Dean Guitars may be going under

[Dannyalcatraz]

Dean Guitars isn’t my favorite electric guitar company, but they were my first.  I bought a Special Select EVO (LP clone) and a Time Capsule Cadillac back in 2003, and I still own and play both of them.

 

Now it looks like between their loss to Gibson (under appeal), the departure of several prominent artists from their lineup, and an ugly battle between the mother and son who currently own Dean (and other companies) together, things aren’t looking good.

 

This guy does a nice summation of the issues bringing the company down.

 

Goodbye Dean.

 

Silver lining: if Dean DOES go belly up, perhaps the company’s founder, Dean Zelinsky, can buy back the IP he created all those decades ago.

 

[Ivan May]

This might be a bit upsetting to learn that Dean Guitars may be going out of business, since a lot of hard rock and metal guitarists played their guitars back in the eighties, bringing some great marketing towards the Dean companies.

[Sharkman]

I had been kicking around the idea of contacting Dean Zelinsky to see if he could build a custom Flying V guitar for me.  Looks like that idea is on hold for the time being.

[Dannyalcatraz]

2 hours ago, Sharkman said:

I had been kicking around the idea of contacting Dean Zelinsky to see if he could build a custom Flying V guitar for me.  Looks like that idea is on hold for the time being.

He might still do it.  He hasn’t been associated with Dean in over a decade.

 

His current company- #3 for those keeping track- is Dean Zelinsky Private Label.  They don’t have a V in their product line, but that’s usually immaterial when you’re talking custom work.

 

https://www.deanzelinskyguitars.com

[Sharkman]

2 minutes ago, Dannyalcatraz said:

He might still do it.  He hasn’t been associated with Dean in over a decade.

 

His current company- #3 for those keeping track- is Dean Zelinsky Private Label.  They don’t have a V in their product line, but that’s usually immaterial when you’re talking custom work.

Hmmm, I'll have to dig up Courtney's phone number and give her a call.  She's married to a guy who is friends with Dean Zelinsky.  I wouldn't want Dean to think I was an undercover spy for Gibson.  Once I get my HUGE situation taken care of, I'll make some phone calls.

[CEB]

I lost interest in Dean guitars after Dean from Thoroughbred bought Dean guitars and tried to expunge Zelinsky from company history.  We all know who the real Dean is. LOL 😀 

[Dannyalcatraz]

3 hours ago, CEB said:

I lost interest in Dean guitars after Dean from Thoroughbred bought Dean guitars and tried to expunge Zelinsky from company history.  We all know who the real Dean is. LOL 😀 

I got my Deans in 2003, shortly after Zelinsky’s second (?) stint in the company.

 

After that, he cofounded DBZ, but left them, too.  There’s some DBZ designs I’d love to own, at least one of which has been discontinued.  They had a double cut design reminiscent of a Gibson E355 or some such, but with different ergonomics.  The body was broader, but amazingly flat- maybe a finger’s thickness at the edge.

 

His current company is DZPL.  They had/have some innovative stuff I’d like to get my hands on as well, including one (again, discontinued) design that echoed the flat one he made with DBZ.  But instead of a E355 style body, it was a pancaked LP.

[Scott Fraser]

39 minutes ago, Dannyalcatraz said:

His current company is DZPL.  They had/have some innovative stuff I’d like to get my hands on as well, including one (again, discontinued) design that echoed the flat one he made with DBZ.  But instead of a E355 style body, it was a pancaked LP.

I bought a Dean Zelinsky Private Label strat style a bunch of years ago. It was beautiful. And absolutely unplayable. I think they hired chimpanzees to do their fretwork. No quality control whatsoever, because a very high fret was causing several lower frets to play the higher note. It was made in Indonesia. I took it to my luthier. He took one look at it, then went in the back and pulled out an identical Dean Zelinsky guitar that somebody else has brought in, except that one was made in India. And it had exactly the same problem, a couple high frets that made the neck completely unplayable. He suggested I send it back because there may be other neck issues that these guitars were suffering that would show themselves after he fixed the frets. I contacted the company & got them to agree to a refund. I sent the guitar and waited. And waited. Finally after several months I contacted them inquiring about my refund, and they gave me a hard time but they did eventually send my money back. In the meantime they asked me to write a review of the guitar. I did, saying that it had issues that made it an unplayable instrument. They never published that on their site. They only published the glowing reviews, which strikes me as exceptionally dishonest. I would never do business with this company again.

[Caevan O’Shite]

17 hours ago, Dannyalcatraz said:

Dean Guitars isn’t my favorite electric guitar company, but they were my first.  I bought a Special Select EVO (LP clone) and a Time Capsule Cadillac back in 2003, and I still own and play both of them.

 

Now it looks like between their loss to Gibson (under appeal), the departure of several prominent artists from their lineup, and an ugly battle between the mother and son who currently own Dean (and other companies) together, things aren’t looking good.

 

This guy does a nice summation of the issues bringing the company down.

 

Goodbye Dean.

 

Silver lining: if Dean DOES go belly up, perhaps the company’s founder, Dean Zelinsky, can buy back the IP he created all those decades ago.

