(second block, fourth letter of the prisoners' quadratic tap code...)

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...am here to tap through the walls.


Tue Jun, 15 2004

Owl-Eyed Beanie-Heads

Stuart Buck fingers the 'work' of acanemics too goddamned stupid to realize how goddamned stupid they are.

Jun 15, 04 | 8:30 pm

AxeBites

Various guitars I see floating by, mostly Gibson and mostly eBay.

This SG kinda comes on like a Supreme, what with that maple top. It's not a standard SG Supreme finish, though, and the guitar only has twenty-two frets, like a normal SG. Wotta look: Wine Red tiger flames, all nickel hardware. Really lovely.


Yet another Custom Shop Anniversary CS-356 in Diamond White. Except for the snot-green tuners, I think that's just marvelous.


Here's a nice lookin' SG Supreme in the flamey Fireburst finish. No pickguard over this maple cap on the SG's mahogany body. Gold hardware, ebony, etc., and P90 pickups, for god's sake. Look out.


If I were to own an ES-135, I'm thinking it would have to be a blue one with black speed knobs.


Les Paul Deluxe. "70's"? (shrug) Who knows? Can't see the serial number, and it wouldn't matter anyway until after mid-1977. Before that, the big kids usually date with stuff like manufacturer's codes on the potentiometers ("pots") under the volume and tone knobs. This one's not getting just a hell of a lot of respect yet, but it's early. Anal vintage Nazis will hate that burst finish, but I don't mind it, so far as bursts go. One thing cool about this one is that the original mini-Humbuckers were replaced with proper Seymour Duncan mini-Hums, instead of routing the wood for the larger Humbuckers. God bless the person who saw to that.

There is a distinct place in the world for the Les Paul Deluxe, and I wish I still had my early-70's example. I'd bought it for $350, but sold it from sheer boredom back when I was a fuckin' moron about stuff like this.


On the face of things, this guitar could be carrying about six thousand dollars worth of pickups in it. The seller shows us one of them: it definitely looks like a real PAF. By 1962, however, it was not extremely unusual to find a mix of PAF's and Patent No. pickups. (Technically, there is not a great deal of difference. The market after the turn of the century, however, is a lot more concerned with mystique.) In a guitar with three pickups, I'd be pulling all of them to find out for sure. This looks like a splendid example of the 1962 Les Paul Custom -- the second year of the SG body, which is what this guitar was eventually called: the SG. In 1962, however, it was still a "Les Paul Custom". This one is white, with all the Custom series appointments. Very, very nice.


Well, now, here is an interesting top on a 1995 Les Paul Classic Premium Plus. Tiger-stripe maple flames under a custom color. I'd like to see that in person.


These are about the best pictures of Gibson's Flip-Flop Blue finish that I've ever seen rendered online. That's about what it looks like, and it's a cool finish. 2001 Les Paul Studio.


Here is a 1962 SG Special from one owner since it was brand new. Look at that case. It's forty-two years old. It's got the original hang-tags with it. Look at that guitar. I'd bet the guy who owned it could cite by date each one of those little dings. (One clearly recalls these things.) P90's. That's a very nice example of the type.


Pretty Les Paul Florentine.


1993 Blue Sparkle Les Paul Standard.


Quilty Les Paul Elegant, which is sort of an ebony-boarded abalonied routed/weight-relieved Standard. Nickel Grovers. Nice top.


Observe the output jack-plate on this guitar. (See the fourth pic down the line.) It's that wide because there are no electronics access covers on the back. It's the only way in. 2004 Les Paul Supreme.


1988 SG "Showcase Edition", which looks like a Custom with black hardware and EMG pickups.


Thundering applause -- CS-356. "Diamond White". Custom Shop tenth anniversary. Let the pix load. I'll shut up now.


Yes --
This will get a lot of attention.


The only full-depth, double-cutaway, electric archtop Gibson ever built: the ES-150 landed in 1969. No telling exactly what year this one is. Walnut finish. Trapeze tailpiece. That lone knob stuck way out there on its own (that area is called the "upper treble bout") is a master volume. The pickup selector switch is where you'd find it on a 335, but the output jack is not on the top, it's on the side, like a Les Paul. That body is three inches deep, like the jazz guitars. Very interesting oddball. To someone in love with Gibson guitars, those engraved pickup covers are like looking at pictures of an aunt's Avocado Green kitchen appliances: memory-lane.


Pitter-patter... If I was playing for a Les Paul Custom, I might snap that one right up at its $2500 BIN. "Done. Sold." White. Gold hardware, including the Bigsby. All the Custom appointments, plus split-block fret-markers. And black speed-knobs. Someone thought hard about this look, and it really worked. Well done.


