j45nick

Virtuoso Cleaner is extremely powerful. The polish is what really brings out the gloss, however. To give you an idea, when I bought my 2010 L-OO Legend (barely used) in about 2011, the boutique dealer I bought it from indicated the surface had what appeared like a lot of polishing scratches, so the price was marked down maybe $500 from the expected price. I ordered it anyway, because the price was right and I was frustrated after a year at looking at what I thought were overpriced vintage versions. When the guitar arrived, I realized that the "polishing scratches" were actually a not-particularly-well-executed VOS finish. I went after it with Virtuoso cleaner, then polish, and ended up removing 90% of the "scratches", resulting in a finish that was not ultra- high gloss, but did not show significant scratches. That finish was pretty much what I was after. I have cleaned several vintage Gibsons with Virtuoso, achieving almost frightening results. I had a lovely sunburst 1968 ES 335-12 with virtually no checking, and it look like maybe a lightly-used 10-year-old guitar rather than an almost 50-year-old guitar by the time I finished. The luthier who did a neck re-set on it thought I had buffed it out. The one-owner 1947 L-7 I had got a similar treatment. That one owner had been a chain smoker for the almost 60 years he owned and played it, and the guitar was filthy beyond belief, and stunk to high heaven. I had to throw the original gig bag away, because my wife wouldn't let it in the house. I started out with naphtha on that before switching to Virtuoso, wiping down every accessible inch of the guitar with naphtha, inside and out. A word of warning. As they say on the label, do not use Virtuoso products on surfaces with significant lacquer checking. The cleaner dries to a fine white haze, and will penetrate cracks so that the checked surface looks like a spiderweb. I can vouch for the fact that the effect is almost impossible to remove. I spent days with naphtha on cotton swabs trying to undo what I had done, with only moderate success. The gloss was impressive, however.

You probably don't want to use Virtuoso products on a new guitar. It will end up glossy, even though these are superb products. As has been mentioned, a damp soft rag is a good starting point. I have used a cloth dampened with naphtha, a mild solvent which appears to be safe for nitro lacquer finishes, for cleaning sticky areas on lacquered surfaces such as Gibson guitar bodies and necks. After removing stickiness, you might have to gently wipe down surrounding areas with naphtha as well to even out the finish if you see local changes in gloss in the areas you cleaned. Do not use a soaked rag: dampened should do it. Wipe dry afterwards with a dry soft rag. When I do a major cleanup on an old lacquer-finished guitar, I usually start with naphtha to remove most surface grunge before moving on to more aggressive cleaners/polishes such as Virtuoso. By the way, make sure your hands are clean before picking up your guitar. I almost always wear a long-sleeve cotton T-shirt when I play to keep body oils off the guitar. Deodorants on your underarm may well leave residue on the guitar which can be hard to remove and might damage the finish over time. At the same time, play the guitar, but give it some care, as you seem to be doing.

Sal, that was really awesome! American Beauty may just be my favorite Dead album, and this is a really nice interpretation of one of the best songs on it. I used to do a version of "Box of Rain", and may have to dust that one off again. The best of the season to you, my friend, and may 2021 be better for all of us.

My L-OO body is 4.375" at the tail block, 3.5" at the neck block. For comparison, my all-original 1950 J-45 (as opposed to my other re-topped 1950 J-45) is just under 4.875" at the tail block, and 3.875" at the neck block. (Just measured these to verify.) Don't know how those numbers compare to the LG-series guitars.

Paul seemed obsessed with getting the speed just right, at least in the clip shown. He asked it to be speeded up, although the difference was pretty subtle. The guy on the Epi ( you remember him, they guy with the granny glasses) sets the beat after George counts it down. I love watching people work in the studio, having spent a good part of a year doing that when I was young.

The typical L-OO, like my Legend, is short scale. I just measured mine to confirm. I don't know if there are any long-scale variants.

Have you read what people here are saying, at all? No one is saying what was shown in those pictures is acceptable. It's just that none of us has seen or owns a new Gibson guitar that looked remotely like that on the inside, and the OP seemed really intent on coming here to trash Gibson with some disturbing photos and a lot of hearsay.

That is pretty awesome, actually. Nice to see the late, great Billy Preston in some of those shots, even briefly. He played electric keyboards for a big part of the Get Back sessions.

Lots of varieties in recent years. I have a 2010 L-OO Legend, which is the highest of the high-end versions. It is an exact copy of a specific 1937 L-OO, with adi top, accurate vintage appointments such as interior fabric side stays, Madagascar board and bridge, and all hide glue construction. They have recently made other models that have 90% of those features for substantially less money. There are probably people here that have some of those other models, and can comment. I bought mine after spending more than a year looking for a really good vintage L-OO, and being generally less than happy with what I found in the vintage market for substantially more money.

