cunningham26
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Posts posted by cunningham26
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18 hours ago, groovadelic said:
has a 25.5" scale length which is what I'm assuming "LS" stands for.
Little Swifty, actually
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I wouldnt bat an eye at a natural finish if it played and felt like a '68- if anything they get confused with double-x braced and priced pretty low, but sound every bit as good as a 66-68
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19 minutes ago, zombywoof said:
Cannot lay the headstock on Norlin as ECL did not acquire a controlling interest in CMI until December of 1969.
While I am not any kind of an expert on Gibson acoustics built this late in the game would not an easy way to tell a 1966 from a 1969 instrument be the nut width?
I think by '66 everything was already 1 9/16th. i've never seen a factory natural headstock on something before 68 or so, and the serials are totally inconsistent. it's like they had numbered necks in a big barrel from 66-70 and they just pulled them randomly
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If it has the brown headstock, it's likely '69 as that started showing up with Norlin along with the engraved "J-45" TRC. However that doesn't immediately make it a double-braced boat anchor Norlin- these things aren't hard and fast and you can tell just by picking it up whether it's 70s style or more 60s style with the later appointments.
to answer your question though, yes the natural headstock doesn't show up until sometime in 68-69 and then through the 70s
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if you google "guitar center used" you can also search their nationwide used inventory. They have a few of these but they don't seem to be priced any better that Guitar Chimp, which seems to be priced to market. in terms of authenticity i see no issues- that cherry sunburst is really hard to pull off and a fake is really easy to spot- they kind of just look like epiphone hummingbirds with a gibson headstock
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23 hours ago, tomgw63 said:
I did notice yesterday that of the 4 Antique Natural IBG Hummingbirds listed on Sweetwater's website, two had the "made in Indonesia" sticker and two "made in China". I'm glad I looked, because I thought all the IBG Epi acoustics were made in Indonesia.
FWIW i have one of the 150th zephyrs from indonesia and the quality is impeccable!
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3 hours ago, tomgw63 said:
Thanks for your advice - I genuinely appreciate it. I'm going to check the strings on my J-200 to see if they're actually Gibson or D'addarios. I love the look of the J-200, but I'm leaning toward returning it and getting an IBG Hummingbird instead. None of the guitar stores/shops in my area have any of the IBG Epi acoustics in stock, so my only reference is that I've played 3-4 different Epiphone Hummingbird models, both Pro and Studio, and they all sound about 10 times better to me than my J-200 does. I feel bad because I love the way my J-200 looks, and it does have great sustain, but for what it cost it shouldn't be outshined by sub-$500 guitars from the same brand.
yea my guess is you just may prefer the sound of mahogany back and sides and the slope shoulder more than a jumbo with maple. definitely check out the IBG Hummingbird, it seems to be the best of that IBG bunch. For as much as I love epiphones it seems like J200s just need to be a very certain Gibson thing (and like 10x the cost) otherwise you're just buying it for the aesthetic.
as for strings i was a big fan of martin phosphor bronze for years and years on my epiphone hummingbird and then my gibson j45. I just switched to John Pearse strings and they're really something else. worth the extra few bucks!
good luck!
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On 12/2/2023 at 6:43 PM, the other side said:
Congratulations! Well, first off, which I'm sure you've done, is check to make sure they sent you the right IBG( Inspired by Gibson) that has the orange label. Next I would get a mirror and look at the ball ends on the strings through the sound hole and make sure they're not all different colors (daddarios) even though the specs and hang tag said Gibson strings like mine did. Mine had Daddarios on it and the hang tag said Gibson. Note: I just recieved the IBG Epiphone Hummingbird 12 string on Nov 5th. Yours already has bone nut and saddle by the specs. I changed my strings first, then after about a week, I changed the bridge pins to the "Presentation Style" Tusq (graph tech) bridge pins cause the plastic ones were fitted waaaaay to tight and a few were okay. Almost had to use a claw hammer to get the factory pins out. The "Traditional Style" graph tech) pins are too big and didn't want to sand em down. Other than that, I wouldn't know what else to recommend other than sending it back. Personally I've never been a Gibson J200 fan cause I'm along with the others, it's okay sometime but not all the time syndrome. I know the IBG Epiphone Hummingbird reviews are all 100% positive no matter what site you read them on if you are opting for a different IBG guitar. May visit with Sweetwater and speak to them about it. Those people are great and will make it happen for you, they're not like some others I know. BTW, I use John Pearse Phosphor Bronze 12-53's on my Gibson Hummingbird and sound waaay better than the regular Gibson 12-53 Phosphor Bronze strings if this helps. I've never been a Daddario fan unless that's all there was. Good luck, wish I had some more suggestions at this point. Again congratulations!