Compared to the guitar, these photographs are awful. This is a 1987 Les Paul Custom. The tailpiece has little at all to do with "B.B. King"; it's a regular TP-6 micro-tuner. (You can see the six black knobs clearly in the second photo. Those are tuning knobs on the tailpiece.) It's not a rosewood fretboard, and he later corrects that.. I'd bet that top is just beautiful, but one can't tell from those shots. The topper is the P90 pickups, though. On a Custom. That's pretty old-school.


Lefties Need SG's, Too -- like this '92 Standard. They're not quite as startling to look at as a lefty LP, but they're still eye-stoppers.


Firebird V. In 1963, the Firebird was the first Gibson guitar built on the "neck through" principle, in which the neck and the center section of the body were a single piece of wood. The whole thing was a pretty drastic departure in electric guitar design, aimed at increasing resonance and sustain throughout a wood guitar not damped with a glued neck/body joint. The efficacy of the thing is still in hot dispute forty years later, although Johnny Winter made a very powerful case.

When it came to styling, Gibson called on the famous automotive designer Ray Dietrich (Duesenberg, Packard, Chrysler, etc.) The consequence was iconically space-aged. There were four different six-stringed models designated I, III, V, and VII (and two basses called Thunderbirds, designated II and IV) reflecting reversed and non-reversed bodies from 1963 to 1969. Yes: it's all very confusing.

The link above points to a 1999 V model. Observe that the high E string tuner is closest to the nut. That's because of the way the machine-head is built, and it is unique. People new to this guitar usually reach for the wrong tuner until they get used to everything being backwards and upside-down. Except the tuning keys: they just stick straight out the back of the head like a banjo, which is why they're called "banjo tuners".

Cardinal Red, this one, with chrome hardware, mini-Hums, and Maestro tremolo.


This is "quilted maple", ladies & gentlemen, and a pretty good look at it, too. All the time, I see people offering nice guitars online with rotten photographs. Not in this case. You can see what's important about the look of this Les Paul Standard out of the Gibson Custom Shop, which is: that top. Very, very nice. I dig the black speed knobs, too. No pickguard. That's how to do it.

(Hmm... thinking more about it: I say it needs chrome pickup covers. Less than twenty bucks to make it perfect.)


1973 Les Paul Deluxe, currently set up with P90's. This is actually a cool pickup modification because it doesn't require digging wood out of the guitar like a Humbucker fit does. Lots of Deluxes got gouged during the aftermarket pickup craze in the 80's. This is also one of the least objectionable (to my eye) Sunburst finishes I've ever seen, although vintage Nazis would call it a "clownburst". I've no earthly idea what that bridge is. This axe could be a buy, though.


Here is a Les Paul exactly like mine, except for the third pickup. '77 Wine Red Custom. This one was the 559th instrument serial-stamped on December 19 of that year, and it was built in Nashville. Da kine Protector case.


Root Beer Les Paul Standard. Quilted maple top. Rosewood fretboard, but I'd like to see that abalone set in ebony. The black bindings are what really set off this look to me, though. The owner replaced the original stop tailpiece with a TP-6 for micro-tuning, and I don't have a problem with that. It think it's cool. And he left the pickguard off it, which is the thing to do with a wood top like that: show it all off, baby. Very nice.


Les Paul Florentine. ("oooh... ahhh...") Semi-hollow, kids. Note the F-holes. I'm not real crazy about that finish -- either the really tight flame has to go, or the Trans Black should be something else, but the two together aren't working for me on this one. It's a quibble, though. I love this whole idea.


This guitar should have its pickups out in order to see if they're PAF's. There is no indication that the seller has a clue about the matter, but a '63 ES-335 is a real possibility. Interesting guitar. "335 TDC" (Thinline Dual-pickup Cherry) on the orange label, but it looks more like a 345 with the split-parallelogram fret-markers and crown inlay on the machine head.


Here is a slightly confused seller, describing a Les Paul Deluxe, but pointing to Gibson's datasheets for the Classic. He's also having serial number issues, which is not difficult of course, until after mid-1977, when the first and fifth numbers indicate the year of manufacture. (You've got that, right?) This is a 2000 model. The thing here is that it's a Deluxe (note the mini-humbucker pickups) in black. Don't see that every day.


2002 SG Supreme -- Emerald Burst finish. (sigh) There is just something about the gold Grover Rotomatic tuners. Lovely axe.


1966 ES-355TDSV. It's not as cool as my '62 355TD, but it's a nice guitar. These photographs are a pretty good look at the type.