Brand new Sunburst Electric Archtop guitar for sale! Take a look...

Steve, if you were selling a lefty, I would jump on it. I have a lefty Strat (reissue based on 1958 specs) but I would love to have the guitar you are selling. Left handed peeps like me often get left in the dust on opportunities like this!

 

THIS BABY'S A STEAL !!!!!!!

I already own quite the collection of Gibson's! The interesting thing is hearing you say you own a Johnny Smith? Wicked, that's my baby too, mine was a double pickup Johnny but I hated the large pick-guard covering up the bottom f-hole so I sold the the pickups and pick-guard and bought the single when I still in College back in the 70's. My L-5 CES had been stolen from me in my 3rd year as my apartment got robbed. Still broken hearted about that guitar. But on the advise of William Levitt who was my teacher at Berklee and the head of the Guitar Dept. He hooked me up with this guy down in NY who was like a buyer as well as like a guitar broker for which he got a commission for finding you the axe you were looking for. Well he found me a mint condition early 60's Johnny Dlb PU. I wanted a D'Angelico New Yorker like many of my friends like George Benson who had 2 one that was a Sunburst and he also had a Natural finished one, but usually he played the Sunburst during the 70's. My next Choice was an Epiphone Emporer which was huge like a Gibson Super 400 but I wanted an original Epi made in NY. This was what Bill Levitt used and I loved that axe. But a very interesting story came from all this. Johnny Smith originally had the specs to his guitar made by John D'Angelico. However John D'Angelico took that same design and created the New Yorker from Johnny's original guitar. So when Gibson and Johnny Smith got together to make the model they still used Johnny's original design that he gave to John D'Angelico. So in a strange way if you own a Gibson Johnny Smith it's really like owning a Gibson New Yorker! HA!!! Now this puts a bit of a spin on you as all I seem to ever want to talk about is The Beatles here. HA!!!
Also another cool fact, that before George Benson hit it SUPER big in 1976 with his Breezin LP for Warner you will notice he has a Johnny Smith guitar. He did use a Johnny for a good while until the Ibanez people approached him on designing 2 guitars of his own. But it was funny during that time period before the Ibanez GB-10 and GB-20 guitars were finished. Ibanez was still the king of Gibson Copies and so George was often spotted playing an Ibanez copy of either a Natural Finished Johnny Smith as well as a Natural Finished L-5 acoustic with floating pick-up in the neck position which also was an Ibanez Copy.
Now Steve is correct for any of you wanna be jazzer's, that's one freakin NICE guitar. In fact Gibson even during the early to mid 70's did make that ES-350 guitar mostly though it was just a big 3 inch hollow body ES-335 with silver hardware. Nothing near as nice looking of a flamed maple top let alone the nice sunburst finish. Gibson's at that time they had 3 standard finishes for the ES-350 they were Cherry Red, Natural and Walnut finishes. The Double cut-away is what makes this type of model a real cool one to play for eash access to the 22nd fret.
Don't play this one down because of where it's point of origin being made in Korea. They make tons of guitars for every major manufacturer that I could name. In this case have the Jay Turser which would be more of like a private label name for a good sized store to use to sell and it would me less of these were made so the better all around quality and TLC was put into the making of each one made. The List Price is what kills me here. If in fact that this same guitar had the Epiphone by Gibson name on the headstock it would list for at the very least $1499.00 so you could expect to pay close to a grand buy the time you added the price for a good hardshell case as well as your local state sales taxes. So Steve pays $389 for this beautiful look and I'm sure sounding axe with all the quality of a Gibson guitar from it's dual gold covered Humbucking Pick-Ups as well as that nice Gibson Byrdland styled tailpiece also in Gold to the Machine heads having either a 16 or 18 to 1 gear ratio for smooth tuning and to top it off those sweet Inlays that look like Mother Of Pearl and Abalone, and that nice easy adjustible Gibson style Tune-O-Matic bridge. I am totally blown away by all this. Someone I don't care even if you don't play the guitar, buy this baby from Steve and take a few lessons. Don't be afraid guys. As I always said to my older pupils when I was a lot younger, it's never to late to learn. So this is a super deal. It's got my total stamp of approval and trust me I know this stuff.
I still have to add one more thing here. In the mid 80's as an Authorized Gibson Dealer in my own store I got to see, and buy thousands of the nicest guitars come into my hands and every once in a while I just couldn't sell one and it went into my own private collection. Well at that time I had a big run on ES-175 guitars. Now to most jazz player's the ES-175 was and is considered the work horse for Jazz guitarists as well as it was the lowest priced arched top that Gibson sold other than what they had in their Epiphone line at the time. Well most ES 175's were made from Maple and not of the Flame type as well as they didn't have a solid top or back and sides. Well around 1987 I got in a couple of Natual finished ones only there was a bit of a change. They had the Maple top still but the sides were made of mahogany. So they sort of looked like the way a solid body Les Paul Standard would look and the necks were also of the same wood and instead of being made out of 3 pieces or 5 pieces these were solid one piece mahogany necks as well. So to make a long story short. TERRY had to slip another one past his wife into his collection. And I'm a dealer so I can tell you that at the time an ES-175 at my cost was still a lot of cash compared to Steve's guitar here and this is my point, If I had seen this guitar instead of my Gibson ES-175 I honestly can say I truly believe that I would have been walking that one to my car and past my wife instead!