lotta good advice here. J200s for as large as they are aren't particularly loud guitars- a dread or slope shoulder guitar is going to project maybe a bit more than a jumbo. especially a poly finished fresh-wood epiphone, im not surprised you're finding it to be a little muted.
over time as it ages and as it is played, it will develop more character, but it's not as pronounced as their gibson counterparts with better quality components and nitro settling in faster.
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16 hours ago, pawlowski6132 said:
You're still missing the point. Yes most people think old is vintage but not old and s*****. Old and good equals vintage. Again, not old and s*****
ok but you're still hung up on old being a requirement here and what im trying to get across is that it is not, even if "most people" in the guitar world are of that mindset. Lloyd Loar Master Models were sought out in the 40s by Bill Monroe et al because they were superior instruments, not because they were old and superior only to the contemporary instruments being produced.
Picture a circle within a circle, the smaller one being Old and the larger one being Quality. that, in my humble opinion, is vintage, even if most people wrongly associate vintage dominantly with "old" as a tactic to sell their junk. if you wanted to get the most money out of your 30 year old sneakers, my guess is you'd find a way to spin them as "Vintage 90s Sauconys EX+ condition RARE color"
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3 minutes ago, pawlowski6132 said:
I think most people would say a guitar from the '90s is not vintage
you said it yourself that it's relative. most people are like you and think old = vintage that's why you see listings for VINTAGE 1974 EPIPHONE JAPAN. what i'm saying is that there are spans of time where conditions were such that the guitars made are truly different and while for the most part those spans are in the distant past, it's not exclusively in the distant past
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yea but saying vintage is only if it's older than you is totally arbitrary and age still aint nothing but a number
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14 minutes ago, pawlowski6132 said:
And I guess it only really matters when you're trying to sell something and use the vintage label to get premium dollars. If I'm in the market for a 93 acoustic from Bozeman and somebody wants to charge me more because they think it's vintage. That's not going to fly with me.
if someone's trying to sell me a 70s bolt on epiphone acoustic telling me it's vintage because it's 50-something years old, that's not going to fly with me
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2 hours ago, pawlowski6132 said:
That's a good point which begs the question does vintage just mean old? It sounds like you are saying no.
However, I do think that is a component and I would say that vintage means it is old (whatever that means, see my definition above) AND great.
To which I would say those Bozeman acoustic you're mentioning could be great but I would not call them vintage because they are not great AND old.
To me the term vintage suggests a bygone era of which today cannot be replicated for various reasons.
a 1993 bozeman acoustic is thirty years old this year! when jimmy page was playing on House of the Holy his 1959 les paul was only thirteen years old. Keith's hummingbird was a 1965 and was recorded in 1968. Dylan's J50 was a 46 and fourteen years later he was playing coffeehouses. until he switched to an old nick lucas.
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18 hours ago, pawlowski6132 said:
I assume you're just talking Electric? I collect only acoustics (flattops and archtops), i consider only '40's and older to be vintage. 50's starts to resemble modern eras in design, manufacturing technique, wood availability, other materials and suppliers, etc.
this is kind of the rub of it all- i see vintage in a true form of the word, with wine as the basis- you can have a vintage year from two years ago if conditions were just right to create something really wonderful that's then desired for a long time thereafter. So example the early Bozeman acoustics I would consider vintage because Ren was at the helm with something to prove, was semi-involved in the production, and there seem to have been somewhat limited numbers. fifty years from now I think we'll look at those as really desirable guitars as opposed to the millions of J45 standards made in the era that are fine but not truly vintage.
you see it now- a 1929 L1 archtop isn't very desirable and can be had pretty easily. a 1930 L2 can be a five-figure guitar. It all depends on which ones have the magic.
