dickey

Never understood why people care about serial #'s,case candy,certificates of authenticity,and all that other junk. As long as the guitar plays & sounds good, who cares? Not me. My '61 RI didn't come wit nuttin except a truss rod wrench, & that's all I needed. And I wouldn't care if the serial # was 1 or 1 million--as long as it wails like a woman with her hair on fire!

They look good, but they kill sustain over the stop tailpiece. They also throw the guitar out of tune if you use them aggressively.

Haven't noticed the problem on any of my '61 RI's, but back in the seventies I was always trading & dealing Gibsons. I noticed a good portion of them, especially 335's, would have an unusual problem. If the G string was in tune open, it would sound sharp at the 2nd fret, and ONLY the 2nd fret. Had about 3 or 4 Gibsons that did that. As far as tuning stability & intonation, the newer ones are far superior to the vintage ones. Sound & playability?--that's another matter.

If it sounds good AND plays well AND stays in tune,then who really cares about the serial # or the "made in USA" stamp? Serial numbers are only important on vintage instruments!

Gibson didn't make SG's in '66--I had on a long time ago and the serial# started with 810, and it was a '68, so my guess is yours is a '69 or '70--I can usually tell from the contour bevels what the year is as far as '60's--the contours got shallower and cheesier after '69.