 

Wow did I type all that. Ed Bishop would be proud of me! Terr

 

Steve, This looks like the lennon casino, Am I correct?
Does it sound like a casino? How much are you selling it for?

Thanks

 

That's a beautiful guitar. It reminds me of the one Gene Cornish used in the Rascals.

 

Heck, snap this beauty up even if ya don't know how to play. You could always learn!

Jim W.

 

Close but Gene Cornish used a Gibson Barney Kessel guitar! Beautiful Jazz Guitar also! But he had it rocked out with a set of light gauge Slinky's .10 thru .46 gauge strings! The Barney had a double Florentine pointed type of cut-a-way's!

 

Steve great find then if it's a 66 Johnny! That one was made in Kalamazoo,Mich. If you have the original pickups like I did actually it's a mini-humbucker in design, you would see them on many of the older Gibson made in the US Epiphones such as the thin-line models, these were very popular with both rock and jazz players as well as cheaper and prettier looking guitars than a Gibson 335 of it's time. Gibson has had these same model's reissued that were made in Japan in the late 70's and thru the mid 80's and now I believe they are made in the same factory as your nice guitar. The neck inlays are the dead give away to those models and they are the same on that Jay Turner you have. That's a smokin axe man. Still can't get over it. But back to the pick-ups those mini-humbuckers were also found on Gibson Les Paul Deluxe guitars only they were usually housed in a cream colored P-90 style pick up cover that servered as the pick-ups bezzel so it could be raised and lowered by the phillips screws on the bass and the treble side. Many Rockers would buy that guitar over a the Les Paul Standard because they were identical guitars except for the pick-ups which made the guitar usually $100 bucks cheaper than the LP Standard. This is why today there are many Les Paul Deluxe models being sold as LP Standard as eventually the mini-humbuckers were pulled out and the holes would then be routed out to fit a standard humbucking pick-up of the players choice. If anyone is ever to buy a USED Les Paul Standard that was made in the late 60's even then the original re-issue had cream colored single coiled P-90 style pickups on it. So check the serial # out or write a letter to Gibson to find out if it was really made as a Les Paul Standard and not a Deluxe as this in fact would take away from it's authenticity and value of the guitar that you would be paying more money for.
Steve yes I loved the sound of my L-5 CES as it had that Wes sound that I was looking for and since I used nothing but a silver front CBS Twin Reverb with 2 12" JBL's in it. Mind you that amp like the older Twins when Leo still owned the company that had the Black Faces of that time, it had the 2 channels but mine still didn't have the Master Volume Control for the use of overdriving. I was a firm believer in a good amount of Fuzz pedals to use instead if I needed to rock out for a solo. Good like you, I've owned so much in guitars but as well as old amps from Fender Concert amps with 4 tens that later was replaced by the Super Reverb, I used to Y jack those togeher along with one of the very first solid state amps that were called Standel's only I had a Standel Bass amp with one 15" JBL so I had all 3 of those amps Y jacked all together man what a nice sound that set up was for playing Hendrix and Cream, Steppenwolf, Blue Cheer, early Jeff Beck stuff when Rod Stewart was the singer ala the Jeff Beck Group. I would top all that off with a Fender Echo that was out at the time. It sort was looked like a Bandmaster Head of the mid 