Dutchie Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 Hi All, I really hope to find some answers and opinions here. I have the opportunity to buy an all original (?) non revrese Firebird VII from 1966. The owner claims it is all original but frankly I have no or little knowledge on these guitars. The guitar has been refninished and looks gorgeous. It plays like a dream, sounds very good and feels like a true Gibson / quality instrument. There are several things that I want to check, is there a firebird expert that can comment on them?: - The serial number has faded partially so I can not use it to check specifications and such - The neck and middle pickup are indeed original and have the pat. sticker on them dating from 1963. This is a good sign I guess. - The bridge pickup sounds great, looks the same as the other two but has no pat. sticker on it. Could it be that this is an older production pickup before the pat. ? - There is no Firebird logo on the pickguard - It has a toggle switch instead of the slider / lever type switch seen on the reverse firebirds. - It has a stopbar bridge (with an ABR-1) instead of the commonly used Lyre Vibrato. There are no signs of drilled holes however. - It has a glued on neck, I read that this was typical for non reverse firebirds from the sixties? Is this correct? - The guitar is very light, the body has been hollowed out and is Mahogany. Is this typical as well? - tuners are Kluson and appear to be original - all hardware is Gold and looks old enough to be from that era. - The fretboard is rosewood - There are no other indications or marks on the guitar that date it back to the mid sixties. - The sustain is not that great if you compare it to my 2007 firebird with maple wings. The output is much lower as well. I'll ad a picture of the guitar for reference, thanks for the replies and your help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Versatile Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 This one looks the part... It appears to sound good too...so if not over-priced, in your shoes I would purchase it... What to you mean by 'hollowed out'?...some sculpting is normal... Lyre vibratos are by no means de rigeur The Firebird transfer may have peeled or worn off... Just for info...I have a Reverse V and a non Reverse 3x P90 (both stop tailpiece) which take care of all eventualities (personally) Let us know how it goes... V Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dutchie Posted November 20, 2012 Author Share Posted November 20, 2012 Thanks V for your reply. Everything in me says it is the real deal and I am an experienced player / buyer. I am interested what you think about the price. It is actually a trade in where I trade my Hook R20 boutique amp (dutch builder and very nice amp) for this guitar. The equivalent of the trade in cash would be ~2.000 euros which is ~2400 dollars. If the value of this guitar is at least 2.000 $ I am going for it. Though I am still interested in people commenting on non reverse firebirds from this era in general. I am from 1979 and don't know much about the story behind this guitar (Except for what is found on the internet but that is not much either, some general stuff about the non reverse being more ergonomical and produced in limited quantities) Looking forward to hear from someone who actually played these guitars in 65-66! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 Hi All, I really hope to find some answers and opinions here. I have the opportunity to buy an all original (?) non revrese Firebird VII from 1966. The owner claims it is all original but frankly I have no or little knowledge on these guitars. The guitar has been refninished and looks gorgeous. It plays like a dream, sounds very good and feels like a true Gibson / quality instrument. There are several things that I want to check, is there a firebird expert that can comment on them?: I'm not a Firebird expert by any means, but I did own and gig one of these for about a year mid 70's. That is not a VII as far as I know, that is a non reverse 66 Firebird III. - The serial number has faded partially so I can not use it to check specifications and such - The neck and middle pickup are indeed original and have the pat. sticker on them dating from 1963. This is a good sign I guess. - The bridge pickup sounds great, looks the same as the other two but has no pat. sticker on it. Could it be that this is an older production pickup before the pat. ? If by pat. sticker you mean a number thingy, a pickup could or could not have one, it isn't a big deal, may have fallen off somewhere along the way. I do not recall any of those guitars having anything but three P90s. If those are minis, could be something amiss. I also could be wrong. If by pat sticker seller means PAF, not a chance, run away. - There is no Firebird logo on the pickguard If the pickguard looked legitimate I suppose it coulda been scraped off along the way, but it has a bunch too many screws in it, screams replacement to me. - It has a toggle switch instead of the slider / lever type switch seen on the reverse firebirds. Not original, they all had the crappy slider. - It has a stopbar bridge (with an ABR-1) instead of the commonly used Lyre Vibrato. There are no signs of drilled holes however. Not unusual to lose that...thing along the way, mine didn't have it either. But mine wasn't refinned, so the holes were apparent. You can cover a lot with paint. - It has a glued on neck, I read that this was typical for non reverse firebirds from the sixties? Is this correct? Set neck yes. - The guitar is very light, the body has been hollowed out and is Mahogany. Is this typical as well? Light, yes. Hollowed out? I don't know what that means, but emphatically NO, not typical. - tuners are Kluson and appear to be original eh. Tuners were a crapshoot back then. If it didn't have Grovers on it, most put them on it. No telling what was stock on them, I don't recall. I also don't recall gold hardware, but that doesn't mean anything. They were considered starter guitars, beginners guitars. The not reverse lived a short time, I do believe Forest convinced Leo to write them a letter telling them that the non-reverse body was too close to jaguar/jazzmaster. I may have that mis-remembered though. Personally, I wouldn't give you 2000 dollars for three of them, unless one of the three was mine, and I'd know mine pretty quickly. A refinned, not original pickguard, not original bridge with the plugs not visible, not original switch, I wouldn't give 2 hundred for, but that is just me. Good luck with it. