I have seen a dinky for sale locally for £180 - trans blue, chrome h/w, Duncan designed HSS, neck sticker says mij, standard headstock on a gorgeous neck with off-white binding, licensed FR.

Seller has had it for 5 or 6 years and bought it 2nd hand so no paperwork, receipts or case / bag to help.

Is it a DK2?

Yes sir.

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Chaos, panic, and disorder.. My work is done here.

Thanks for the confirmation - I think it's probably from about 2003 (having now scoured the catalogs) - are the DD pickups noticeably different from the "real" SD pickups fitted from about 2005 on? I was struggling to hear much of a difference from a 2007 DK2 I used recently.

Are there any other differences between the DD and the later SD pickup equipped DK2's? (Other than the pickups)

The temptation is growing..................

There is a slight difference between the DD and SD pickups. The SD ones are made in the USA, and the DD pickups are made overseas (specifically where escapes me at the moment). There are some DD models I actuall prefer to their SD equvalents.

The DK2 is a very nice playing guitar. I personally have a 2003 DK2 and a 2007 DK2M. The DD pickups in the 2003 are very rich tonally (the DK2M has stock EMGs). I run a Boss MT2 for distortion and a AC2 for the clean parts (I just use the AC2 to take a little of the edge off the humbuckers).

One other thing that you may want to take into consideration is that, although the quality of these guitars is outstanding, they are no longer produced in Japan. Production was ceased in December of 2010.

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Chaos, panic, and disorder.. My work is done here.

Thanks again for filling in the blanks. This DK2 seems to be just about perfect (some crackling when turning the pots).

I shall go and treat myself

The pot crackle is a lot more common than you would think.. Easy fix, though.

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Chaos, panic, and disorder.. My work is done here.

Thanks for the tips MatreCarrefour - I've had the guitar a week now, some crackles on the pots but have reset the bridge and generally tinkered to get the guitar playing even better.
It's now absolutely perfect and with the pickups at the right height it sounds absolutely amazing.

Any advice on the pot crackles? I am handy with scanners and wrenches but a dunce with electrics.......... A job for the guitar store?

If you are not comfortable soldering, then you are probably better off having a shop do it. It is relatively easy to overheat a pot while soldering the grounds on and it will burn up. Should be a cheap repair if you go this route. But, being mechanically inclined, maybe you can put yourself in a barter situation as well.

Your DK2 came stock with 250k pots, if you want to open it up a bit and have finer volume control, go with 500k pots.

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Chaos, panic, and disorder.. My work is done here.