Gretsch G5421 Electromatic Jet Club

Good out of the box, did not expect no rod or action adjustment is needed. Visually nothing wrong. Even the colour is better than the pics shows. But there was a muted sound on both pickups, screws adjustment turn in into fine ringing, excellent on cleans, brilliant on breaking, great on heavy gain. And it is noisy. Opening the covers I was dissapointed finding no shielding at all, even unshielded wiring to output. Even the cheapest Squier is featuring shield painting on all cavities. OK, new shielded wire and copper tape did the job. Additional satin sanding on neck, and now I just love it. Should I buy it again? Absolutely.
Couple of month later: did noticed the nut leads the strings narower. The high E is fine, but the low E is not parallel with the neck. Investigating the pics here and on Gretsch website it was same, so it is standard. But it still feels unpleasant. Compared with other guitars I have it is strange. I can adapt, but why? Did some measurements and compared with other nuts, wich are showing as expected. OK. Ordered Tusq nut from Thomann and replaced the faulty plastic .. here we go. Comfort playing and better sounding guitar. Should I order it again? Yes. Mods are needed if you're up to it, but finally it is lovely.

I use to own this guitar for over 3 years, after that I sold this to a friend. Regret it ever since.

I used it to play mainly blues, jazz, some low gain rock.

Nice chunky D shaped neck that plays very comfortably. I only needed to smooth out the fret edges and straighten the truss rod and it played even better than out of the box.

The pickups sound lovely, very much single coil-like, but with some of the roundness of humbuckers. It also has kind of a twang to it, like T-style guitar would have. Generally good for any clean and low-mid gain playing.

The wiring is super easy, I had to change one volume pot that I broke, but it is generally wired like T-style guitar, so no problem changing it.

The only issue I had with it was the tuning - the tuning sometimes slipped, mostly on G and D strings, but then again, at this price point its expected to have slightly cheaper tuners. If you change it for Gotoh or something similar, even non-locking you should be golden.

In general really loved this guitar, probably going to buy new one in future.