j45nick

Yes, he is. It never occurred to me that Vincent Black Lightning was a lost gem. I still listen to it at least once a month. "Red hair and black leather: my favorite color scheme" is a brilliant snippet of lyric. Never mind his guitar-playing skills, which are from another planet.

But the Youngbloods version of Get Together is still pretty definitive. Darkness Darkness may be the best song JCY has written. Virtually everything off Soul of a City Boy , although I think most were covers, had an impact on me. Four in the Morning may have been my first playing attempt at an entire genre, after starting out in the PP&M school in high school and moving on to traditional ballads in my first two years of college. You gotta keep moving ahead to get anywhere. "Life is change, how it differs from the rocks..."

On a 17 hour flight from Dallas to Sydney, AUS last night, I watched Springsteen's Western Stars movie of his album of the same name. Unfortunately, because this is in theatrical release, there's no youtube link to the entire movie available as a freebie right now. I'm not a huge Springsteen fan, but this was a good watch, covering the live performance of the entire album, plus a lot of commentary from The Boss. Some cool Gibsons as well, including two J-200's. One is the red double-pickguard model, and the other appears to be a very faded 'burst with no pickguard. Patti Scialfa plays her 'bird. These all look like vintage guitars, and all have soundhole-mounted pickups with exposed pole pieces. Others will know what the pickups are. With all the orchestration, you can't hear the acoustic guitars at all, at least sitting on an A380 with those four big turbofans humming away and a crappy headset. You didn't get very good shots of the other guitars, but part of the time the lead seemed to be playing what I take to be some kind of cutaway L-5 thinline. I don't know much about those types. In any case, it's always nice to see Gibsons used live. By the way, Springsteen was sweating like a pig, and the red J-200 was smeared with it by the end. No babying of those guitars, but he can afford whatever he wants. You can actually see how gunked up the red guitar is in the trailer. The music was ok, but with a single general theme, much of the music also seemed similar. Western Stars trailer

Now that's funny.

Sitting in the tour RV with boxes of pizza on the counter. There's a song in there somewhere.

Love the guitar, hate the finish. I predict Gibson will offer it in a conventional gloss for another $500. The VOS may stop me from getting one, but I need to see one in the flesh. Not paying that kind of money for a new guitar without playing it, that's for sure. If it really is an ultra-thin finish, it may be risky to try to gloss it up with Virtuoso. I've used that successfully on a "standard" VOS finish, but the ultra-thin may be a different animal. Maybe it would be possible to custom -order with a more conventional gloss finish for extra $$$.

I've got serious gas for either the AJ or the rosewood SJ. Same price, either one. Oh dear.... Probably going to part with my 1943 SJ re-issue to help fund it, since I have two other hog slope-J's.

Mate, I sailed around the world in a 40 foot sailboat. If the ferries are running, I'll be on them. Ferries are clumsy beasts, however.

I have two 1950 J-45s, one with original pickguard, the other a virtually identical replacement made by my luthier from some vintage celluloid. Both are dark reddish-brown tortoise with a subtle slightly lighter, slightly yellow/red crackle pattern. They are thin, just thick enough to round over the edges. It's hard to photograph these to show the proper colors, but if you want to PM me with your email address, I'll try to take a couple of pictures.

That looks exactly like my 1947 L-7. It had the same label, but where this one has the tape over the spot where the serial number should be, mine had a hand-written A-prefix serial number, I believe it was A-235, which placed it in about May of 1947. The serial number here should be around June 1947 here, but should have an A prefix rather than L. It almost looks like you can read the printed label through that paper tape. You might take a powerful penlight from different angles and see if you can read what might be beneath the tape, or maybe even try a blacklight. This would be on the cusp of the change from the inlaid script logo (which mine had) to the inlaid block logo, which I believe came a few months later in 1947. That pickguard looks original, and it also looks like it may be starting to out-gas next to the fretboard where a small celluloid block is glued on the underside of the pickguard, allowing the guard to be screwed into the side of the neck at that point. You might pull that off and check it before it starts to damage the adjacent finish and metal parts. It's nice to be all-original, but it's even nicer not to have damage from a deteriorating celluloid pickguard.

