ampman72

Yes. 1992. I had one that was darker than that, somewhere between brown and dark red. It was a '67 reissue (25 years) stamped 1992. Great guitar. Traded it for my '61 jr about 4 years ago.

If the price is right and it plays good...

With chrome rotomatics and knobs without inserts installed.

Tom, when you open up the back of the guitar and you are looking at the back of the rotary, you will notice three groups of terminals that share a common bus wire. These groups have thier own pickup lead wire, one for the neck, bridge and middle. Each tab on the switch is assigned to a position on the switch, so each pickup is "assigned" the positions on which they will operate. The group located at the left side of my 6 way switch is for the neck pickup. In order to assign the neck pickup to the fifth position instead of the sixth, I removed the jumper from the lowest tab or terminal of the group, taking the neck pickup out of postion 6. At this point, another short piece of wire with insulation is attached another wire the next terminal up in the group and effectively jumped over the recently disconnected terminal (for position 6) to the next one (for 5) in line after it going counter clockwise, which is unused by the factory and empty of wires or solder. It helped me to remove the switch from the guitar body to see the terminals that were engaged for the switch positions. I also used an ohm meter in order to verify that the unused terminal put the pickup in at the spot I wanted it to be in, which is the #5 position. The bridge pickup group and the middle pickup group require no modification. So far so good on the 490's. They have a very clear sound. I will have to have more time to tell if they stay. The bridge pickup is a little weak at 7.7K, but I like 8.25K, so it's not too far off. I like the combinations they give you, except for the where the bridge by itself was. A 7 way switch would be cool to have all three pickups on at once in addition to the six choices we have now.

Update: today I brought the sg special 3PU home and found the 6 way switch to have the following selections: neck/neck+middle/middle/bridge+middle/bridge/bridge+neck. This did not work for me at all, as the bridge pickup by itself needs to be at one extreme side, and the neck should be on the extreme other side. Basically, I wanted to flip flop the last two positions. So, I took her apart (I know, a brand new guitar, I'm nuts) and moved one of the neck pickup extension wires out of the position 6 tab over to the position 5 tab. Basically, I changed which position to bring in the neck which ended up giving me exactly what I wanted which is: neck/neck+middle/middle/middle+bridge/neck+bridge/bridge. It was very easy, I just moved one wire. If anyone else is interested in this mod, I can provide more detailed instructions.

Nice tracks dawg, great searing lead tone! Very pro sounding mix! Here is a bigger pic of my 2008 SG Special 3PU at the store:

Dawg and Tom, thanks for the input about the switch. I am getting my thoughts together about it. Push pull pots are a good idea, I once had one on a three pickup guitar that switched the middle pickup in and out and the three way switch was set up like a normal 2 pickup model. This way, I could get any combination I wanted. Putting the the toggle in the middle and turning on the middle would give me all 3. I could also get the middle one by itself by turning down the other two pickups and switching it in. That cherry SG-3 is beutiful! It's gonna be a bidding war on that one, I think. I had it saved in my watch list, great minds think alike!

Great thread! Love the pictures of the SG-3s! I just picked up a NOS 2008 Faded SG Special 3 pickup in black and I have had three SG customs in the past, a 1969 walnut, a 1987 white and a 1992 67 RI. I got the fever for having another 3 pickup SG in my life again. To the guys that have used the 6 way chicken switch for a while now, did you find it difficult to get used to the rotary switch? Can you switch it fast enough after getting used to it? I certainly like the idea of being able to get all of those pickup combinations. To mduke22 with the single coil SG-3 standard, those look like the humbucking routes to me. You should be able to drop the new guard with three 'buckers right in there if im looking at the picture right, lol.