Cracked SG - a very long one!

[Paul Cawley]

Good day!

I am hoping to receive some pearls of wisdom in respect of a c.1972 Gibson SG standard guitar which has some quite concerning cracks. I've seen plenty of typical headstock cracks/ breaks, but the cracks in this guitar are unlike any I have seen before insofar as they run almost the entire length of the guitar. To qualify, I am certainly no luthier.

The headstock has a lengthways crack about 10mm from the edge near the ferrules - I am less concerned about this. However, there is a hairline crack which runs about 90% of the distance down the back/ centre of the neck. Then the bottom wing has another lengthways crack  which runs the entire length of the body, under the pickguard and in between the top vol/ tone control and the bottom three, but this is visible along the front, back and sides of the body. It's taken a whack, albeit the impact mark isn't obvious.

I don't know much of the history of the guitar but it certainly doesn't look like its been repaired, so my view is that these are the wounds pre-repair.

Somehow, the guitar itself plays fine, so despite the whack it has taken, nothing appears to have compromised the function of the instrument. This gives me the dilemma as to whether there's any merit in doing anything with it.

Living on a tiny island don't have access to a repair shop without a weekend away, so I would be super grateful to hear if anyone else has encountered this and whether the collective view is (a) repair, or (b) leave alone. My estimate is that without the neck and body cracks and taking into consideration other price-negative factors (eg no case, lost a pup cover, scuffs etc), this guitar is worth c. £1,300 (c. US$1,800), so if the repair work very expensive then economically it perhaps wouldn't be worth doing.

Many thanks

Paul  

[Leonard McCoy]

Without pictures to inspect the damage, it is pointless to say or advise anything.