“Each instrument comes with a custom hardshell case, a signed COA from Robert Smith and directly supports life-saving cancer research”: Schecter and the Cure’s Robert Smith join forces for charity with the release of the Shellflower UltraCure

Schecter and Robert Smith have teamed up for limited edition release of the Cure frontman’s signature guitars to raise money for the World Cancer Research Fund.

The UltraCure and UltraCure VI are finished with a black-and-white “Shellflower” graphic, courtesy of Bunny Lake Designs, and each guitar sold will raise $500 for the cancer charity, with Smith and Schecter both donating $250 each.

Schecter’s shipping these super-collectible six-strings in a custom hardshell guitar case, inside which you will find a certificate of authenticity, signed by Smith, and one very rare electric guitar. They are not making many of these.

There will be just 50 of the UltraCure standard electric guitars, with 25 of the UltraCure VI for those wanting to take their sound down an octave. Through a clean amp, with a splash of reverb and some movement and depth from a chorus pedal, the UltraCure VI should give you one heady tone.

Like the Fender Electric VI, it’s technically a bass guitar but no one can really commit to calling it that – it feels more like a hybrid.

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Smith’s UltraCure VI even draws some inspiration from the Jaguar, with a trio of slider switches to turn each pickup on and off, and the pickups themselves as Seymour Duncan Jaguar single-coils, with the middle pickup reverse-wound. Tone and volume controls are on-hand to dial in a sound.

The body is solid mahogany, the neck three-piece maple, reinforced with carbon fibre rods to deal with all that extra string tension. With a short 30” scale it will be noticeably more approachable for guitarists who otherwise might find a bass unwieldy.

More conventional, though with an offset shape and spec that is anything but, the UltraCure is a dual-humbucker electric with a Bigsby vibrato and some very cool details, sharing many specs as its longer-scaled sibling.

Again, we’ve got the mahogany body, the three-piece maple neck, the rosewood fingerboard with the MOP block inlays. The neck profile is a comfortable thin C shape. There are 24 jumbo frets.

But with a pair of Schecter’s PAF-alike USA Route-57 humbuckers it has a very different voice. These are selected by a three-way toggle switch, and controlled by individual pickup volume controls and a master tone knob mounted on the lower horn. Tone-wise, this is ballpark Gibson-with-a-Bigsby, and that is something to get excited about.

These special edition models are available now, are priced $1,500, and will raise money for a very good cause. For more details on the Robert Smith “Shellflower” UltraCure and and UltraCure VI, head over to Schecter.