PickitPaul Posted August 9, 2012 Report Share Posted August 9, 2012 There is not much said about the J60. I know, it has been discontinued and only available now with a special order, but this guitar sounds great! I recently took home a used one from 1995, just turned 17 the other day. It's a sunburst with I.R. back, has a under saddle pickup, no tone control in sound hole, but has the cloth battery holder & must be stock. I don't plan on using the pickup, but may come in handy sometime. I'm guessing the saddle is bone (looks like bone to me, uncomponsated) nut is a different color, so probably tusk. Ebony f.board and bridge. Kind of beat up finish wise, some de-lamination going on, especially down the two piece back and neck divider strips. Oh, and a crack down the lower soundboard that for now is closed, very humid conditions now. But this Hummingbird shaped I.R. guitar sounds very good. Any string recommendations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinder Posted August 10, 2012 Report Share Posted August 10, 2012 I may be wrong, but I'm quite sure that the J60 featured Walnut back and sides...I played one once on Denmark Street in London as I recall. LOUD guitar, long scale, strident tone with attitude to spare. Reminded me of an angry AJ! No wonder they are nicknamed The Bonecrusher. Great fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe M Posted August 10, 2012 Report Share Posted August 10, 2012 I may be wrong, but I'm quite sure that the J60 featured Walnut back and sides...I played one once on Denmark Street in London as I recall. LOUD guitar, long scale, strident tone with attitude to spare. Reminded me of an angry AJ! No wonder they are nicknamed The Bonecrusher. Great fun! Any J60 that I ever saw had rosewood back and sides. It was supposed to be Gibson's answer to Martin's D28. Never heard of one with walnut back and sides, but that doesn't mean there weren't some made, anything's possible. I had one that was made in the mid 80's that was a great guitar, wish I had never sold it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenumber2 Posted August 10, 2012 Report Share Posted August 10, 2012 They made some with maple b/s too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pickax Posted August 11, 2012 Report Share Posted August 11, 2012 I had one of these Guitars but I traded it some years ago.very nice square shoulder Dread. Tremendous volume and tone. A sturdy built Guitar and I drove it hard with medium gauge Phosphor Bronze D'Addairo's. How about some pictures?? Don't think I've seen one of these with a burst. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PickitPaul Posted August 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2012 oh, right pictures.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandolin1944 Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 PickitPaul, That is a beautiful J-60!! I have a 1992 model J-60 with blonde face with silver Grovers, Sitka top and Indian rosewood backs and sides -- see pic. It is a awesome guitar strong & a boomer -- certainly the equal of any D-28 I have played. But being a first year issue it has no the fretboard MOP markers -- don't like that. I am thinking about having a luthier I trust here install Advanced Jumbo inlay on the headstock and fretboard and refinish it as a sunburst -- like yours. I might also switch over to a set of vintage gold Grover tuners I have in the basement. I know a lot of folks get upset about talk like that but let's face it these guitars will never become "big money" guitars like a fist-issue Hummingbird. I sold a '61 Hummer few years back for nearly $5K a while back. If the J-60 ever reaches $2K I'll be shocked. I had read that the J-60 bracing was the same as the 1930's Advanced Jumbo -- I looked inside with a mirror and the bracing does indeed LOOK like diagrams of an AJ bracing. Can anyone else verify this is the case -- i.e., not just a guitar rumor. If so I expect one of the reasons Gibson discontinued the model is because they decided to re-issue the AJ? Can you tell me what the label says on your guitar? I was surprised to see that yours has an orange label -- my 1992 is an off-white Montana label. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandolin1944 Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Any J60 that I ever saw had rosewood back and sides. It was supposed to be Gibson's answer to Martin's D28. Never heard of one with walnut back and sides, but that doesn't mean there weren't some made, anything's possible. I had one that was made in the mid 80's that was a great guitar, wish I had never sold it. Gibson definitely did make at least one J-60 with walnut back and sides -- I think this was a Ren Ferguson idea (don't know if I spelled his name right) -- thought I recall reading that in an interview with him some years ago. But most J-60's were Indian rosewood and a few were maple. Are you sure you had a J-60 made in the 1980's? I thought the one I have is a first year production and it is a 1992 model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PickitPaul Posted August 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 I had read that the J-60 bracing was the same as the 1930's Advanced Jumbo -- I looked inside with a mirror and the bracing does indeed LOOK like diagrams of an AJ bracing. Can anyone else verify this is the case -- i.e., not just a guitar rumor. If so I expect one of the reasons Gibson discontinued the model is because they decided to re-issue the AJ? I have a '91 AJ with a white label, I think the color changed somewhere after 1992, could be in '93? I looked inside with a mirror, and the AJ has 2 tone bars, and the J-60 has 3. Both have advanced bracing & scalloped, but I've read that the top thickness is different on the AJ (thinner). J-60 seems to have a thicker / chunkier sound next to the AJ, which has a clearer and slightly more resonant tone with more high end and a bit less bass, but still has plenty of bass presence, very balanced sounding, although the J-60 is very balanced too for a square shoulder Do you have any pictures of the back of your J-60? My label just says J-60 and the serial number. As far as the AJ goes, it was re-issued in 1990, so the J-60 was introduced later & I guess with the square shoulders, never was popular enough to keep in regular production. