rustystrings

All of the LGs, B-25 and the F-25 have the same scale length with the exception of the LG-2 3/4, which is a completely different beast. The F-25 is an oddball in part because it was built according to folk revival recommendations that one start out with nylon strings and then go to steel. It also is closer to the original conception of these guitars, which are all descendants of the GS (gut string) classical guitars of the immediate pre-WWII period. They're true grand concert guitars, the equivalent of a classical guitar or a Martin 00. I have a great weakness for the LG-2; of the literally hundreds of guitars I have owned, much less many others I have played, the ONLY one that I still regret parting with was a 1960 LG-2 that was once my primary guitar. Had I known then what I know now, and had I found MY sound in those years, I would still be playing it. I would steer you towards LGs, with some notes and observations - An x-braced LG covers a lot of the same territory as a J-45 or J-50, but with the emphasis shifted in a couple of ways. The LGs are more upper mid-range and clarity, especially the post '55 with the wider, flatter bracing on the tops, vs. the lower mid-range and more blended sound of the Js. LGs are more focused and projecting to my ears, Js are more enveloping, encompassing, with more presence. I've never had the opportunity to actually play an F-25, but I would like to. The ones I have heard sound to me like they split the difference between a J-45 and an LG-2, with a little more low end and the strange juju that 12-fret grand concert steel strings bring to the party. People who have actually played them can chime in, but I got the impression that while the F-25 fretboard isn't as curved as a conventional Gibson, it's still not entirely flat and the nut width is a somewhere between 1.75 and 2 inches. I would love to explore that someday. Heretical observation - as you price old LG-1s (which have their own arch top-like vibe, and which usually get labeled blues and slide instruments), LG-2s and LG-3s (which have gotten much more pricey the last couple of decades) and B-25s (also getting pricier than they once were), maybe you'll find yourself in my camp. I lean towards newer instruments based on the old ones, because I just can't afford to pay the additional tariff involved in collectible artifacts. Should the stars align and I have the necessary pile o' shekels to make it happen, I keep hoping to score a 2013-15 era LG-2 American Eagle. I'll gladly surrender the cool sunburst and live with the strange mix of a straight-sided pre-war headstock with postwar logo for the light build and the lovely tone I keep hearing out of them - especially considering the price they go for, used. For that matter, I bet one could buy a brand new LG-2 for less than a compromised vintage one, and the new ones appear to be really lovely as well.

The ONLY guitar out of the hundreds I have owned and let go of that I still miss to this day was a 1960 LG-2. The LG-2AE is a special guitar, even if it does look like an LG-2 with a prewar headstock, and every one I have heard I have liked. They remain at the top of my list of guitars I would like to buy to accompany my beloved J-45, possibly even ahead of the newer, more expensive ones brought out this year.

Looks to me like someone put a coat of finish of some sort on the fingerboard - I would be tempted to gently scrape the board clean and polish with a little mineral oil to condition it.

First off - that crack worries me, because the last time I had a Gibson with a crack like that it was a 1950 J-45 that had gotten hot enough for the glue to fail and allow the neck block to pop free internally on the treble side. That particular guitar (which had been professionally refinished before I got it) had 24 cracks in the top and back as a result of that. In the case of the guitar I had, which I essentially got for free, it was worth spending $500 in 1994 dollars to have the neck removed, all cracks fixed, neck block mounted properly, neck set and refret, etc. I think it's an LG-1 from later in the 60s, somewhere from the era when they sold them with "natural" finish headstock faces. I bet the bridge has a bottom belly, which Gibson went to for a while there. It would NEVER have had a label. If you can get it ridiculously cheap and don't mind doing the work, it could be fun. Otherwise, keep looking.

