SJ, CW, Hummingbird - any REAL difference ..??

[EuroAussie]

Hi, firstly i would like to say hello to everybody as its my first post on the Gibson forum.

 

Im an Aussie living in Prague for a few years and recently became the proud owner of a 69 Country & Western which is godly.

 

The question i have is whether there is any real differnece between the Hummingbird, Southern Jumbo and the Country & Western, apart from the different finish and bling ?

 

Im talking in particular since they both received the square sholder treatment in mid 60's, the specs seemed to be the same. sitka top, hog b/s short scale, dred.

 

Am i missing something here or am i right in that its same guitar, different finish ?

 

cheers.

[Johnt]

Hi' date=' firstly i would like to say hello to everybody as its my first post on the Gibson forum.

 

Im an Aussie living in Prague for a few years and recently became the proud owner of a 69 Country & Western which is godly.

 

The question i have is whether there is any real differnece between the Hummingbird, Southern Jumbo and the Country & Western, apart from the different finish and bling ?

 

Im talking in particular since they both received the square sholder treatment in mid 60's, the specs seemed to be the same. sitka top, hog b/s short scale, dred.

 

Am i missing something here or am i right in that its same guitar, different finish ?

 

cheers.[/quote']

 

Firstly welcome to the forum.

 

 

You ask a very general question and "differences" are always so subjective.

 

I am sorry I can't help as I have never owned any of those guitars.

 

But, when the world wakes up, there are those here who have and hopefully by my bumping your question up the line you'll get some answers.

 

All best

[larryp58]

Pretty close in your thinking. The Country/Western and the HummingBird are square shouldered dreadnaughts while the Southern Jumbo is a round shoulder dreadnaught. The SJ is actually a J-45, just with more "eye-candy". (fret-board binding, fret inlay, pickguard)

[ksdaddy]

I think a lot depends on the time period. To the best of my knowledge, once the SJ/CW went to a square shoulder in '62 or so, they were all pretty much the same guitar as a Bird for a number of years. The CW ended up just being called the SJ-N didn't it? Not sure when though.

 

I don't know when they stopped making the square shouldered SJ, I assume sometime in the mid-late 70s, but I think they were still identical to the Bird, getting the 25.5 scale in '71 or thereabouts.

 

Whenever they reintroduced the SJ it came back as a round shoulder like pre-62.

 

So to answer your question, yes no and maybe.

[Rambler]

Props on your new piece. The square shoulder models are certainly different from the slope shoulder brethern (conventional wisdom =slopes more balanced balanced, squares more bass-prominent). Amongst themselves, the post 62 (?) sq shoudler sj/sw and bird are built along the same lines, with similar changes in construction, so any variances would be form instrument to instrument, not model to model. During the 60s, Gibson thickened the braces and bridge plates while narrowing the neck narrows, so a late 60s model might be a little tight and sturdy but not a tank like a 70s job. Cheers, J

[onewilyfool]

I just went to an Eagles concert in San Jose, although I wasn't exactly in the nose bleed section, I could see that most of the acoustics used in the sets WERE Gibsons, and almost all of them were square shouldered Gibbys......just fyi...

[Honky Dog]

I just went to an Eagles concert in San Jose' date=' although I wasn't exactly in the nose bleed section, I could see that most of the acoustics used in the sets WERE Gibsons, and almost all of them were square shouldered Gibbys......just fyi...[/quote']

 

Could you see which square-shouldered Gibsons?