There's an older (6 bolt neck) Silhouette that has popped up on a local FB group for what I think is a decent price.
That said, I can't figure out if it's been messed about with or if it is an older model that just hasn't been mentioned on the Internet much. The pickups look messed with it's an HSH model but the bridge is a rails type, the other two look stock. It also seems to have a non-standard trem (not a Floyd, but it looks like it's got Floyd-style "fine tuners" on the trem) and instead of a Floyd style locking nut, it's got a similar string locking mechanism on the headstock itself.
Does that ring any bells with anybody? My take is that if it's actually mostly stock it'll be worth the trip, if it isn't it's not worth the money even though it is probably the cheapest non-Sterling Silhouette I've seen for sale in a while.
I have a late-'70s Sabre bass, but I admit that I'm not the marque expert.
Buy it. Good deal, bad deal, whatever. Stock, modified, they're all good.
Except Paul Reed Smith, I can't stand those. Thats just me though.
Whats the plan? Musicman has always been a good guitar. If you can, go play it. Maybe some of the changes are nice. Bottom line, if you like it a lot, its ok if its not original. The only crappy part is yes, it hurts the resale value if its not original, obviously. Maybe see if he'll knock a few extra bucks off the price for you if you are traveling a long ways.
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Post pics? What you’re saying makes it sound like a hack-job. They sold them with floyd-licensed trems with “music man” stamped on them, but had a traditional floyd type locking nut.
I would run, not walk, from a floating trem hack job. And unless it’s a screaming deal, yoy could do a lot better anyway, IMHO...though my opinion may be skewed as I’ve always found them goofy looking and overpriced.
Grabbed the photo of the FB ad:
Meditating on this a bit more, the ugly string lock looks rather homegrown. The trem actually kinda looks like the OEM one, but I'm not sure how they managed to retrofit it with the adjusters, one of which appears to be missing. My big concern with something like this is that it's already a rather old model and getting spares for whatever they modded is gonna be a huge pain in the sitting area.
I've played a couple of Sterlings, even owned one, and liked them. This one would be cheap, but I usually don't like buying modded guitars along these lines because you never know how well they've been done and one usually gets soaked on resale.
Re PRS - I do have a couple and like them, but they're all somewhat weird models - one of the older seven string SEs, an EG-4 and a CE.
BTW, this is what the current Silhouette HSH looks like:
Uuuuuh, yeah, that looks like a E36 M3-show. Are we talking $150 “cheap” or “hey, it’s under $1k” cheap?
In reply to poopshovel again :
It's a "hey, it's $250 less than what I can find a cheap HSH on Reverb for" cheap guitar. Which makes it three instead of four figures, but it would still be one of my most expensive instruments.
For $150 I would've already laid rubber on our driveway.
The longer I look at this the more it looks like I should just spend the additional $250 and lessen the headache potential. It's really the installation of that locking mechanism on the headstock that's the big worry - the trem I can swap out if necessary, and the bridge 'bucker is a DiMarzio so I can find one of those as well. But fixing the string lock will most likely require either ignoring it or sending the neck back to Music Man to get a "not cheap" replacement neck.
That looks pretty rough. Bridge pickup looks like a Dragonfire/GFS but could be a X2N too. Neck pickup is slammed down on the treble side too which could mean the pickup sucks.
The string tree looks really bubba to me. If you are buying for resale I'd run away. If you are buying for say.....$250? Maybe but play it first
Is the neck pickup in there kinda cockeyed?
Also, I love my PRSs. 
In reply to BoxheadTim :
I dunno. The bridge would scare me more than the goofy headstock device. The latter is probably two small screws. The former was either crammed into the factory routing or bubba measured wrong and routed that big gap on the left side, at which point it seems unlikely he used factory mounting holes/hardware.
There are soooooo many good guitars in that “just under a grand” price range, unless you’re hell-bent on a MM.
In reply to poopshovel again :
Not hell bent on this one - it would be a good deal for one in original condition so I could keep it for a while and then sell it on without losing money. I have a couple of guitars that are just keepers, but most of them move on after a few months to a year or two around here.
I probably should sell a couple before buying another one anyway.
David S. Wallens said:
Is the neck pickup in there kinda cockeyed?
Also, I love my PRSs.
Speaking of PRS, I haven’t seen any posts from Jack recently about his 944 or the Bluebird. Any idea if he’s been racing much?