I think I can relate. I got out of the vintage world for the most part when the prices started getting crazy and I realized I felt like all my old guitars owned me more than I owned them. So I thinned the herd and settled on a shiny new Taylor 815C as my primary instrument. It worked well enough, and life moved on, and when vintage guitars came my way I usually only bought them when I knew I could flip them. That was a useful skill during the years when our children were young and we were living on a tight budget. But right before the children, I encountered my current guitar, just a basic J-45 marketed as a Historic Collection model hanging on a Guitar Center wall. And I know I've babbled before about it, but I will simply note that of the 200+ guitars I have owned in my life, and of the probably thousands I have handled and played, fewer than five clicked with me the moment I touched them. There was just something special about those guitars, something that resonated with me. One of those was a '49 D'Angelico Excel, a one-owner instrument that was in for service at a friend's shop. I was allowed to sit behind the counter and play it for a few minutes. It had nothing to do with its value or collectibility or rarity - that guitar just sang, period. The whole guitar vibrated when you played it, and it was absolutely bell-like. And maybe that's more about how I related to that particular guitar that day, and it wouldn't have that effect on someone else. The guitar I have now is one that had that effect - and it was a brand new guitar, so go figure. I still pause when I play it sometimes, because the whole guitar moves when I play it. And I still smile whenever I play this particular J-45. There are days I think, "I would really love an LG-2," but then I think to myself, "why?" And truly, what I have now is probably all I will ever need from here on out. That said, I DID have a lovely vintage guitar moment recently. A local area player, super nice guy, talented cat, posted on FB about how he had just gotten his grandfather's guitar back from a luthier who had repaired some loose braces and maybe a crack or two. Of course it sounded glorious, and I was able to identify it for him as a pre-'55 LG-2, and congratulate him on it. So then he asked me to help him date it - curiosity, it was his grandfather's and will never be for sale - and when he sent me a pic of the headstock I was as excited for him as I think I would have been for myself. It was nice to be able to tell him, "1946! You got the magic year!" And again - that guitar sounded glorious, and I am glad it is his and I am happy with what I have, and isn't that a hell of a state?

I came to this forum shortly after I bought what has become my favorite guitar of all the literally hundreds of guitars I have owned, a 2005 J-45 Historic Collection. I've posted YouTube videos of it before, and a couple of Soundcloud clips, but today I'm here to point you towards my debut album, Midnight Sunroom. You can hear it via Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube Music, Deezer, Bandcamp, iHeartRadio, etc. It's my contribution to the late night solo acoustic guitar and voice genre, and I hope its field-recording-confessional immediacy transports its listeners to an intimate late night encounter with a hatful of songs spanning three decades.

No, no, no - it's not Ricky Gervais, it's Nigel Tufnel using his real name and "tapping in" (so to speak) into his new career as an acoustic-folkie, currently teaching but soon to start making Americana music as only the man from Squatney can. Isn't he still best known for playing his 1948 Les Paul through a Maytag washer to create the swirling sounds on Intravenus de Milo?

Could be a very interesting guitar - ideal for playing "Blackbird," or for Wizz Jones or Al Stewart fans, too.

2005 J-45 Historic Collection, John Pearse pure nickel strings, wee little Tascam iMX2 mic through an iPhone.

I remember when I could find good deals on guitars in pawnshops! That was kind of over by the early 90s, though. The beginning of the end came when I walked into Arvin's Pawn Shop on Poplar Street in Macon in the early 90s and asked about old guitars. The son of the long-term owner said, "I've got a cool old Martin you can look at, but we're saving it. There's this guy comes over from England every six months or so and he rents a van and drives down from New York and stops at all the pawnshops looking for old guitars. We're holding this one for him." This was the same shop I had once bought a '63 Stratocaster for $300 in 1983. The same place I had bought a Guild D-25M for $75, where my Dad bought me a used Gibson ES-125 for $125 - but that was all over. No more '60 Les Paul Jrs. for $200 (yep, that happened, and I let it go for way too little), no more buying a '65 Jaguar neck for $25 and then coming back a few weeks later when they've moved an old piano and found the rest of it - that was another $50. Nope. Of course, once the internet got rolling, along with eBay, that kinda killed it. I haven't seen anything I would call a real deal on a guitar in a pawnshop since.

For the record, I DO believe your take on the meaning of "LG" is the correct one. And some day I am going to have to own another LG-2, of one variety or another ...

fortyearspickn nailed it - a standard classical guitar case fits perfectly because the LG body shape was originally the late 1930s GS body shape. And while there is debate about what LG means, GS meant "gut string" and the GS guitars were classical guitars. My best friend from high school still houses his '52 LG-1 in the classical guitar case I gave him in the early 80s, and my long-lost '60 LG-2 was last seen in a budget hardshell classical case as well.

