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1959 J-45


jamesn

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Hello:

I'm new here, so patience please.
I recently got a 1959 J-45.  I'm wondering where it fits in with 50's J-45 model history. 
Some details,

The neck is very thin.  This is where i get confused with the "evolution" of the j-45. From what i've read, narrow necks don't start until the early 60s.
I'm not absolutely sure about nut width , i don't have calipers, and wear eyeglasses but with a ruler it looks like it measures just under 1 11/16, closer to 1 5/8  it is narrower and thinner than the '06 i had.  It feels thin almost like an electric.
It has a replace bridge.
I assume the nut is bone, correct?  The saddle is a replacement bone drop-in.  I'm not sure about the end pins.   Would they be bone?  I assume plastic.  (i have seen The Odd Couple) .
The guitar is well played.  I really like the tone etc.  The narrow strings specially in first position are going to take some getting used to.
Thanks for any help.

Gutars of interest I've owned:
'74 Tele
'76 Gibson L6S
'06 J-45 Standard
'50 ES-125
'52 LG2 3/4
Westbury Custom
Vox Mark lX
Vox Student Prince
'66 Vox Mark Vl
'66 Vox Phantom
'66 Mosrite Mark V
'60s Burns Big Bison
Crap loads of Teisco's, Kent's, Sivertones, etc.


 

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If it is a 1959, it will have an S-prefix serial number stamped on the neck block inside the guitar.

You usually think of 1959 as the last year of the fuller, rounder necks typical of the 1950s.

The nut width should be 1 11/16" (1.6875", 42.86 mm).

I'm not sure Gibson was using bone for anything other than saddles then, and I'm not positive about saddles.

Certainly the endpin and the bridgepins would have been plastic.

It is possible that if it is a late 1959, it already had 1960 characteristics.

Is it possible more has been done to it than a replacement bridge?  If a guitar went back to Gibson for any work in the 1960s, they had the habit of doing things to guitars that the customer did not ask them to do. I sent a 1950 J-45 back to them in 1968 to re-glue the top, since one corner had come loose, as well as replace  a worn fretboard. The guitar came back to me looking like a new 1968 J-45, including having a narrowed neck and cherryburst top, as well as an adj bridge.

A photo of the guitar from the front would be helpful.

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6 hours ago, jamesn said:

The top is almost certainly  Sitka spruce. Gibson pretty much stopped using Adirondack spruce by the late 1940s. It is true that individual pieces of spruce may have grain that is more similar to another species. I've seen tight-grained Adirondack spruce and wide-grain Sitka, for example.

As far as neck profile goes, it really is how it feels in your hand that counts, no matter how it is described.

If you are curious about dimensions, you need to buy yourself a digital caliper. These aren't that expensive, less than $40 for a decent one on Amazon.  It's a useful tool to have around in any case.

Next time you change strings, measure the thickness of the neck immediately adjacent to the first fret and the 9th fret. The thickness will vary due to hand finishing of the final neck profile. The "fat" 1950's necks are typically around .89-.94" thick at the first fret, usually but not always thicker earlier in the period.

My two 1950 J-45s are .92 and .903 at the first fret, .97 and .996 at the 9th. Those two  guitars were probably built a month or so apart. Likewise, nut width varies a small amount due to hand finishing of the neck. It's really the string spacing at the nut that matters, rather than the width of the nut itself.

The late-50's slope-Js I have played have been really nice guitars. The unscalloped top braces give them a somewhat different voice compared to their earlier scalloped-brace siblings or the modern scalloped-brace slope-J models.

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Thanks for the input.  I guess i have to start looking at more 55-64 ish J-45s.  Just clicking about different boards and articles there seems to be a lot of slight and not so slight  variances and inconsistencies with a few stretches of J-45 development; both within Gibson and collectors observations.  I was reading, even fretboard radii vary.  (mine is 16" measuring with my photocopied paper cutout gauge and my crooked eyes.)  I wish there was somewhere i could just go molest  a half dozen or so for an afternoon somewhere near.  To get a feel.

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Owning one of the 1  9/16th nut J45s i can say you most definitely feel the difference, esp compared with your modern j45 or your 50 125. I had a '66 epiphone caballero that i swear was even thinner like they ran out of guitar nuts and cut a mandolin one instead. It took probably 2 years of regular playing to get a good feel for it but ive got big mitts. 

 

the only thing consistent about gibson is inconsistency!

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