J-1854Me

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

I'd suggest the SJ-200 too! Fred

Whatever floats your boat, I guess..... :-) I had an '89 J-100 (sycamore) for several years. Very nice guitar, sounded fine, played fine, etc. Had it from the late 90s to sometime in the mid-00s or so. In early '00s, I acquired an '01 J-200, so played the two maple 17" jumbos side by side for a number of years. After a while, I decided that if one of the two very similar guitars was going to go, it was the vaunted sycamore -- the maple J-200 just sounded nicer (to MY ears...!). I understand that sort of a 'sycamore mystique' that has developed over the years, and I don't doubt it holds some cachet. But just be sure to 'calibrate' yourself and check the sound that you're expecting with what you actually hear, is what I guess I'm saying. Best, Fred

I'm fairly certain that sycamore was used in Nashville before Bozeman got what they had from there. I've seen some (very few, since there were not many acoustics produced) from the mid-80s that appear to be sycamore. My sense is that Nashville got it from Kalamazoo. In Bozeman, it was certainly used from 1989 thru (I'm guessing) about 1990, possibly into 1991. Fred

JC -- Hawley is probably misquoting something he heard somewhere along the line, when he is referring to "how the J-185 was created". It was NOT designed by the Everly Bros. The J-185 was already there, since 1951 (not 1953, as he mistakenly mentions), and it served as the basis for the EB model supposedly because they found the J-200 a bit large for the choppy rhythmic sound they were after. So the design came from the (by that time, discontinued) J-185 model in terms of body woods and dimensions. Some of the derivative models that were developed, the EB model among them, the Dwight Y2K being another, in some cases are just excellent guitars. If you can stomach the 1/4-acre of pickguard on 'em...some folks don't mind that, and others get woozy just looking at that. Myself, I've played some excellent examples of each. Fred