I recently acquired a 2016 60's J-45 in wine red with the big white pickguard from Lowe Vintage Guitars in Burlington, NC. This shop is HIGHLY recommended. My new guitar search began with the notion I should find a good L-00 model. I played a number of guitars and Eddie Lowe handed me the wine red Gibson and said, " do you want to hear what a great J-45 sounds like?" After playing it and numerous other guitars, I left the shop and began weighing my experience with each guitar. I could not get the wine red Gibson off my mind. Well, you know how it ends and I'm here to tell you it is a GREAT Gibson. I was reluctant because I was a little iffy about the white pick guard and thought it might be redundant to my beloved Hummingbird. After a month of playing, it is a different beast than my Bird and I now I absolutely love the look of this guitar. Now, every brownish Gibson burst I see looks like a pair of ugly brown boots! A couple of things: my guitar is a Custom Shop guitar that left the Bozeman shop with a fixed saddle. I'm not sure what other differences this Custom Shop guitar may have with the regular 60'2 J-45's. Bone nut? Torrefied top? Different neck profile? Any insight to that would be much appreciated. Bottom line, I am utterly blown away by this guitar. A keeper for sure.
