With its myriad clones, ‘gooped’ circuitboard and reams of forum posts in its honour, the Klon Centaur is surely the most mythical of effects pedals, and now it’s available to buy once more from original builder Bill Finnegan via eBay.
Under the username klondirectsales, Finnegan will sell the new run direct as he handmakes them.
“I'm Bill Finnegan, designer of the original Klon overdrive circuit, designer of the Klon Centaur Professional Overdrive unit incorporating that original circuit, and also the hand-builder of every single Centaur unit from the beginning of Centaur production in late 1994 until the end of that initial production a few years ago,” he states.
“Now, on a small scale, I am again hand-building a few Centaur units for sale by my company Klon LLC. Given the many demands on my time these days, and also given the labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of building Centaurs, it's inevitable that I will be able to build only a small number of these units, but I hope and expect to continue to be able to do so on a regular basis for some years to come.”
The starting bid for the first of his new run (pictured above) was $100, but some 27 bids later, Centaur #3888 sold for a staggering $2,026.
Launched in 1994 for $329, the Klon Centaur quickly gained a legendary reputation for its dynamic, midrange-rich drive, and used prices have soared since Finnegan stopped assembling the pedals.
Given the plethora of Klones out there - including Finnegan’s own $300-ish KTR - you’d expect prices to have dropped, but it appears guitarists are still willing to pay big bucks for the real deal. Wonder how much the next build will go for...