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L5Larry Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 Seems to be some misinformation being disseminated here about the original non-reverse Firebirds. The models were as follows: Firebird I - two P-90's, short Maestro, chrome plated hardware, large stud "lightning bolt" bridge Firebird III - Three P-90's, short Maetsro, chrome plated hardware, large stud "lightning bolt" bridge Firebird V - Two chrome covered mini-humbuckers, long Maestro, chrome hardware, ABR-1 bridge Firebird VII - Three gold plated mini-humbuckers, long Maestro, gold plated hardware, ABR-1 bridge All had dot necks. All had slider switch. All had Kluson oval button "Strat" type tuners. All had reflector-top knobs. Available colors were sunburst, white, red, metallic blue and metallic green. As to the questions of the OP: The serial number has faded partially This is evidence of a refinish job, which you say has been disclosed by the seller. The most prominent reason for refinishing a Gibson guitar is to hide the repair of a headstock break. The bridge pickup sounds great, looks the same as the other two but has no pat. sticker on it. Yes, those stickers do fall off, but then where do they go... was it found inside the guitar? This is most likely a replacement, or added (more on this later), pickup. There is no Firebird logo on the pickguard The Firebird logo was applied to the pickguards by a heat embossing process. Even if the red paint has been worn off the outline of the logo woul still be visible to the "trained eye" on the white pickguard. As has been mentioned above, the pickguard pictured has WAY too many screws. This pickguard is not original, nor is it a Gibson part. It has a toggle switch instead of the slider / lever type switch seen on the reverse firebirds All non-reverse Firebirds cam from the factory with slider switches. Replacing the slider with a toggle was a VERY common mod. It has a stopbar bridge (with an ABR-1) instead of the commonly used Lyre Vibrato. There are no signs of drilled holes however. None came this way from the factory, more evidence of refinishing and MAJOR modifications. You'll also notice that the spacing between the bridge and tailpiece is wider than on a LP or SG. The spring plate of the Maestro Vibrola was mounted by a single row of three screws on the back of the spring plate, which is right where this stopbar is mounted. The guitar is very light, the body has been hollowed out and is Mahogany. Is this typical as well? These guitars were very light. I do not know, or remember, what the routing looked like under the pickguard. I seem to remember that ALL the bodies were routed the same to accommodate any of the pickup configurations. all hardware is Gold and looks old enough to be from that era. The VII model had gold plated hardware. The fretboard is rosewood ALL non-reverse Firebirds had rosewood fingerboards with dot markers There are no other indications or marks on the guitar that date it back to the mid sixties. The potentiometers have a date/mfg code. This number will tell you who made the pots and the week and year they were made. The sustain is not that great if you compare it to my 2007 firebird with maple wings. The output is much lower as well. The original Firebirds, reverse AND non-reverse, were not known for sustain. This guitar is anything but an "All Original", and has ZERO collector or vintage value. As for the modifications I've suspect as described above, an inspection of the guitar under "black light" will show any repairs, hole fills, and sometimes remnants of the original finish. A flashlight "shadow" test will also show most of these things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dutchie Posted November 26, 2012 Author Share Posted November 26, 2012 Hi All, For those that are interested in this topic I have had contact with Gibson in te meantime and found out that actually everything is original except for the toggle switch. The bridge might be a replacement but its not for sure. Even the "missing" Firebird logo is a common thing on the earliest of these guitars (which are quite rare in VII apparantely) The value is actually more than I thought and the only remark was that the refinishing could be a point of discussion in future sales. However this all depends on what the buyer is looking for. Anyway, thanks for all the help here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
64birdman Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Hi All, For those that are interested in this topic I have had contact with Gibson in te meantime and found out that actually everything is original except for the toggle switch. The bridge might be a replacement but its not for sure. Even the "missing" Firebird logo is a common thing on the earliest of these guitars (which are quite rare in VII apparantely) The value is actually more than I thought and the only remark was that the refinishing could be a point of discussion in future sales. However this all depends on what the buyer is looking for. Anyway, thanks for all the help here! I have a 1968 Firebird VII,as well as a 64 reverse III.The non reverse vii's are very rare,..to the point where you never see them.Even if it's not all original,it's still a very rare guitar.A clean custom colour vii will run 10-12k and one with issues will still fetch 3-4k depending on the guitar.They made around 200 of these total from 66-69 and they all have swimming pool routes.Most people don't have a clue when it comes to these guitars,they just think of the III's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slick slide Posted November 29, 2012 Share Posted November 29, 2012 I think personally it is a reissue I saw one the same on google but I could not find it again so I don't know what year think 1995 or 2005 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outtahere Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 Hi Dutchie, the guitar appears to be up for sale again. Any updates on your findings? Was it refinished to hide a cracked neck? http://link.marktplaats.nl/663097293 I think the stopbar is out of place too. Hope you can come up with some extra info. I'm tempted to bid on this one, but I fear it to be a dog or even previously stolen. ( no s/n) Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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