60's! I'd use a 3 different Fuzz boxes one was a real Arbitar FuzzFace that Jimi used the other my favorite was a cheap Univox made one. Also used was a DeArmond Volume pedal and 2 Vox Cry Baby Wah-Wah pedals but I took out the pot in one of them and I reversed it so the wah instead of going from in the up position from bass to treble it would go treble to bass instead. My Guitar which was a purple painted 56 Strat I sent to Fender and had it refinished in Lake Placid Blue but I added another Pick-Up Switch to it and remember at that time the switches were only 3 way not 5 way switches but you could get the 5 way sound by leaving the selector in-between hence still getting the 5 way sound but a good friend of mine put in this pick-up selector and rewired the pickups before I sent it to Fender for the Refinishing. When they got the guitar they sent a letter to the Dealer as to who did the pick-up thing and my friend was hired to work for Fender by the Fender Rep as he met him in the store where I was actually working and teaching at hear in town. It was kind of a cool deal. His name was Craig Bennet. This guy was a wizard when it came to guitars I saw him restore an old Gibson Harp Guitar. This thing was beat and he took off the old finish and restained it so it ended up looking like the 60's Cherry Red finish that one would find on a Gibson ES-335. He did tons of stuff like that. He took an old beat up strat and he cut it into a tear-drop shape and painted it a blue sunburst, there was never anything like this color ever found on a guitar made in the 60's with this finish but he didn't stop there. He turned the thing into a 12 stringed Strat tear drop. I loved that guitar as he'd let me play the hell out of it. Twas very Beatle sounding, I guess it was his answer to the Rick's 12 strings that were out there. In know way compare this to what Fender had actually come out with for their 12 string solid body with those split single coiled pickups with the Jazzmaster type body. Those things sucked for the time! LOL!!! WoW I'm off on a Roll again. Steve remind me to not ramble, but I have to blame you. Yep it's all your fault for showing off that BEAUTIFUL guitar of your's. Steve that's an easy sell on Ebay, and I think you'd get a hell of a lot more for it than what you actually paid. If someone here dosen't scarf it up SOON!!!!
Oh BTW Craig Bennet and I both knew the Rascals, When they came to play in town Craig's band that he was in opened the show for them at the local Aud. So I got to meet them. Then a guy also from my area, ended up playing in a Band in the early 70's with both Gene Cornish and Dino in a group called Bulldog. His name is Eric Thorngreen!!! Yep Atlantic recording artist before that he also played in a horn type group that recorded for Atlantic and they had a couple of hits that band was called The Brass Buttons. So this was before he started the band Bulldog with Gene and Dino. I went to see them when they were playing in Boston a local club on Kenmore Square called K K Katy's! It was funny, as they had Platform shoes on and glitter in there hair. Gene was not the lead guitarist in Bulldog. Eric played lead on most songs and Gene mainly sang and played rythem in Bulldog. Eric later became a Producer in New York City and his claim to fame was get this now. THE TALKING HEAD's. Yep he made them into a good sounding band I think compared to what they had sounded like before he Produced them. Hmmm come to think of it nah just a thought though, Talk about Burning Down The House! I gotta STOP! Sweet GEESUS, I'm showing my age here now.
AHhhhhhhh, Steve nice guitar, my advice, KEEP IT!!!

