THE ANNOUNCEMENT
Rita Haney — Dimebag Darrell's lifetime partner — and Dean Zelinsky just launched Dime GuitarZ, and they're making it clear this is the only place to buy official Dimebag guitars *, †. Haney went out of her way to state that Dimebag "never had a relationship" with the current Dean Guitars company — he was killed three weeks after signing that deal, and his actual relationship was with Zelinsky personally, the guy who built the Dean From Hell and every other guitar Dime actually played *, †.
THE DETAILS
- First model released is the Culprits, one of Dimebag's earliest designs originally made in limited numbers *
- USA Culprits feature laser-engraved snakeskin bodies and Zelinsky's patented Z-Glide Neck technology that removes 72 percent of the neck surface to reduce friction *
- All guitars include the new DimeBooster circuit — up to 15DB of clean boost, no battery required, runs over 20 hours on a 60-second USB-C charge *, †
- Grady Champion, Dimebag's guitar tech throughout his entire Pantera career, is involved with the company *
- Available exclusively at Dimeguitarz.com and Thomann.de in Europe *, †
WHY IT MATTERS
SKIP IT if you thought Dean Guitars was still the official home of Dimebag gear — this is the estate drawing a hard line in the sand and reclaiming control. The fact that they felt the need to publicly clarify Dimebag died three weeks after signing with Dean Guitars and "never had a relationship with them" tells you everything about how messy the licensing situation has been for the past two decades.