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You Never Know Until It Happens


MissouriPicker

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Went up to GC today. I had a $100 gift card from Christmas and they had extended their 15%off sale for another day. There on the wall was a Maple CJ165ce, the guitar I've been dreaming of for the last several months. Sounded great, both plugged-in and unplugged. My wife came over from Wal Mart to get me and said "what's going-on?"...lol...Told her this was the guitar I'd been talking about. Just a couple minutes later a salesdude comes from upstairs with two more Gibsons that had arrived this morning. One was a Songwriter and the other a standard J45. The J45 kind of reminded me of the pic that Gillain Girl put here on the forum the other day of her guitar on a chair on the porch. That's just what this J45 looked like---a rough-cut beauty. One of those guitars you could see a guy like Lightfoot or Cash playing at 3am in the dark. Anyway, I played the J45 for over an hour against every Martin and Taylor that appealed to me. An HD35 was in the running. It rumbled, but the J45 had that Gibson twang and thump. It was just there and you could not help but hear it.....Anyway, I came home with the J45. Life is crazy. Had absolutly no intention, maybe not even an interest in a J45. I had, over the last few weeks looked at the J45tv and Custom among other guitars as I searched for a CJ165. I've been reading about them and like the fancy "vine" headstock and the double rosettes on the Custom and TV J45s. I hadn't even given serious thought to a standard J45. Just didn't consider it. But, this guitar might be the most playable guitar I've found. Right out of the box, it is more like fretting chords on an electric than an acoustic.. VERY VERY easy to play. The neck is beyond comfortable. Perfect for my hands and fingers and even for the fingers of a new player. The guitar's finish is perfect as well. Everything looks and feels very good with it. The LR Baggs sounds great too---I like their stuff. Plus, the short scale of the J45 is another great thing it has going for it. Good Lord, this is a fine, fine guitar. Never owned a J45 and I suspect I have missed-out on some things. I'm extremely pleased that I have this one. This is truly a butt-kicker of a guitar. Pretty, but not like a prom queen. More like that mouthy gal at the bar who gets your attention. This is one of those times that I can actually tell myself "yeah, this is what I was looking-for."......Anyway, I'll try to get some sound clips up this week.

 

BTW---out the door for $1883. GC is not perfect and you've got to look a guitar over before you buy it. Some of their new guitars get the hell beat out of them by shredders, etc. BUT, sometimes you're in the right place at the right time. That was me today.

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Have had a J185, SWD, Songbird, el etc Gibson acoustics over the years... just got my first J45, a Maple Custom in April and know how you feel. I'm trying to fight off GAS for a TV now. keep em strait out there

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I had a similar experience recently with Hummingbirds. I grew up playing a Martin D-18 and so never really considered a square-shouldered Gibson. Been there, done that, I thought. Then recently at the homecoming I played 3 or 4 Hummingbirds and realized those are really nice crispy sounding guitars. For years I never really bothered to try them.

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BIG congratulations on your new J-45! This is just such outstanding guitar in so many ways.

I have to say that my SJ has taken over as the king of the stable, much to CW's disgust. But while it might not be as good a strummer as the CW it really excells in flatpicking and in particular fingerpicking. Plus I really appreciate the wider nut width.

Its the great allrounder!

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Great story and congrats on the new guitar.

 

There is not one guitar in my house that I intended to buy. Somewhere along the way we just crossed paths at the right time. My latest came out of the back room of a Mom & Pop jmusic store where the unwanted and unsellable dwell. I went in to buy some strings and walked out with a very badly abused early 1970s mahogany top Guild. After a couple of weeks of working on it while it isn't gonna win any beauty contests and it isnt't perfect it is playable and puts out a loud warm voice. Eventually I will get around to finishing it up but as Yogi once said - if it ain't broke don't break it so for now I think I will just take a break and have some fun with it.

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Yep, this guitar stuff is crazy. You can't even go into a guitar store without one of them following you home. Like someone else said---you go in to buy some strings and the strings are attached to an $1800 guitar. Man, I hate it when that happens.

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