Ummm... I ordered my JTV-69S in Shoreline Gold from Sweetwater in early this last October on a Saturday and got it on the following Tuesday. I did order it when I saw they had it in stock. They had 2 of the gold ones on hand in their guitar picture gallery, and I saw it go to 1 remaining, so I jumped. I spoke to my rep there and he said they didn't expect any of the gold ones again until December, so I figure I lucked out. I watched to make sure they had the one I wanted in stock, but it's a risky game like that, because they can go fast.

I got my first JTV, a 59 TSB from Sweetwater, but that was a true ordeal. I ordered it in early October 2010, but due to a whole bunch of circumstances -- new product rollout, technical problems, and huge demands, I did not get my guitar until late May 2011... My 59 had some technical issues to iron out -- well documented now, so won't go back into that, but it's been fixed, it has performed great -- good solid guitar with a lot of goodies under the hood.

My 69S was well set up and well intonated from the factory, but I'm going to be changing strings on it soon. That's usually the first thing I do when I get a new guitar, but the stock strings have really hung in there. Since I'll be changing to my favorite brand of strings, I'll have to re-intonate and tweek the set up a bit, I'm sure.

I make heavy use of the mags in my playing, and use the models more for special tunings or instruments. The things I am still getting used to with the new 69S is the output level and tonality differences between the 59 (humbuckers) and the 69S (all single coil) mag pickups. I have been a Fender guy for many years prior to my going to LP styled guitars, and have gotten a little spoiled by the absense of hum and the higher output levels of HB's versus single coils. To use the 2 JTV guitars fairly interchangeably, I had to set up a duplicate set list from my normal 59 patches in my HD500, and put about 10db or so boost at the beginning of the signal chain, and push up my noise gate settings to cut off more hum from the single coils. Still messing with that... I also just re-did a speaker cab, and now have to deal with a lot more bottom end tonality from that to tweek -- it's a never-ending quest it seems.

Hang in there -- I'm sure you won't have to wait for over 8 months like I did for my 59 in 2010/2011... It's a matter of what specific models & colors they have coming in their door and when..

My 2 cents...

Dave