PrairieDog

Perfect justification 😄

I never said it was sent directly to the guy on Reverb? I was just speculating it could have gotten shipped to MZ and they missed that it was for a special order, so put it on the floor and it got sold it to someone else, who is now selling it on Reverb. Ever work in retail? That kind of mistake can happen, unfortunately. But if the Reverb one is 2022 then it’s moot, isn’t it. I just hope the guy gets his guitar soon.

Okay, after that comedic interlude, let’s get back to your question. I was thinking you should get the serial number off the one on Reverb. If it’s a 2023, call Gibson customer service tomorrow. They can tell you who the guitar was originally shipped to. If it turns out to be MZ, and since you placed your order, then there is a good chance MZ messed up your order, and you’ll have some leverage. Be polite but firm. Give MZ a chance to offer some consideration on the price for the royal screw-up, exp: waiving the SO charge if there is one, or a good percentage off the price. Otherwise, let them know you are cancelling your order with a full refund of your deposit. You’ll have start over with another place or bite on the Reverb one.

Huzzah!

I don’t know anything about TS or what guitars she plays… not sure how it is relevant or what that has to do with whether MZ sold the poor OPs special order out from underneath him.

I saw that listing too and for moment wondered if your guitar got bogarted out from under you…. But figured I was just being paranoid and that purple sparkle was thing folks are doing these days 🤨

Just mentioning, 3300 pounds is equal to 4100 US right now, so it sounds like it was actually a pretty good deal! 🙂

“Overpaying” is a fluid concept. Did you buy it to flip it or play it? The price is dependent on how many are available at any one time, and the condition. Right now is there one available cheaper in the same condition? Then yeah, you *might* say you overpaid. But where is it? Private party with no guarantee, or a shop that has your back if something turns up wrong? In my experience, GC tends to price pretty competitively with reverb/ebay (actually my experience has been sometimes scoring huge deals because they didn’t recognize something special.) The most important thing, is do you like to play it? Ask yourself Is it worth throwing back hoping something a few dollars lower will come along? Or do you want the immediate gratification? These are the intangible things I think about when buying and pricing. I’ve made some sorry mistakes passing up great guitars for picky reasons, like fussing over a couple hundred I couldn’t deal off, or assuming I can just find a better one later. I say, use your exchange period to figure out if it works for you, and keep an eye on the market. If something else pops, then your decision gets a little tougher, but my guess is, unless you bought an Epiphone priced as a Gibson, you paid a fair price for a guitar you have in your hand right now. Enjoy, and pics if you decide to keep it! (Edit: I was typing while you were posting, that is a great looking guitar!, hope it works out when you get it!)

This is just a fan forum. Gibson doesn’t monitor these posts. You need to deal with a dealer or the shop you bought it from to get the warranty work done, or contact Gibson directly. Use the phone number. You will get a better, more immediate info. This is assuming you bought it new from an authorized dealer. If it was used, getting warranty work is iffy. You can try, but you may have to pony up for the repairs yourself.

Ironic, so much of my much younger, former life was wrapped up in the search for his tone… not me so much, but my band friends. We’d spend weekends scouring the stores for pedals, pick-ups, amps, modifications… never could nail it exactly right. So of course life moved on, and I got out of that world and did a 180 into acoustic/folk/blues. It wasn’t until this thread I had any idea BMG were even a thing. I was surprised how inexpensive they were. Just for a second thought about buying one, just for the nostalgia of it and to put a pin in that chapter 😆

First, prayers sent for your dad and you as you move through this rough bit. Second, there are some very good and wonderful people here.

See JO’s post above. Nothing really too surprising, sadly, even back then. Lots of fakes are floating around. Heck one guy tried to pawn a couple off to the small but highly connected indie store I dealt with back in the 70s. The schmo didn’t do his research so didn’t know who he was trying to sell to, chuckle. And there has been a crazy vintage market for decades. You just didn’t see it all on the internet. We had two high end shops who dealt with selling high end collector guitars to and for major collectors and artists. And just saying, anybody can copy and stamp any serial number on a headstock. As they say in the art market, you don’t fake a Jackson Pollock or Picasso, those are too public and easily found out. You fake the middle of the market, a prolific artist with a good sales history, who maybe has some buzz, but no strong catalog to refer too, do it close enough to the style, copy the signature reasonably, sell it through the low tier second hand market, where dreamers shop thinking they have a chance to score sleepers, and boom you make a few hundreds or thousands off something if it where real, would be 5-6 figures. The scammers don’t care they only got a fraction, they only paid for paint and canvas. And the kicker is, at the bargain prices the buyers end up paying, if it comes out later it’s a fake, most folks are going to eat it, as a risk of the game, rather than make a fuss and face the embarrassment they got took. The running joke is Corot painted 5,000 pictures in his life, and 10,000 of them are in America.

You’ve got an great and admirable attitude, Sean. That is the best way to look at it. And yeah, if you played well with it, it doesn’t matter what is was, you played well. Like you said, sounds like the perfect guitar to pass on for a song, or toss it a kid who’s dreaming of plugging in.

I hate to go here, but that horn looks off to me. Have you removed the truss rod cover to check the fitting there? Gibsons have a very specific nut. Copies often use other fasteners. Given it says “Standard” on the TRC doesn’t seem to speak to it being produced as a special or rare build. It actually raises some red flags, especially if you can’t find any comps, given the number of Standard SGs in the world. Unfortunately buying used, even from a music store doesn’t guarantee authenticity. Stores can get duped too. Best of luck. I’m not a model expert by any means, so I hope I’m wrong.