BK, I have a 20-minute ferry ride from the hotel on Darling Harbor to my work area on Cockatoo Island. It's appropriate that Cockatoo was a naval shipyard build by convict labor. I feel right at home. It's a very, very pleasant way to commute to work. Sydney's ferry system is the best local water transport system I've seen. It is an up and down city, like SF, so there is no shortage of exercise. There are also a lot of street buskers, which is always a good sign for any city. I went to one guitar shop in Sydney last year, but had little time to really look. For better or worse, all my trips focus on work, so it doesn't much matter if I am in Singapore, Sydney, San Fran, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Auckland, or some wretched stretch of sand punctuated by skyscrapers in the Middle East. As long as I can get a beer or a glass of wine, plus something reasonably recognizable and not wriggling on the plate for dinner, I'm a reasonably satisfied camper. That, plus high-speed internet access.

A fair number of people were, especially jazz and slightly later big-band stuff. Nostalgia has always been with us. Usually seems connected to the music of our youth.

When it gets humid here (south Florida) we just turn on the AC for awhile. Right now, my office is sitting at 73F and 44% humidity. I try to keep it close to those numbers, at least as far as humidity goes. We haven't had much cool weather this "winter." I'm off the Sydney, Oz tomorrow for work. Weather there looks similar to weather here right now. Thank Dog the fires seem to have subsided. You guys had had a miserable few months of that.

Read your policy carefully. Many of them set limits on the value of individual items such as musical instruments, art, jewelry. If you have a single higher-value item, you might be ok, but if you have a half dozen vintage guitars or Rolex watches, you may need additional cover, either as a rider on your main policy or a separate high-value items policy. People here might weigh in on what policies they have on their guitars. Regarding your guitar, you might want to get its condition evaluated (not financially, but in terms of playability and structure) by someone who specializes in vintage guitars. If you are in the Charlotte, NC area, there may be people on this forum who can weigh in. Be prepared to drive a few hours to deliver a guitar rather than shipping it. I drive 3 1/2 hours each way to deliver a guitar to my repair guy. As I said before, a guitar like yours, which appears to be all-original, should only go to an acknowledged expert in good vintage guitars. When I bought an all-original one-owner J-45 of an age similar to yours last year, the guy who works on my guitars said it was a good thing no one had ever attempted any repairs, as he spends a lot of time un-doing previous "repairs" that were not properly done. (He's in northern Florida, so is not a particularly good candidate for work on your guitar. He also has about a six-month backlog on repairs right now.) Chances are high that your guitar needs at least some of the repairs listed in my earlier reply to you. That's a list of likely repairs on old Gibsons developed over the years by a friend who is a vintage dealer. It's completely normal on a 70-year-old guitar. Some of these repairs are essential to protect the structure of the guitar, others are to enhance playability. We've had a number of older "family" guitars show up here recently. Guitars with a known history and a long family connection are special, no matter what their value.

See if you can get an appraisal From Gruhn Guitars in Nashville. Do you want an appraisal for insurance purposes, or to figure out what to try to sell it for? Check Reverb for listing prices of 1946-1954 J-45s that appear to be in similar condition. Remember, those are asking prices. Based solely on what you can see in the one photo--and having no knowledge of work needed--you would say approximate fair market value is $4k-$5k if it need no substantive work, which is unlikely.

There have been what may be some updates to the Gibson dating system used in the website linked here, which suggest the possibility of some three-digit post-war FONs in 1946 and 1947. In 1947, for example, it says FONs might range from 700 to 1000. They do not list any 1946 FONs, but since this guitar pretty clearly dates between 1946 and 1948 based on physical characteristics, we can infer that there could be some three-digit numbers in the 300s in 1946 as well as in the 1930s. We are talking about Gibson after all... This sort of fills in a blank in the previous FON timeline, although the FON in this instance is unusual, and certainly not definitive. In this case, the photos were definitive, and it was just a matter of finding a possible explanation for the odd FON. It is the first three-digit FON I have seen on a guitar that dates to the post-war period. I did have a 1947 L-7 that had a three-digit serial number (not FON) of A-235. I was stymied about the three-digit serial number (actually an FON) the OP listed above until I found the updated info. vintage guitar info