 

Yep, Crazy like a fox, Steve. I have more stories as I've been around the block and the Recording studio's but that was way back in the 60's and 70's! I was lucky as a 16 year old to work at that music store and to teach. There's a real super long story here but I try to shorten it a bit. The store's owner George O'Dell had lent one of his other good students who was older than I was by about 3 or 4 years. Well this friend he'd met Chet Atkins down in Nashville, He got the tour of the RCA recording studio that Chet used down there. So to make a long story short my friends name was Gene Rice. Gene put together a recording studio in the mid sixties with basically all the good stuff of the time Ampex 4 track huge reverb tank down 2 floors in the basement of the building this thing was a monster the Reverb chamber. I like to think of it as the Abbey Road Studio of Utica, NY which is were I am from. The studio was 2 floors up where we taught lessons. Everytime I walked into the studio it was so dead sound proofed that my ears would POP! So I had access to all this cool stuff at the time but I just let him do all the recording for me or my band as well as in the control room I'd let him do the final mixing unless I had any last minute ideas. When I went off to Boston to study Jazz, Gene went to Nashville and Chet got him a job working for RCA. Well he ended up doing a lot of Engineering for "Alabama" for which they won many a Grammy Award. I'm sure he got one also. If you have access to looking at those LP's during the 70's I'm sure you will see Gene Rice listed as Engineer on their LP's or CD's if they are in print. Gene was also a great guitarist as he loved Jazz, and he was my early hero because he was the first person I knew that had an original Gretch Country Gent just like Harrison used on the Ed Sullivan show. Gene really let the recording studio interest take away from his ability to play as well as I know he could. Man he had that boom chick thumb picking thing of Chet's down to a Tee! God I was a lucky kid to be at the right places at the right time when I was younger back then. I was always happy though to see and hear that other players were making it and doing good also. Another good friend of mine, that I was in High School with his name is Steve Edwards, great blues player he did things with a plain blonde Tele and just a Fender Twin that had my ears perked up when he played. Just as I was going to Boston, he was playing his last gig with a local band and he told me that night that he was going off to play with Ronnie Dio. Now Ronnie had a group called The Elves and they recorded and had a few hit's on Decca Records in the mid sixties. So Steve was going to join his new band called ELF which was going to record on the MGM label. I remember when I was in a record store in Boston when I opened up a Rolling Stone and saw the full page ad for ELF's first Album and sure enough there was my buddy Steve on the front cover. Wow there's more to this story but perhaps I could pick it up later. This involves Ritchie Blackmore and Steve finding out he had been ousted from the band while he was here in town and read it in Rolling Stone. That band that Steve had rehearsed with before he decided to come home for a couple of weeks while the band was looking for a Keyboard player eventually became the band "RAINBOW". The first time I heard Blackmore's guitar solo in one of the hit songs culled from that album, I said to myself, "Why that son of a Bitch" he ripped Steve's guitar technique right off of him. As Steve did rehearse with him for a good solid month and a half according to Steve before he took his leave to come home while Dio and Blackmore were auditioning Keyboardist's. I say this as Blackmore had never sounded like that before this album was released. I really felt bad for my good friend Steve. As I said I was always happy to see and hear that someone I personally knew and had jammed or played with was making it and doing well. But man that was a real kick in the ass for my friend Steve. So if you're a Ritchie Blackmore fan and like his style of playing, he stole it from a good friend of mine. I'm sorry I give credit where it's really due! I gotta stop this my wife is giving me bad looks, but gee it's my day off too !!! LOL

 

I know exactly how you feel. I'm a lefty guitarist so I know good guitars are difficult to come by. Over time I've managed to find some really nice ones including a couple of Strats(a '62 and '68 reissue). Just bought a lefty Jerry Jones electric sitar last week.

 

Guitar

Man, I'm too busy to read all this stuff but if it's still for sale I'll take it
Peace
Norm

 

NEW GUITAR

I snooze...I lose.
Oh well...
Say: Nice website...any idea how their basses are?
Thanks!
Norm

 

Rob got a NICE GUITAR, Congratulation on that one!