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pre-1969 are generally vintage but they are now over 50 years old and with Gibson it all depends on the little specs and then the life it lived. i've played some dogs from 1955 priced to market, and played some really killer off years.
modern era, i think the early bozeman stuff will get really valuable, stuff that Ren was actively involved in. Interesting custom shop stuff, just basically higher quality from the start will age and gain value over the factory line stuff. Depending on how they break in, i could see the Murphy Labs getting really hot too
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They're all in the Gibson shop but brace yourself for sticker shock and pray Sgt. Pepper doesn't find this thread. It seems really weird that this designer is all about american iconography and style, particularly that in the american south, but all the actual pieces are made overseas. I wouldnt pay $600 for a western shirt but certainly wouldnt pay that for a western shirt made in china alongside a levis shirt that retails at a tenth the cost.
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On 11/10/2023 at 8:34 PM, Dave F said:
Very informative. I think 1:05 may had added a nick to the Nick. I have a newer NL 12 fret RW that I like a lot. I like his thinking on older guitars. When I first started getting into vintage guitars, I didn't worry if a neck reset was needed. I've since changed my mind. I think they lose something in the repair. I'm probably just impatient. I have a '42 LG1 that's never had the neck off, and it doesn't need to.
I heard that too at 1:05! i like that he knows them all inside and out but he's not too precious with them. in terms of neck resets, if it needs it to be a working player, better to have it done than to retire it for the sake of originality. I passed on a banner lg2 where the bridge had been shaved down thin to avoid a neck reset and it all just seemed silly. rest assured im still kicking myself (it was priced quite well compared to today) but i would have had that thing in two pieces pronto!
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with it being at the joint, i'd say it's probably a fairly tough spot to polish without messing something else up. totally normal quality stuff with epiphone and i wouldnt think twice about it. you're not going to get perfection for $700 but you'll get a good guitar.
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5 minutes ago, Larsongs said:
I have Sirius radio & listen to it a lot.. Although, I’m always changing Stations.. I’m not finding much from the 70’s on that does much for me. I agree much of the older stuff has been played to death.. Not that it isn’t good, I’ve just heard it too much..
Sometimes Underground Garage has some New & Old music & bands that is good that I’ve never heard before.. For the most part music has been in a downward trend for many many years.. At least for me..
I would like to find new music & bands that I would like!
Sirius' Beatles Channel puts on display the flaw with The Beatles and why people get burnt out on them a la Boyd here- they simply don't have a volume of work and live performances with variations of that work that you can really find new things with them. They're my all time number one but rarely am I like "let's throw on Help! for the millionth time!". they have arguably the largest fanbase or at least people-that-like-them, but compared with the other artist stations on sirius where you have thousands of hours of live concerts, the beatles channel is unlistenable with just all the studio stuff.
I'll still seek out and enjoy anything new from them though!
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11 hours ago, E-minor7 said:
That's a fair vote ^
+1 thanks for posting, that was great! and not for nothing but not AI- just that guys ingenuity!
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On 11/4/2023 at 6:50 AM, Murph said:
Yep, I'll never see "Get Back" as long as Disney has the rights.
Oh well.
It's on blu-ray/DVD so likely very available via the public library. it's really really fantastic- as a rabid fan it's just remarkable to see any new beatles footage, but certainly wild to see something as thorough and curated as what that crew put together. really worth seeking out.
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4 hours ago, 62burst said:
Thanks to AI, we’re approaching the Strawberry Fields scenario where “nothing is real“, or it’s getting very hard to tell what is real. The Beatles influence on Jeff Lynne has now found him having influence on a Beatles song. Ironic.
worth watching the 12min doc on the making of this- Jeff Lynne couldnt crack the code in '95 and it was peter jackson's team that developed the tech to do this during Get Back. Definitely not AI as we think of it with ChatGPT etc, maybe more akin to auto-tune?
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23 hours ago, fortyearspickn said:
I checked out their site. Vermont, a dozen +/- employees. Very Nice. Lots of options to upgrade, even Brazilian Rosewood! But technically, not 'pre-war'. Reproductions I guess I'd call them. Company started this century. Basic "J-45" is $2,350.
prewar as in style of build not in date of build!
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i know this is your first GIBSON and its a gibson forum, but maybe check out Iris guitars. amazing pre-war stuff
Epiphone Taylor Swift Signature
in Epiphone Acoustics
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