Hey, you are among your people here! We did a “who was president when you were born?” poll awhile back and I recall the average answer was Eisenhower 😄

yes, reverb is good for pricing, but be aware, you are on your own as a seller. You will need to handle the shipping and hope that your buyer is legit and you don’t have any hassles if they try to scam you. Obviously tons of sales go through there with no problem, but it is a risk if you are not familiar with internet selling. You may get to keep more of the proceeds, but it comes with extra work, like anything. Guitar Center notoriously lowballs their offers. If you have a local music shop they might take it on consignment for you. There are high end specialty guitar places, like Daves Guitar, Willies American Guitars, Carter Vintage etc., that have the clientele looking for special or vintage that may be interested in either buying outright or consigning it for you. Good luck. Btw, the photo site Imgur is the place to use for posting pics. Set up an account, start a new post, upload your picture. Once the picture is in your image folder, open it and click on “direct link” from the menu next to it. Then paste the link you just copied into a post here. You can upload and share as many pics as you want.

The luthier at the shop mine was at put on Ddarrio PB 12s or 11s. So you should be fine with the custom light Martins. And did I miss your NGD? Love to see it!

Any marks on the bottom by the strap pin? I’m wondering if it had a tailpiece at some point?

Congrats!! Curious who will chime in with info on the dots?

Welcome! Nice to have you here

I’m not a luthier, but I do have a lot of experience with materials conservation and finishes. The back looks pretty good, but the top, something is going on. At least some of it could be 100 years of grime, or it could be under the finish, and harder to deal with. A good gentle guitar polish, like Martin or Gibson, should not hurt, and may improve the look quite a bit. Several rounds of light work with the polish sprayed on a very soft cloth, moving frequently to a fresh bit as the dirt transfers could help. Test in a very small area on the treble side panel first to make sure you aren’t affecting or lifting the finish. then a very small area on the top as that finish could be more damaged and fragile. Thick ground in dirt is cleanable, but it takes huge patience as you can’t let anything soak into the micro checking or the finish will cloud or lift off. If it’s just grime on top of the finish you should be able to very gently with a finger nail see if you can move any of the discoloration. I have used scalpels to carefully “lift”, not scrape, thick grime off objects after doing a dance where you soften the grime enough, but leave the finish underneath hard. It takes a very steady hand and patience. And with micro-checking, you can run the risk of pulling up finish with the grime if the dirt isn’t softened sufficiently or you got the finish underneath softened. You can’t rush any of it. Depending on what you do for a living it may be worth it to pay the luthier for their hours instead of spending yours, chuckle. However, From the photo, I think it looks like several other things could be going on: Somebody could have used the wrong type of cleaner that reacted inconsistently with the original finish. Sun striking the top would cause a stronger reaction than the back. It may have sat in a wet area? Then the discoloration could be tannins in the wood leached out, or even old, dead/inert mold. If it smells musty, keep it wrapped up until you can have it treated. The spores can/will spread to other things. Or, it could be smoke damage. This could account for the back and top being different. The back is usually laying tighter against the floor of the case, and the top can have a gap in the old loose cases that allows the smoke to hit the top. Smoke is also oily, so that brings another concern to how the top will perform. All of these situations have more complicated solutions that may require mitigating and refinishing. In the end, the finish is just going to be cosmetic. If the top has a nice resonant thump when you tap it, the board itself is probably okay and not oil soaked. Of course it will be only be easier to deal with before the bridge is placed, but unless it’s something oily in the wood that is deadening the top, or it is infested with mold, it’s not critical to deal with the looks, it would be just about how it makes you feel looking at it. You have several good sounding luthiers in your area. Acoustic Guitar forum has a post about them. If it were me, I’d take it to one that specializes in antique instruments for a diagnosis before tackling anything with the finish.

Hey Matt! Good to see you over here in the main ballroom 👋 Whatever you decide to do is going to be worth it. These are great special pieces. If you have a general fine instrument restorer in your area, they should be able to give you a consult on the finish and an idea of what could be done, and what pitfalls you might be facing.

Grin, nod, Folkway is great. I’ve got no complaints with the XSs, I use the PBs. And yeah, I had a terrible experience with the elixers flaking off almost immediately and getting the shrapnel in my fingers on top of the reaction I had from the bare metal.

Well see, if you had bothered to read any of it, you would have found out the thread was NEVER about asking for string suggestions. It was asking if FRESH strings of the ones I have might make the difference I was looking for. The question was pretty much settled on the first page. The rest was just folks repeating the different string suggestions and/or scrapping the coated, “hog”-piling on my mistake thinking a hog Bird would/could sound like a hog J, and discussing what “thump” is. I even already said I was making peace with the Bird for what it is, not what I wanted it to be. The party was over, and the lights were out before Johnny-come-lately showed up, waking the owner with a off-topic, beaten horse, comment.

Sarge, I have responded multiple times throughout this thread to everyone who already suggested I try different strings: I HAVE TO USE COATED STRINGS. I AM ALLERGIC TO METAL. I even say I use XSs and why. Do you not bother to at least skim a thread before you start pontificating? It’s not like you were the first genius to come up with that bit of break-through advice. Here, not my fingers, but where’s your beer?