Steve,
Rob got a super nice guitar. Thanks for posting the Jay Turser website. Well they have a lot of nice copies there. Some of the prices for the Solid Body guitars are high in comparison to what you only paid for the nice Arch Top that Rob will have or does have. That one obviously they are out of that model. Can't imagine WHY!!! I did see a nice Tele with a suburst finish and all maple fingerboard with a pealoid pickgaurd that looks really, really nice. Believe it or not, a Tele is one of my favorite guitars but I actually don't own one in my collection at this point in time. Of course I would have to have a Fender but I will get one soon. Thanks for showing that guitar to us all, as well as hipping me to that Jay Turser website. Though I'm in the business myself it's always nice to see someone else's goods and pricings for different types of models. Anyway's tell Rob to enjoy that axe and I hope he has great luck with it.

 

Sure, I'm a guitar snob too. I do just love them to death. But I think once you've owned all the brand names of the past and still future but you know the ones I mean basically I'm a real Gibson guitar freak, I love Fender stuff as well but not as much as a Gibson. This is just my own preference over the year's as I've played since I was 10 years old. I'm gonna be 50 YIKES this coming month of May. So I remember some pretty bad guitars that used to be made in Japan even. Now you'd pay through the nose even for a Japanese made guitar. So the Korean models are really super nice and it's really hard to find a bad one they make them so nice. And with just a very slight set up they all can play like and sound like whatever they might be a copy of. So heck yeah, I'd not want to take my real expensive models out to the clubs to play out with. I'd be playing cheaper but well made copies that are out there! I really shutter to think what I'm worth dollar wise when it comes to my guitar collection. I only wished I had known back in the early 70's before I started selling and trading some of my 50's and early 60's vintage stuff from Gibson and Fender. Just on 3 of those guitars that I sold I could be retired now if I had held onto them! I think I started to make up for it though in the later 70's and early 80's on some of my axes as well as some great finds just came walking into my store for either trade ins or for a very small amount of cash that someone didn't know what they had and wanted to sell it

 

Steve here's the perfect example of what it was like to easily get rich from my College's Bulletin Board's. Every semester there would be a new influx of Guitar Player's coming into learn how to be a Jazz Guitarist. The problem that most of them all found out was that they all were coming into the school there favorite and very hard to find vintage guitars from the 50's and 60's. So I can't begin to tell you and this is no exaggeration. The hand written index cards would read like this. Gibson Les Paul Standard 1959 Cherry Sunburst guitar flame maple top with original case $350 or best offer. This kills me now, as I also sold at least 6 of my beautiful vintage models that were mostly solid body electrics and one was a Gibson C-O Classic nylon string. I gave away my 1953 Fender Esquire guitar with maple neck and it was refinished black by the Fender company and I had them put in the lipstick rhythm pick up while they had it. It came back looking and sounding great. It was that back treble pick up that was the killer as it was original and it was dipped in that black wax that they used which made the pickup not squeal like the newer ones that CBS was putting out at the time. I sold that in the original case for 125 bucks. See I also needed the money so I could purchase my L-5 CES with case from EU Wurlitzer's in Boston. God the Esquire alone today is worth a small fortune, I don't even want to talk about my 1952 Les Paul Gold Top with the trapeze tail-piece with the original brown case with pink velvet lining! Yes that too, went for big bucks, I got a $150 for that one. I'm sure this dosen't happen today anymore at that school but that's the way it was back in 1972 and every semester I was there until 1976. May 15th I graduated on my Birthday during the Bicentennial or the 200th year of our nations birth as well as being and living in Boston. Well in any event, yeah there were even a few more guitars that went out for the cheap to buy that L-5 another was my reverse body triple pick-up Gibson Firebird. It had 3 black P-90 pickups and a this wild metallic greenish champagne finish on it. Talk about a fat strat sound. Also I sold a 1970 Les Paul Custom Black Beauty Fretless Wonder. Yep I got $350 for that one with the big square case that was purple inside and the plush lining was made so it was form fitted to the guitar. So when it looked like the guitar was in it's own coffin. Also went my other new 1968 Walnut finished and this was the 1st year of that finish on my Gibson SG Special with the Gibson Vibrola on it. Yeah you guess it I got a whopping $150 bucks with case for that. But again as we both said WHO THE F**K new that prices were going to skyrocket as well as that collector were starting to scarf them up left and right for pennies on the dollar for what they are really worth today!