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motherofpearl Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 I just bought a j60 with walnut from 2005 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandolin1944 Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 I have a '91 AJ with a white label, I think the color changed somewhere after 1992, could be in '93? I looked inside with a mirror, and the AJ has 2 tone bars, and the J-60 has 3. Both have advanced bracing & scalloped, but I've read that the top thickness is different on the AJ (thinner). J-60 seems to have a thicker / chunkier sound next to the AJ, which has a clearer and slightly more resonant tone with more high end and a bit less bass, but still has plenty of bass presence, very balanced sounding, although the J-60 is very balanced too for a square shoulder Do you have any pictures of the back of your J-60? My label just says J-60 and the serial number. As far as the AJ goes, it was re-issued in 1990, so the J-60 was introduced later & I guess with the square shoulders, never was popular enough to keep in regular production. To tell the truth I'm pretty ignorant about flattop bracing -- being more of a mandolin devotee but here is one description of a 1935 AJ top bracing: "Late 1935 Advanced Jumbo introduction specs:...1" below the soundhole "X" bracing at 105 degrees with two tone bars, 1 1/8" wide maple bridge plate... That seems consistent with your observation on your AJ re-issue? But on the other side I do not see three tone bars in this J-60 that I have here rather if looks like two as in the description of the '35 AJ. The are definatly scalloped. Here are a two more pics of my J-60. I would have added a couple more but I keep getting the "file too big to upload" message -- can't be true I've downsize them twice! ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandolin1944 Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Trying a new post to add more pics of the 1992 J-60 -- no luck -- something is screwy -- I've reduced the 3 jpg's I want to load to less than 30 KB each -- which is ridiculous. But they still prompt the "This file is to big to upload" warning. Can't be. Some kind of a glitch -- the other files I uploaded in previous posts were around 120 KB each. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandolin1944 Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 I just bought a j60 with walnut from 2005 Did you buy it from someone in the UK by chance? There was a walnut J-60 up for sale from London about 2 years ago on eBay -- it was up for months with no takers. I looked at it several times but I really wanted a maple b/s and settled for rosewood. I really like to have one of the sunburst versions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 I have not seen too many J-60s with a burst. The J-60 was introduced in the early 1990s to try and get the attention of die hard Martin guys the same thing that Gibson did when it came out with the Hummingbird. I think Gibson even called the J-60 the Bluegrass Special when they first came out. If I recall, there were two runs of a dozen J-60s with walnut bodies - the first in the mid-1990s and the second in the mid-200s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motherofpearl Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 Actually I bought from a guy in Alaska. Off the AGF. Ive heard great things about walnut. We will see I guess Jamie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandolin1944 Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 Actually I bought from a guy in Alaska. Off the AGF. Ive heard great things about walnut. We will see I guess Jamie Seems like walnut is an overlooked tone wood except for mountain dulcimers? Gibson has made a few walnut back/sides mandolins and they are great sounding -- of course the rosewood, and cherry back mandos sound good to and for that matter there is nothing wrong with maple either I guess -- I'm not sure where that gets us! zombywoof were you at the Montana factory in the 1990's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 You do see guitars made with walnut from the 1920s and 1930s. Also, Epiphone used walnut to build flat tops in the 1940s and early 1950s. Also cherry necks. Nope, have never even set foot in Bozeman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 walnut is used regularly in lowden guitars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdd707 Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 Don't Jackson Browne's have walnut b/s? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duluthdan Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Don't Jackson Browne's have walnut b/s? Mine does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hogeye Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 The J-60 first appeared on the pricelist in 1992. 1992 J-60 antique Natural $1699.00 $1899.00 with pickup They shipped 112 and 2 in Vintage Sunburst these were the Rosewood version 1993 J-60 AN & VS $1699.00 they shipped 169 AN 10 VS These were Rosewood 1993 They had an International Series Guitar and the J-60 was the guitar of the month for December. they shipped 52 of them. They were Maple back and sides with tortoise binding. 1993 The J-60 was the May Domestic special of the month. This was the same as the international special. They shipped 34 1994 The J-60 is off the price list they say they shipped 12 Rosewood. 1995 Not on the price list but they shipped 43 1996 The J-60 Rosewood is back on the pricelist as Antique natural only and a list of $1899.00 they shipped 390 1997 It becomes the J-60 Traditional Rosewood Antique Natural with a list of $1999.00 they shipped 19 1998 J-60 Traditional Antique Natural Rosewood List of $2099.00 they shipped 2. This is the last year they appear on the price list. 1999 They show they shipped 58 Rosewood J-60s Gibson has a very difficult to explain way of designating SKUs. They have SPLMON and SPLCST codes as well.These codes are used as a catchall for guitars that may not be on the price list so there is no way of knowing what they are. Any walnut J-60s were probably shipped under these codes so any identification of them is impossible. The terms Bonecrusher never appear on the pricelist same for Bluegrass Special. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PickitPaul Posted August 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Thanks for the info. How many out of the 43 in 1995 were VS? Looks like these are very rare! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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