinced that I would get a Les Paul Reissue and send it to Kim at Historic Makeovers for the complete Deluxe package.

I do have an awesome 2018 R8, but sending it to Kim wouldn’t be the best choice, since I live in Brazil and the whole logistics wouldn’t be simple. So I’ve decided to buy one online already in the US and deliver it to HM. After searching for a while, at the end of January I found this picture on Gbase:

943DC700-9921-4C88-9213-26DB6592464C.jpg

That’s exactly the type of flame that I like. Not too much and not too little. Didn’t think twice and bought it.

Once it arrived at HM everything was going smooth. Kim set up a gallery of the whole process and I was getting very excited about it all. Here are some pictures:

View attachment 11943

View attachment 11945

0BF1A01C-91ED-4541-98E1-ED94E759BB2C.jpg

It looked perfect. Around mid-April the guitar was finished. I’ve arranged with a Brazilian import company to bring the guitar from the US to Brazil. They would take care of all the customs paperwork and taxes, which is a major headache. Asked Kim to ship the guitar to the address they have given me and it was all going well.

However, around mid-April the Pandemic was at full throttle. Result: the guitar took a month to arrive in Brazil. Once it was here, it took 3 months (yes, three months!!!) for it to go through customs.

Around August 20th I finally got an email from the import company stating that the guitar was finally on its way to their deposit. From there, they would send it to me.

Around two days later, I checked the tracking # on the Brazilian mail website to verify if it had arrived at the import company. My heart almost stopped when I read: ‘The delivery address does not exist. The package will return to the sender’. I didn’t understand a thing of what was going on and got in touch with the import company. They didn’t either (which is kind of a problem, right?). Later on the same day the guitar was once again at the export customs in Sao Paulo. I just couldn’t believe that after spending more than 9000 USD and waiting over 7 months the guitar would go back to the US. Everything was going through my head. I would probably have to wait for other 4-5 months for it to come back to Brazil and God knows in what kind of shape it would be. Very likely, broken.

Back to the saga: I was informed by the import company that they’ve really messed up. The address was indeed incorrect. Apparently they’ve got the number wrong. I was furious by this time and they told me they would try to stop it going back to the US, but they didn’t sound really confident.

But then, against all the odds, around a week later the import company got in touch and told me they could fix the address issue. Couple of days later the guitar was at their possession.

Now it is home. Without a single issue. I still can’t believe it. I guess when things are more difficult to achieve we do value them more.

I’m in love with it. I has a very nice deep dish top carve, the flames look even better in person and it sustains like crazy. I’ll update a couple of more items (plastics, pickups, etc) but it is already my dream guitar. And now I have one hell of a story to tell.

FFF22FA4-47BD-4B98-9A84-0C9CDFCB5471.jpg
 

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goldtop0

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 19, 2003
Messages
8,931
Holy Moses you've certainly been through the mill with your LP................play the heck out of her now:salude
 

Mark Kane

All Access/Backstage Pass
Joined
Jul 18, 2001
Messages
5,742
Congrats on your new guitar and glad the great journey came to a happy end. You story is interesting to me because I’ve shipped a lot of guitar amps to Brazil in the past 10 years or so and have fortunately not experienced problem one. My dealer there handled everything through a company in Miami that he had great confidence in.
 

garywright

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 17, 2002
Messages
15,583
I was thinking my r9 missing in action for a week in German customs was bad ..glad it worked out well for you :salude
 

andreaobh

New member
Joined
Mar 24, 2019
Messages
4
Thanks, guys!

Other pictures of it that I quite like:

5FDB990E-C270-4210-AED0-0CFB7D7F477B.jpg

58D43CD5-0382-4A02-B0D1-6296D8B6A497.jpg

I’ve also found that it is remarkably similar to an original burst 9 2148. Unfortunately I couldn’t find other pictures, but they do seem to look alike.

6FBE1DE8-BD0C-40B4-B6C3-F6ED353D64E8.jpg

Congrats on your new guitar and glad the great journey came to a happy end. You story is interesting to me because I’ve shipped a lot of guitar amps to Brazil in the past 10 years or so and have fortunately not experienced problem one. My dealer there handled everything through a company in Miami that he had great confidence in.

Yeah, I guess I ran out of luck this time. Next time I’ll try to find a better company.
 

El Gringo

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 8, 2015
Messages
5,657
Hi everyone!

Sorry for the long post, but this is a loooong story of the best guitar I’ve ever played.

Around December last year I was convinced that I would get a Les Paul Reissue and send it to Kim at Historic Makeovers for the complete Deluxe package.

I do have an awesome 2018 R8, but sending it to Kim wouldn’t be the best choice, since I live in Brazil and the whole logistics wouldn’t be simple. So I’ve decided to buy one online already in the US and deliver it to HM. After searching for a while, at the end of January I found this picture on Gbase:

View attachment 11947

That’s exactly the type of flame that I like. Not too much and not too little. Didn’t think twice and bought it.

Once it arrived at HM everything was going smooth. Kim set up a gallery of the whole process and I was getting very excited about it all. Here are some pictures:

View attachment 11943

View attachment 11945

View attachment 11946

It looked perfect. Around mid-April the guitar was finished. I’ve arranged with a Brazilian import company to bring the guitar from the US to Brazil. They would take care of all the customs paperwork and taxes, which is a major headache. Asked Kim to ship the guitar to the address they have given me and it was all going well.

However, around mid-April the Pandemic was at full throttle. Result: the guitar took a month to arrive in Brazil. Once it was here, it took 3 months (yes, three months!!!) for it to go through customs.

Around August 20th I finally got an email from the import company stating that the guitar was finally on its way to their deposit. From there, they would send it to me.

Around two days later, I checked the tracking # on the Brazilian mail website to verify if it had arrived at the import company. My heart almost stopped when I read: ‘The delivery address does not exist. The package will return to the sender’. I didn’t understand a thing of what was going on and got in touch with the import company. They didn’t either (which is kind of a problem, right?). Later on the same day the guitar was once again at the export customs in Sao Paulo. I just couldn’t believe that after spending more than 9000 USD and waiting over 7 months the guitar would go back to the US. Everything was going through my head. I would probably have to wait for other 4-5 months for it to come back to Brazil and God knows in what kind of shape it would be. Very likely, broken.

Back to the saga: I was informed by the import company that they’ve really messed up. The address was indeed incorrect. Apparently they’ve got the number wrong. I was furious by this time and they told me they would try to stop it going back to the US, but they didn’t sound really confident.

But then, against all the odds, around a week later the import company got in touch and told me they could fix the address issue. Couple of days later the guitar was at their possession.

Now it is home. Without a single issue. I still can’t believe it. I guess when things are more difficult to achieve we do value them more.

I’m in love with it. I has a very nice deep dish top carve, the flames look even better in person and it sustains like crazy. I’ll update a couple of more items (plastics, pickups, etc) but it is already my dream guitar. And now I have one hell of a story to tell.

View attachment 11949

What a spectacular Les Paul ! That is a story with plenty of drama and factor in the Pandemic going full throttle you will never forget the trials and tribulations ever . I am so glad everything turned out okay and the guitar came home to you after such a long journey . That is crazy amount of time to sweat it out and wait for it , which would have drove me nuts . Congrats on a amazing beauty . Play her in great health !
 
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