 

Aaaaah...  I guess that I was unaware of or unclear on the difference between 'Dean Guitars' and 'Dean Zelinsky Private Label Guitars'...

 

36 minutes ago, Scott Fraser said:

I bought a Dean Zelinsky Private Label strat style a bunch of years ago. It was beautiful. And absolutely unplayable. I think they hired chimpanzees to do their fretwork. No quality control whatsoever, because a very high fret was causing several lower frets to play the higher note. It was made in Indonesia. I took it to my luthier. He took one look at it, then went in the back and pulled out an identical Dean Zelinsky guitar that somebody else has brought in, except that one was made in India. And it had exactly the same problem, a couple high frets that made the neck completely unplayable. He suggested I send it back because there may be other neck issues that these guitars were suffering that would show themselves after he fixed the frets. I contacted the company & got them to agree to a refund. I sent the guitar and waited. And waited. Finally after several months I contacted them inquiring about my refund, and they gave me a hard time but they did eventually send my money back. In the meantime they asked me to write a review of the guitar. I did, saying that it had issues that made it an unplayable instrument. They never published that on their site. They only published the glowing reviews, which strikes me as exceptionally dishonest. I would never do business with this company again.

WOW... !!?!

I guess I'll steer very widely clear of Dean Zelinsky Private Label Guitars...

[Sharkman]

41 minutes ago, Scott Fraser said:

I bought a Dean Zelinsky Private Label strat style a bunch of years ago. It was beautiful. And absolutely unplayable. I think they hired chimpanzees to do their fretwork. No quality control whatsoever, because a very high fret was causing several lower frets to play the higher note. It was made in Indonesia. I took it to my luthier. He took one look at it, then went in the back and pulled out an identical Dean Zelinsky guitar that somebody else has brought in, except that one was made in India. And it had exactly the same problem, a couple high frets that made the neck completely unplayable. He suggested I send it back because there may be other neck issues that these guitars were suffering that would show themselves after he fixed the frets. I contacted the company & got them to agree to a refund. I sent the guitar and waited. And waited. Finally after several months I contacted them inquiring about my refund, and they gave me a hard time but they did eventually send my money back. In the meantime they asked me to write a review of the guitar. I did, saying that it had issues that made it an unplayable instrument. They never published that on their site. They only published the glowing reviews, which strikes me as exceptionally dishonest. I would never do business with this company again.

You know, I'm not in any hurry to get a new guitar.  I can afford to do a lot more research before I cough up any money to anyone.  Although technically, I would be vomiting money, not coughing it up, and that sounds rather unpleasant.

[CEB]

DBZ’s hard V profile neck was cool. I loved the Imperial.  It was like a very thin tapered 335s body.  Kind of like an old Travis Bean that got rolled out out by a giant rolling pin. 

[Dannyalcatraz]

8 hours ago, Scott Fraser said:

I bought a Dean Zelinsky Private Label strat style a bunch of years ago. It was beautiful. And absolutely unplayable. I think they hired chimpanzees to do their fretwork. No quality control whatsoever, because a very high fret was causing several lower frets to play the higher note. It was made in Indonesia. I took it to my luthier. He took one look at it, then went in the back and pulled out an identical Dean Zelinsky guitar that somebody else has brought in, except that one was made in India. And it had exactly the same problem, a couple high frets that made the neck completely unplayable. He suggested I send it back because there may be other neck issues that these guitars were suffering that would show themselves after he fixed the frets. I contacted the company & got them to agree to a refund. I sent the guitar and waited. And waited. Finally after several months I contacted them inquiring about my refund, and they gave me a hard time but they did eventually send my money back. In the meantime they asked me to write a review of the guitar. I did, saying that it had issues that made it an unplayable instrument. They never published that on their site. They only published the glowing reviews, which strikes me as exceptionally dishonest. I would never do business with this company again.

I seem to remember you posting about that here.  It may be why I haven’t pulled the trigger on one.

 

But I’m still looking.

 

However, if Dean really is going under. I might want to score a second Cadillac- new or used- before that happens.  I always wanted to have one to drop some Bareknuckle Rebel Yell humbuckers into, and I didn’t want to alter the TC one I have. Nothing wrong with its pickups, for certain.

[KTSs]

My second guitar was a Dean as well and I'm sure I'll miss it.

[Mark Schmieder]

On 7/17/2023 at 5:32 PM, CEB said:

I lost interest in Dean guitars after Dean from Thoroughbred bought Dean guitars and tried to expunge Zelinsky from company history.  We all know who the real Dean is. LOL 😀 

 

I hate it when people do that! A former boss and friend did what he told me he'd do if he ever got a "buyout" from a company merger, and sure enough, he did what he said he'd do at that point and started a chocolate company, but I won't name the company as this is a public forum and I (or the forum) could get sued for libel. What really ticked me off was that he not only got pushed out of his own company, but he got 100% erased from the website, the company's history, and even the fact that the company name was borrowed from his! Some bogus new explanation of the company is up on the site in place of the true history.

[Dannyalcatraz]

That is pretty ugly.