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1975 Gibson J-50D; What wood?


Damocles

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I've got a 1975 Gibson J-50D that I've had for 30 years. I recently came across a listing for one that said it had a spruce top and rosewood back/sides but I always thought the back and sides were mahogany. Does anybody know, for sure, what the standard body woods for this year/model were? Looks like mahogany to me...

 

J50.jpg

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I bought my 1974 J-50 Deluxe when it was new and it is mahogany. I thought they all were, but suppose anything is possible. BTW, I have never heard of a "J50-D" - does it say that on the label? Mine says "J-50 Deluxe".

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Did some Googling since I was curious. Is this what your guitar looks like? https://reverb.com/item/7889279-gibson-j-50-d

 

Quite different from my 1974 J-50 Deluxe! Here's mine, you can see a bit of the orange label inside - it has some nasty stains from where my daughter put some food into the soundhole 30 years ago, LOL.

 

74_body.jpg

 

74_headstock.jpg

 

I also found a thread about the J-50 D over at AGF, where our friend zombywoof said the characteristics of that one suggested it was from 1969-1972. Always interested to learn about more variations of the J-50. :)

Edited by Boyd
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Actually, that is not the original bridge on mine. Sometime in the 1980's I had it replaced when it developed a big crack and became unplayable. I don't recall exactly what the original bridge looked like, but I do remember that the replacement was not quite the same.

Edited by Boyd
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These were my original tuners. I never liked them from the very beginning, always were very stiff to operate even when they were new. One of them broke and I had replaced it with something that didn't match back in the 80's. So when I had a luthier work on the guitar in 2012, he replaced them all with the Gibson "vintage" tuners with plastic knobs. At that time, I didn't realize I could have gotten modern replicas of the originals.

 

74_tuners.jpg

Edited by Boyd
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  • 2 years later...

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