What ?

[E-minor7]

 

Is something out of place here - totally lost as I speak

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1942-1962-Vintage-Gibson-J-series-SJ-Country-Western-Southern-/121667659083?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c53f5254b

 

 

 

[j45nick]

Not really sure, since so much has been changed on the guitar. The neck (ignoring the after-market logo inlay) suggests early post-war SJ. I can't read the FON on the headstock, which could have been stamped later in life.

 

The rosette also could be early SJ. The view of the back braces isn't definitive. They look fatter than the 1940's. The back looks very much like the back on my 48-'50 J-45, and is typical of the back grain in the late 1940's. The unbound neck would say pre-1948 or so. Wide, multi-layer top binding is a head-scratcher. Multi-layer back binding as well. The two bindings, if original, suggest old SJ.

 

Centerline backstripe inlay is aftermarket. Bridge is not original, and tuners have obviously been changed.

 

Really hard to know without a first-hand inspection. I'd really like a better look at the FON. If the board inlays are original, the neck is much earlier than a 1962 FON.

 

Those replying to the seller saying it is early 70's are high on drugs.

 

Latest would be 1968. Earliest 1943. Other than that, it's a bit of a guess without looking at it.

[62burst]

Sold for $898.88 with 15 bids. 'Guess someone saw something there that they liked. Maybe it was the price. If it was a 1940's SJ, and if so, possibly a '46 with the unbound neck, the belly-down bridge would be fine, but this one sports a drop-in saddle(?). For some reason, the back of the neck shows a decent V carve to it. The binding looks correct, although likely a replacement, as it's a bizarre bright white color. This guitar has probably had big work done, the braces do look a bit much, and for some reason, the backstrip is radiused. And shows grain. They're typically made of a weird cut of wood that looks more like pulp. The numbers stamped into the back of the headstock only take the guitar further into the realm of sketchiness. It may've been common for Gibson to "do you a favor" and stamp f.o.n./serial numbers on the headstock when returned to the factory for work, but that is no Gibson sunburst, and that headstock logo is more Kathmandu than Kalamazoo.

 

Here's "Big Cracky", the '46 SJ (on left) next to the eBay guitar (rosettes similar):

 

 

Have a look at the inside contour of the not-so-torty pickguard, and halfway over the rosette (is that a marbled rose fretboard, or...?):

 

[j45nick]

The binding looks correct, although likely a replacement, as it's a bizarre bright white color.

 

Basically, I agree with everything you say.

 

I suspect the binding is original. If you scrape down or sand old, yellowed binding (as must have been done when this top was re-finished), you end up with new-looking white binding. (I've done this before.)

 

It might have been an interesting project to return this guitar to a semblance of its original self. Underneath it all, I suspect there is a late-40's SJ somewhere. But it would have cost a fair amount of money, and you'd have a "restored" guitar which wasn't worth that much at the end of the day.

[zombywoof]

I had three folks write and ask me to take a look at that guitar for them. Everything was so out of kilter I could offer up nothing definitive. So no recommendations coming from me.

[E-minor7]

 

Yeps - you guys draw a qualified rosette around the odd points of this guitar - hope it makes someone glad where it lands.

 

. . . And still it could be nice to hear the weirdo.