This is an early post-war J-45, probably from late 1946 through sometime in 1948. Sometime in late 1946 or early 1947, the change was made from the earlier script logo to the block Gibson logo you see here. Sometime in 1948, the rectangular bridge you see here was replaced with the belly-up bridge still used on the J-45. A factory order number should be (but is not always) ink-stamped on the neck block, visible inside the guitar by looking inside the soundhole towards the neck. This ink-stamped number is not always perfectly clear, and the use of a small flashlight may help see it if it is faded. This number is generally three or four digits, followed by a space, followed by one or two more digits. Sometimes the digits after the space were written in pencil, and have faded out. If the number stamped on the neck block is 331, that would suggest 1946. While you're looking inside, check to see if there are narrow vertical pieces of black cloth glued to the sides at regular intervals. These cloth stays were replaced with vertical thin strips of wood around 1948, and are another age indicator. Based on the obvious features, however, this dating is reasonably straightforward. From what I can see, the guitar looks completely original, and should be kept that way. Resist the urge to change anything. The tuner buttons are a bit shrunken, but still usable. J-45s from this period are my favorite guitars. I have a couple of them, one that I've owned for more than 50 years. There are a number of us here who have 1947-1954 J45s.

Without a photo, there's little we can do to help you. Gibson serial numbers are inconsistent, but with a decent photo or photos, we can identify the model and then reasonably pin down the year by combining the serial number with the model identification. No photo, no can help when it comes to Gibson identification.

That's a BS&T tune. Another very tight band with horns, keyboards, and great arranging by Lew Soloff and Richard Halligan, both of whom were graduates of the Eastman School of Music. Those two were classmates of two of the members of the group I worked with around 1970.

Sal, I would say Tobias has probably put in his 10,000 hours of practice. And then some. The way he holds his pick when he is not using it, and then shifts it to use it, is pretty fascinating. I would drop it every time.

It's a square-shoulder long-scale version, probably from about 1970 with that bridge. It is 1969 or later, and I'd say later. May well be double-x top-braced. Looks to have plenty of saddle, so neck angle may be ok. It has little in common with a traditional J-45/J-50. The price is about right. It is certainly not low. Play it, and see if you like it. Some of these are decent, others less so. Hint: a used modern J-45 standard at a similar price is likely to be a better-playing and better-sounding instrument.

Leave the empty wall hanger after you give the Farida to your neighbor. Karma says the empty hanger will soon be filled with something nice...

That was scary. It looked like the guitar may have had a previous neck re-set that was poorly done. the neck heel was obviously already broken. This guy actually did a decent job with what he had to work with, although he never talked about the glue he was using when the neck was actually installed. Whoever worked on that guitar in the past was a hack.

Probably 1961-'64 LG-1, assuming a ladder-brace top rather than x-brace. No centerline back strip that I can see, so one-piece back, which means LG-1. By the serial number dater I use, 1964, but characteristics I see are maybe a couple of years earlier. It looks to be in nice condition for its age. The finish crazing is normal. One bent tuner shaft, but it should still work fine. Probably get a setup done, and she should be good to go. Family guitars are special guitars.

It looks like the whole guitar has been heavily overcoated with paint, on top of the original finish. That's quite obvious on the headstock, and appears to be the case on the body as well. You can see where the black bleeds over the binding, particularly around the tailpiece. I suspect it may be an F-50 underneath it all. Not sure if either the tuners or the tailpiece is correct, but someone here will know. The pickguard is obviously a replacement. Big K's thoughts that a deteriorating celluloid pickguard badly damaged the finish is a good one. I've seen that before. Is there a serial number or factory order number that leads you to believe it is a 1943? A assume the body is 16" wide across the lower bout. The overcoating has wiped out any collector value, but the L-50 is not really a collector guitar in any case. If you like the way it plays and sounds, enjoy it.