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neck widths (again)


DCBirdMan

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We all know Gibson's 'narrow neck' period of about 1965-70, and then in 70s the scene generally is less cool, altho some stellar examples exist. But what I want to know is what full depth hollowbody electrics goin' all the way back to 1950 had wider necks? I have just come to prefer the wider neck scene... like my reissue CF-100E is a full 1 3/4". Were any hollowbody electrics ever in that range? I eventually may shell out for the right old box, even w/ kool p-90s before the '57/58 changeover to buckers that happened on a lot of models. So were any models known to have wider necks, or were they all over the place?

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The first thing that comes to mind is the Johnny Smith model, which was designed with a 1 3/4" nut width (and a 25" scale, and a 3 1/8" depth, all of which were slight variations on Gibson's standard specs for most full depth archtops).

 

Back in the 80's, I was doing a lot of buying and selling. I had a few guitars which in retrospect I think of as having slightly wider necks than others that I owned, but at that time I wasn't as conscious of what their actual measurements were, although I knew their standard specs. The ones that come to mind were a couple of early 50's ES-350's. In more recent years, I've been more conscious of nut widths. I had a 1962 Johnny Smith (wonderful neck), and I currently have a 1962 Epiphone Sheraton, which also has a 1 3/4" nut (just shy, but close).

 

I can't think of another model that had a standard nut width of more than 1 11/16, but I'm sure there was at least some slight variation in standard production (even the Johnny Smith model was somewhat notoriously famous for having inconsistent necks at one point in time), and of course there have been custom ordered guitars that will provide all kinds of surprises. At any rate, this is an excellent question and a great thread topic.

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Thank you for the replies... I am thinking an early ES 350 or even ES-5... from the P-90 era... however I found out those are 25.5 scale, which is a no go for me. Mayvbe the only 24.75 then is a 175/295 kind of thing.

 

I guess the toxic 1 9/16th narrow neck era was 1966-70? Shame, since there were a lot of cool models then.

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Thank you for the replies... I am thinking an early ES 350 or even ES-5... from the P-90 era... however I found out those are 25.5 scale, which is a no go for me. Mayvbe the only 24.75 then is a 175/295 kind of thing.

 

I guess the toxic 1 9/16th narrow neck era was 1966-70? Shame, since there were a lot of cool models then.

 

Toxic only if you can't deal with skinny necks....

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  • 1 month later...

well updating this... a GC not too far away had a 175 that was billed as wide nut... they reported back it was 1 13/16 which would be a total freak o nature, but when I checked it out in person it was the usual 1 11/16th. They measured wrong. Still interested in a 24 3/4 scale full depth box like a 175 but has the Widest Neck in History. Some early 60s ones were said to have the widest necks ever for that model.

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