j45nick

ksdaddy's guess--leftover screw-on guards modified for dots--seems plausible. Those guards were thick, so it might well be possible to countersink enough for a glued-in dot, particularly if the screws were left out. The screws themselves were tiny. Remember, they didn't even go all the way through the top. I originally had one of these screwed-on guards on the 1968 top (Gibson re-top) on my "original" 1950 J-45. The screws were about the same gauge as truss rod cover screws, but with flat heads. Maybe #2 or #3 gauge, no more than 1/4" long I think they were black, but can't remember with certainty. When I took the guard off to strip the cherryburst top, I remember thinking "these screws can't be all that's holding this thing on." But they were. The guards were thick enough to be semi-rigid.

To be clear, are we talking about the square dread years for the J-45 and J-50? Were any slope-J models (other than the AJ) ever built with a long scale? (I'm not sure about the first slope-Js back in the 1930s other than the AJ.)

The screwed-on pickguards were typical of 1968 or so for Gibson flat tops in general. The belly-down bridge came in about that same time, and some apparently had nickel tuner buttons rather than plastic keystone tuner buttons. The sources I have say that the rectangular board inlays came in about 1971, so that further complicates things. If the guitar wasn't new when you got it, you would have to say it was only a few years old, probably five at the most, and more likely 2-3. I don't suppose you have a serial number or other details, which might be more definitive? A Hummingbird was a Hummingbird in those days, with the only variants being the natural top versus the cherryburst top, as far as I know.

Hah! My wife wouldn't even let ME ride in her Ferrari, if she had it. She's a bit of a sports car nut, Having had an MG TC, Healy Sprite and 3000, and 3.8 Jag. She's eyeballing the new Corvette. She occasionally lowered herself to ride in the 911. I even got her on the back of my motorbikes a few times, but that was really slumming it. Ferrari? Chance in a million.

BK, I don't think I would let that dog into my BMW, if I had one. I certainly didn't let my dachshund into my Porsche, even though she was German. Couldn't trust her. Dogs can be vengeful creatures.

The mahogany Gibson slope-J is my favorite guitar in the world, as you might guess from my screen name. I have three of them: a Bozeman-built 1943 SJ re-issue from 2006, and two 1950 J-45s built within a couple of months of each other 70 years ago. I've owned one of the J-45s since 1966. I bought the other from the original owner last year. He bought it new when he was 14, saving his odd-job money for the purchase. I may be in a bit of a rut with my guitar choices, but it's a good rut to be in. If I could only have one guitar, it would be....(wait for it).....a Gibson J-45. You can't go wrong.

Film makes you concentrate. Every frame counts. That's a good thing. My favorite combination was the M4 with a 35mm f2 Summicron. The closer you get to your subject, the better. Perfect for your passion, if you can do it without making people uncomfortable. Do your cropping in the darkroom. Now, I mostly just use my iphone 11 pro, which has a decent camera for what it is. Mostly I'm just documenting things, and it's pretty good for that. It's nice to have three lenses in one, and it takes surprisingly good photos for a phone.

They're just reloading ammunition and putting away 400 rolls of toilet paper for the coming apocalypse. Maybe they'll forget which goes where.

High humidity is a tone-killer. Right now in Florida, temperature is just low enough the the central AC runs only periodically--probably 10-20% of the time. Temperature in my office/music room is 75F/24C. Humidity is 43%. Outside humidity is about 85% right now. Inside conditions are near-perfect as far as the wood guitars are concerned. The carbon fiber guitar couldn't care less.

Reminds me of a guy in my office who was fiddling with a thing he called email via the internet (via compuserve) in the late 1980s. My thought was "what a waste of time".

When I was a photographer, I had Leicas starting back in high school, with my first one being a IIIa, last one being an M4, which I sold a number of years ago. You could get a motor drive for that one as well. I still have a couple of film cameras sitting around, but haven't used them in a number of years. I loved rangefinder cameras. Digital spoils you. You don't mind taking 10 pictures when one will do. I use to have the think about the cost of film and processing, which is a foreign language to most people these days. Not complaining: digital is pretty cool, and you don't end up with file drawers of negatives and transparencies. Something is lost as well, however.

OK, we're waiting to hear the answer.

Nothing about that guitar says "Gibson" except the name on the headstock. Everything else I see in the one overall photo says it is not a Gibson.

That really is the Holy Grail of guitars. Whether you would want to own it or not is another issue.

The biggest danger for me changing strings has always been string ends poking holes in my fingers. You'd think after 50+ years I would have learned how to do it.