Hagstrom Swede Gold

I had my eyes on one of these since they were announced, but was a bit skeptic because of previous experiences with Hagstrom guitars. I had a Deuce, played nice and was comfortable (although after playing it for longer times, the thin neck caused my hand to cramp up), but I found the pickups, switch and jack sub par. Trying to replace the switch was a bit of a miss because the routing was too small for the switch I wanted to install, so I had to make do with another switch (bit more sturdy than stock, but still not top notch). Played on a Viking owned by a band member for some time: same experience but less comfortable due to the weight. Before giving this model a chance, I bought a couple of Ltd Ec1000 guitars, and they were just great out of the box (keepers!). The guitar I played in my first band was a gold top, and-being a bit nostalgic- I kept thinking: maybe with this model I can get similar specs to the Ltd's (locking tuners, stainless steel frets) but in gold, hoping the quality would be better than say 10 years ago... So I pulled the plug and ordered it. Specs I wanted are spot on, pickups are great sounding, not wanting to upgrade them immediately is rare for me... (although I don't use the coil split a lot, you can get some nice variations of tone out of this beauty) Only negative point for me again: the switch. It seems a bit better than the stock one on my Deuce, but it isn't really fluid and again, due to narrow routing, I can't rotate the switch in a way that follows the arc of my picking hand. So for now I will leave it alone, but I might do some routing myself in the future and put a better switch, slanted. Another minor point for me: the upper strap button could be placed a bit closer to the neck, so the neck would tilt a bit more upward while playing, now it's a bit too close to horizontal (this is really nitpicking) for my liking. Again, something I might change in the near future. TLDR: Great guitar for this price, locking tuners, stainless steel frets and great sounding stock pickups with lots of variations in tones available. Another big plus: it comes with a nice fitting case! No major problems, just some personal preferences of mine that weren't met. Only things I'm missing to make this 100% would be: locking bridge and tailpiece, better switch that has room for rotation and upper strap pin closer to the neck to give a bit of an upward tilt. Better and cheaper than any Epiphone I have played, more comfortable and up to date than a Gibson, very close to new gen. Esp Ltd, but a bit cheaper and comes with a quality hardcase!