J-1854Me

Wow, that is a beauty, Bruce! Fred

Yeah, I've been wondering about this change too, moving from a 12" to a "more comfortable" 16" radius. The rounder geometry of the fingerboard was ALWAYS one of the things I loved about Gibsons; to me they felt so comfortable, like an old pair of jeans. Much as I love Larrivee guitars, for example, one of the things I never could really get was the flat fingerboard. Jean came from a classical player's background and so tended to go for the flatter f-board design element, while Gibson had the tighter 12-ish inch radius. Fred

Just for reference' sake, Jeff, many of the mid-'90s Gospels that I have seen (and I did own a '94 for a while), were not dark-stained at all: they had the (very pleasing!) virtually natural finish mahogany neck, back and sides. So, that, as an anecdotal thing..... 🙂 Fred

My '56 J-185 has a body depth at the butt of 4 and 15/16". Fred

Nice job!! Now I wish you lived down the street.... 🙂 (Glad you didn't do the AM radio-sanitized version....) Fred

Hi, and welcome to the written portion of the Forum! 🙂 For your dilemma, I would suggest that the third guitar is the obvious choice. Sound usually wins, in my book, over aesthetics, except in extreme cases. (That said, the second off-centre burst is pretty goofy though.) The light-coloured wood that was used for the bridge and (to a lesser extent) on the fretboard on example #3 is kind of cool, I think. It reminds me a bit of the gumwood and beanwood that was used on some of the 1940s-era Gibsons for bridges and fingerboards. So I'd recommend "go with the Third J-45". Fred

Dang -- that was very nice, Sal!! Just great! Fred

Wow, Tom -- that sounds like a cool and unusual acquisition! Looking forward to a fuller report in a few weeks! Best, Fred

I had on '07 J-185TV, serialed in early April 2007, and it was a True Vintage for sure. The label, however, just said "J-185". It came with that (ultra-hefty) TV case. Fred

Different models came/come standard with pickup systems starting in different years. I don't know that there's any solid dates associated with this though. "Historic" and "vintage" models are least likely to have pickups, but 'standard' models seem to pretty much all come with them nowadays. My '01 did not have a pickup, but a 2013 model did. So probably somewhere in the mid-00s is when they started putting them in all of whatever was considered "standard" models. That's my uneducated wild guess. Fred

Very similar to mine, a 2015 SJ SC Supreme. Fred

Well, Juan Carlos, I hope you don't shuffle off just because of this stuff. It is virtually impossible to introduce topics (or participate in them) on forums without someone somewhere seeing some different aspect and introducing a sidebar that is "off the main topic". This happens on all forums -- it's just how people are. Just my two cents' worth, but I hope you let this water flow off your back. Fred

I'll agree with what you say here, to an extent. I find it unfortunate that the "regular ol' guitars" are becoming so darned pricey though, that they have to trot out a whole crop of matte finish, "sustainable" wood guitars, with thinner bodies, etc. The J-35s and J-15s of a few years ago are creeping into the price point that the J-45s used to own, the J-45s are now up in the mid-2K or higher area, and hence the G-xx guitars. And my go to, the J-185, is now priced stratospherically high and doesn't even have a nice finish on it. That all said, I continue to wonder why the only 'sustainable' wood that Gibson seems to use is walnut. What's wrong with maple or cherry? Or other woods? Whatevs..... I had a young person and their family over the other day to look at a new inexpensive guitar. After looking at a whole mess of Gibsons, they ended up with two 'entry-level' guitars: a Taylor 114 and a Martin D-1. Fred

In the '50s, there was a percentage of the J-185s that were built using that larger 'batwing' pickguard, although most typically the smaller/trimmer pickguard was used. I also had an '07 TV J-185, and it had the "slightly more correct" smaller 'guard. It's seen on the right in the photo, along with an original '56. Fred

I really need to go on a diety too.... :-) Fred