PRS EG 1990 -1995
I thought I'd share what I know about PRS EG series, there's not a lot of info out as it was never a great seller.
If there's any glaring errors please let me know and I'll happily amend it.....
Highly regarded by players who want a guitar that'll stay in tune and cover a wide range of tones.
It's a shame that it was produced at a time when high gain amps and Floyd Rose super strats were the norm.
The idea was sound, have a quality entry level 22 fret guitar to compliment the 24 fret CE range.
Initially Prs approached Fujigen about producing the guitar under licence and six prototypes were made.
For some reason, the deal with Fujigen fell through and Prs went ahead making the series in the U.S. with a higher production cost using the same quality hardware as the rest of the factory.
Designed by Joe Knaggs, the EG's came in two flavours...
The EG3, coz it had 3 slanted S/C Seymour Duncan P'ups
The EG4, coz it had a HFS bridge humbucker and 2 Seymour Duncan S/C P'ups.
The Alder body, bolt on Maple neck with Rosewood Fingerboard was a classic design that shared the same basic DNA as a fender strat but combined them into a package that was undeniably PRS.
The neck had a really nice comfortable profile and was fitted with fatter frets than a traditional strat, which made it very easy to play.
In a nutshell, it takes the best bits of a strat and the tuning stability of a Prs and made a super strat thats a superb gigging machine.
Unfortunately the first batch made suffered from a design flaw which resulted in a weak neck pocket, tuning stability was a big issue and some of them started cracking under use.
This coupled with the high price of $860 didn't help sales.
In a bid to turn around the disappointing sales, Prs made some design changes in 1991 and my favourite guitar the EGII was born.
The neck pocket was beefed up, the body was flatter and more rounded.
Lyndy Fralin designed the distinctive Zero Hum noiseless Domino pick ups and the electrics were changed to 1 Vol Pot, 1 Tone Pot.
The Schaller non locking tuners were changed to Winged Tuners that were used on the more expensive models.
The EGII's came in the following flavours
3 Fralin Domino p.ups
1 Prs HFS humbucker and 2 Fralin Dominos. Pull/push coil tap on the tone pot.
1 HFS humbucker, Seymour Single coil, 1 VBass humbucker. Pull/push coil tap on the tone pot.
In 1993 a thin three piece Maple Cap model was introduced
Despite being absolute tone monsters, they were out of sync with what guitarist wanted at the time and never sold well. In an interview Paul Reed Smith actually admitted losing money on each guitar because of the decision to go with the higher production cost in the U.S.A.
Production ceased in 1995 with only 2000 guitars ever being made, making the USA made PRS EG's pretty rare and sought after.