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- Gone but not forgotten -
1980? Cardinal Series CS-Dunno
(It fits most of the specs of a CS-350 anyway)

This one has had me baffled. The serial number doesn't jive with any of the info I have. Towards the end of the series the body joined the neck closer to the 22nd fret as this one does, but the neckplate is void of the Aria Pro II stamp for this period. Instead, it has the  "Matsumoku" stamped on the neckplate like early production. It's the mystery machine.

It had originally belonged to a friend but during one of his ex's psycho postal episodes she attempted to fashion a hat out of it for him with many impacts to his skull employing great force. The back had many deep dents which I am sure fit his head perfectly. The back is now walnut stain with some nice 3D grain effects. The pickguard is actually from my PE-R80 and is hiding a nasty gouge.

Update
According to an article covering the Aria Pro IIs by Michael Wright The CS-250s came in matte finishes, and the CS-300 and CS-200 were simply single pickup versions of their bigger brothers. according to the article all came with coil-cut and phase switches. This has only the coil-cut. The rest of the hardware on the guitar is the same as the 350. The tuners, saddles, pickguard, and brushed aluminum toggle washer are not original. I guess the blank cover and single mini-toggle is leaning more towards a particular production run, as I know one other person that has one. The mystery continues!

Update
I got busy and decided to tackle this thing. I had originally set it up for an eccentric collecter and needless to say his taste was a tad unusual. I had hung on to a dorked up Gibson Velvet Brick that came out of a Gibson Sonex 180 I rebuilt for a friend. I wired a lead to the grounded coils (done previously) which allowed for series/parallel/coil-cut and covered it with a Gibson nickel cover. I had never heard it as it was dead when I got it. I do very much like pleasant surprises! That's in the bridge spot and in the neck is an MMK Protomatic (later version) originally designed for the bridge (the original neck could not keep up with the VB).

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