We can't help you without pictures and a serial number. While some of these are very good guitars, Gibson had a very mixed reputation in the period most of these were made, so their value is not necessarily as high as you might hope. You might look on reverb.com or ebay to get an idea of asking prices and recent sales.

And to you as well, my friend and friends. Here's hoping for a less chaotic 2021. My latest and probably last work contract is wrapping up by early February. My goal after that is to play more guitar, and worry less. We'll see how that works out. Merry Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year.

I'm coming at this from the opposite direction. I have a few Gibson acoustics, but only a single Gibson electric. But that one is a nice one: an ES-335 1959 Historic from the old Nashville Custom, Art, and Historic Shop. For an electric player, the G 45 Studio is probably a good place to start, but once you get hooked on Gibson acoustics you may be keen to expand from there.

Congratulations, and welcome to the Gibson acoustic family!

I listened to this again through half-decent Bose speakers, and the differences were more obvious than they were through my headphones.

Hang in there, Jinder. All your friends here are pulling for you.

The blind test was to determine how a guy who plays professionally and does demos for a living , playing and listening to each guitar without knowing which was which, would react to the guitars. I don't have a good enough headset or good enough speakers to do a "real" comparison watching the video, but he didn't need those for the test. I did watch the video, all the way through, and was impressed by the comments of the guy doing the testing, not to mention his playing, which I thought was a really good way to demo the guitars. He hedged bets on the 'birds a bit at first, which was understandable given how similar they were at first listen. Sure, I could hear differences, but what I heard might have been completely different if I had been sitting directly in front of or behind the guitars. No one is denying there was confirmation bias involved in watching, knowing which guitar was which.

Agree 100%

That was really excellent. The J-45 really is the workhorse, as he says. The strings are a variable in this case, but we have know way of knowing how much of a variable, and in which direction that difference might tilt the decision between any two guitars. This was a very good demonstration of all the guitars. If you had a really limited budget, the Epiphone is clearly a good choice. One thing that came out is that the closest competition was between the 'birds. I'll leave it to folks like Em7 to analyze that. With both the J-45 and the J-200, he was essentially talking about differences in dynamic range between the Gibson and Epiphone versions.

So A 110 can be safely assumed to be "made" on or after April 28, 1947, and on or before May 13, 1947. "Late April or early May 1947" seems to be as definitive as we can get without access to the ledgers, but that's a pretty narrow two-week window in any case, especially in the world of Gibson serial numbers. If I had to bet, I would say between April 28 and May 2, 1947.

The first A-prefix serial number on a white oval label was A-100, issued for an L-7 on 4/28/1947. Your guitar may well have received its serial number on the same day, or shortly thereafter. Gibson serial numbers

You are right. I never took a picture of it in its cherryburst finish. I kept staring at it thinking WTF have they done with my guitar? I didn't want a new guitar. I wanted my old guitar, with the top re-glued and a new fretboard. Instead I got what looked like a new 1968 J-45. I guess I should be grateful they didn't strip the sides and back and put a cherry finish on them. Instead, they oversprayed them, as Gibson almost always did when you sent a guitar back for repairs. I remember looking inside to verify that it really was my guitar. For better or worse, it was.

Actually, in 1969 My old J-45 had just been re-topped by Gibson, and had a cherryburst top and adj bridge with rosewood saddle. A year later, my J-45 was a J-50 with the same bridge/saddle, but it wasn't because of JT. I just could stand the cherryburst, and stripped it off. Now, of course, it's a J-45 again, with a replica 1950 bridge with slot-through saddle. The poor thing has been through a lot over the 54 years I have owned it.

Jinder, as an aside, could you keep us posted on your progress with health issues? We all hope you are getting better.

I don't think that was the idea at all. Sometimes, you associate a particular artist with a particular type of guitar or guitars at points in their careers. Think of Chuck Berry with his ES 345/355, Lennon with a J-160E, McGuinn with his Rick 360 12 string, the young James Taylor with his mid-50s J-50, McCartney with a Hofner bass, Clapton with the Crossroads cherry ES-335 or with Blackie, Clarence White with the D-28 with the enlarged soundhole, Croz with a series of Martin rosewood dreads, and on and on and on. So it is with Sheryl Crow and her original square-dread CW. A lot of us pay attention to the guitars people play. That doesn't mean we wouldn't like their work if they played guitars other that our preferred brands. But yes, I like to see and artist play a guitar like mine. I remember when I first saw James Taylor in the spring of 1969, with me sitting on the grass in front of him no more than 10' away. He pulled out that old J-50 and I thought "whoa, he plays a guitar like mine!" My next thought was "why doesn't my guitar sound like that?"

I haven't seen that pickguard before, but the rest of the guitar looks like the one zw linked to. It is possible someone replaced the pickguard at some point during the last 15 years.