Sorry, double post! As an aside - No. 3 is the oldest, most vintage looking of the three - smaller, darker burst almost like an Original Jumbo, and the lighter bridge and fingerboard DO recall the banner guitars with coffee wood parts ...

No. 2, please. The off-center burst will be visible only when the guitar is on a stand being displayed - you won't see it while you're playing, and neither will an audience, because your right arm is gonna cover that. If the tone is there, it will only get better, and the volume will grow as time passes and you play it. ALSO - look at the sinking/cross-graining effects on No. 2's top running roughly below the ends of the bridge on both sides. I have yet to play a guitar with that sort of tight, close grain and that sort of feathery sinking that WASN'T an awesome guitar. No. 1 has that wide grain we associate with Adirondak Red, which is fine if you're chasing a pre-war sound, but the overwhelming majority of J-45s we have listened to in our lives that have shaped the aural picture we carry in our heads of what a J-45 should sound like were built postwar, with Sitka. Period. No. 3 would be a good choice too, but if you prefer the TONE of No. 2, that settles it. Now - does the sound and feel of ANY of these grab you by the heart and not let go? Do any of these three leave you feeling a little sad when it's time to put it back into the case? Do any of them, when you play them, feel like they want to be your guitar? I know, crazy anthromorphizing of a musical instrument, but do any of these three guitars create that sort of response within you? If not, then they're all just guitars anyway, and odds are you'll keep looking,

I meant to post this video to this forum earlier - Team Greenwood, an ad hoc, rapidly improvised musicians co-op in Greenwood, SC, has been running a series of FaceBook live shows to support local musicians and food service workers. This was my show a couple of weeks ago, primarily original material played on my '05 J-45 Historic Collection. The mic is a little Tascam iMX2 unit, normally plugged into an iOS device running Harmonicdog DAW, but here providing better support than the built-in mic on my iPhone. Strings are John Pearse Pure Nickel acoustic gauge. I hope you enjoy!

Allegedly, hide glue dries harder and makes for a more acoustically transparent bond. Remember, I said "allegedly." I also had a theatrical background 40 years ago with hide glue, and it does have a distinctive aroma. I don't miss it, either.

FWIW, there were some B-25 reissues produced in Bozeman in recent years, but they'll have the modern serial number and probably paper labels as well, and should be readily identifiable as Montana Gibsons. Guitar Center had a couple of runs of them, and I suspect some were made for the Japanese market.

I am with J45Nick here - for that amount of money, I would go shopping for a used Bozeman-produced J-45.

Those are probably Herco golpe plates. They sold a lot of those in the 60s and they were found in shops for decades after that ...

I've had good success with the mineral oil used to clean cutting boards for food prep. About once a year I remove the strings completely and gently clean the bridge and fingerboard with just a small amount of oil and a rag, usually a scrap of terry cloth. It's worked well for more than a decade.

Well, when I said "done right," I was thinking more in terms of sunburst and with the correct headstock shape, vs. the natural finish LG-2 American Eagle with the straight-sided headstock. And cosmetics shouldn't really matter all that much, but at first blush, I want one very very much. Waiting for the soundclips when they arrive ....

I'm seeing these at Music Zoo and Sweetwater for pre-order .... any inside scoop? They look very, very tempting - natural finish and a pricier, toasted-Red-Spruce-Banner variant as well ...

In a dozen years, if you play this guitar regularly all over the neck, you'll start getting those tiny places where the lacquer wears through, and it will all just be good honest player wear then.

Guitars in general, and J-45s in particular - ignore the label. Ignore the finish. Ignore the specs. Play every one you can find until you figure out what your hands and ears like best. I played hundreds and hundreds of guitars on a long-running quest for Excalibur before stumbling onto the J-45 that has become my all-time favorite guitar ever.

Also consider nickel-wound acoustic gauge strings. I've been using John Pearse .012-054s on my J-45 for five or six years now and love them. The nickel is less dense than bronze and they just feel lighter.