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I doubt there's much risk here. The edge of the registration hole is probably harder than the maple, thanks to the adhesive, so it seems unlikely that ball ends sitting in or near the hole will cause excessive wear. But I guess we'll find out. -- Bob R

No, they said that excessive bridge plate wear would be repaired under warranty. But I think you missed the main point, which is that they believe there is no actual problem here, structural or tonal, and they're not going to spend any money changing the production line to "fix" a non-problem. (That the bridge plate looks kind of funky to the tiny number of goof balls like us who carefully examine the innards of their guitars does not count as a problem. :) ) They're backing that belief by a promise to do a "fix" (including who knows how many expensive warranty repairs ) if they're wrong -- which means they're pretty darn sure that they're not wrong -- Bob R

Hate to pick on anything in your nice explanation, but there are actually two registration holes on the bottom-side of the fretboard and two matching holes in the neck. The dowels inserted in these ensure accurate location of the fretboard relative to the neck. Also, you neglected to mention that both Josh (the acting GM) and Don explicitly said that they do not believe that the current design will result in excessive bridge plate wear but, if they're wrong, "Gibson will take care of the problem for you [owners]". -- Bob R

Just thought I'd mention the Autry replica wasn't the only one they've done. Two or three years ago, Don showed me a Jimmy Wakely SJ-200 reproduction at the factory. (Didn't take a picture, unfortunately.) It was less interesting than the Autry, since Jimmy's was a pretty stock prewar J-200 but with a pickguard that had his name engraved on it and a single horseshoe squeezed onto the fretboard between the soundhole and the last of the regular inlays. (Given what Monogram paid, he probably couldn't afford the extra $50 to have his name on the fretboard.) Still pretty cool -- especially since Jimmy played his in a bunch of his movies. Sadly, it was headed off to some museum for display rather than to someone who was going to play it. -- Bob R

That one is full-size, not the mini. Gibson was interested in building some of these to sell in the Autry museum with some percentage of the proceeds going to one of Gene's charities -- same deal as with the Autry D-45 replicas Martin did (not to mention the bluebird boot replicas, and lots of other Autry museum stuff). Didn't happen. Just another sad Gibson story Hogeye can tell you if he decides to. -- Bob R

Interestingly, there are few pictures of Gene playing this guitar -- most of them taken at home -- and I don't think it ever made a movie appearance. (Since he always played a character named "Gene Autry", the name on the fretboard wasn't an issue.). But his similarly-decorated "mini J-200" -- much like Ray Whitley's well-known "party guitar" -- did show up in movies. Story is that he got it specifically because he needed a smaller guitar to play when riding Champ in films. Ren got a chance to see and spec the mini at the Autry museum, where it's stored in a vault. I've talked with him about building a copy a few times, without Gene's name to avoid the legal issues associated with that, as It would be about the coolest guitar ever IMHO. -- Bob R P.S. Maybe Hogeye will chime in with the story of Dale Berry's J-200. I think I've got a photo of it somewhere.

Sorry to have caused offense -- it was unintentional. I'll try to avoid assuming that you would like your questions answered in the future. :) -- Bob R

When the J-160E was originally released in '54, it was X-braced and had a solid top. It was also incredibly feedback-prone, to the point where most people judged it to be unusable. Les Paul proposed changing to ladder bracing and a laminate top as a solution to the feedback problem, and Gibson gave it a try. This didn't exactly make the guitar wildly popular, but at least it was more or less functional and it stayed in the lineup long enough for John and George to order a pair in '62. Which resulted in sales to Peter Asher, Chad Stuart, Jeremy Clyde, and who knows how many others -- but I suspect the number is approximately equal to the number of J-160Es sold since 1962 :) -- right up to the present day. Think of the solid top as a reissue of the original '54 J-160E, if you like, but with the P-90 replaced by a P-100 to make it functional. The J-160E was a perfectly valid concept that Gibson didn't manage to realize back in the '50s. The Les Paul-ized version was the best they could do. The bottom line seems to be, Gibson offers reissues of both the original '54 version and an early-'60s version of the J-160E. You can buy whichever you like. What's the problem with that? If you don't want a "'54 reissue", you don't have to buy one. -- Bob R P.S. Just a reminder that Gibson used to make a very nice X-braced, solid-topped acoustic with both a P-100 and an undersaddle pickup: the J-190 Super Fusion. A three-way switch allows you play through either or both pickups. Having separate volume and tone controls for the pickups makes the switch as flexible as a variable pot.

I fail to see what how country of residence of the person who went to the trouble and expense of collecting a sample of the wood in question, having the cellular structure analyzed by a world renown lab specializing in wood species identification, and making the lab report public is relevant to the credibility of the result. That opinions based on lab results are better founded than those based on visual identification (even visual identification by Americans) and a cartoon in an advertising brochure (even a cartoon drawn by an American in a brochure published in America) shouldn't really be in question. -- Bob R

That discussion in FFT predates Willi's lab results. Technically speaking, what the lab established was that the nice, straight-grained, quartersawn, "mystery" rosewood seen on most rosewood Gibsons in the mid-thru-late-'30s-on-into-the-early-'40s that many thought was either Brazilian or Amazonian is Indian. But Gibson also used some flatsawn rosewood -- the '42 SJ-200 at Elderly is an example -- that looks quite different and some still think is Brazilian. It would be nice to get a sliver of that stuff into the lab for analysis, but I guess we'll have to wait until someone who owns one and wants to settle the issue needs a neck reset. Anyway, I think it's fair to say that a sizable majority of the pre-War production AJs (and SJ-200s) are Indian, but whether the number of Brazilian is 0 or somewhat larger is still TBD. -- Bob R

Didn't read this at the time, but maybe it's not too late to respond. Nothing is being done at the Garrison plant. It was shut down in 2009 (IIRC) -- due to apparently-unsolvable production problems -- and everything anybody thought was worth saving was packed up and shipped back to the U.S. -- Bob R