A great investment

Iamnobody

Apparently...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221436100274

Surely moving the tailpiece has made this guitar one to stay away from - not invest in?

And why move the thing! Is it so people with sausage fingers can rest their big shovel hands with comfort?

(Phillips I'll give you that idea for free)

Still it's a '79 and I'm after a '78 so why do I even care!

ICBM

To be fair, it looks like moving the bridge was necessary to cure a factory-original alignment problem - look where the old holes are! The strings are centred on the neck now, so they couldn't have been before - this isn't actually that unusual with Gibsons. Though why it was necessary to move the tailpiece to such an odd location as well, I have no idea…

You could probably move it back to the right place and refinish the guitar as a Goldtop and it would look quite nice - the back is at least a decent one-piece. You could maybe even improve the top contouring from the typical late-70s flat carve at the same time… although you can't really do anything about the pointy cutaway horn or the too-steep neck angle.

All in all, I reckon you could make quite a nice £1000 guitar out of it with about £500-worth of work .

Shame the Protector case has a broken latch though.

Moe_Zambeek

I'm sure that seller is one of those with 2 accounts - one for buying and one for selling. You'll likely see that same guitar being sold in the last few months for less than the selling price now.

Richardj

That guy runs his own little business buying LPs in particular and then flogging them on for a profit.  He certainly used to advertise in the back of Guitarist.  Offered me a 'very generous' £900 for my pristine '04 LP Standard with plus top.   Don't think there is any harm there, but you have to realise that he is a classic flip merchant, buy low and sell high.

Skipped

I have this (second type) Chainsaw case and the latches look very common to me. A few pence to fix this?

impmann

Player grade not investment grade. @ICBM is spot on - restoring the tailpiece to a better position and refinishing it in a solid colour would do wonders for it. But I wouldn't pay £1500 for a guitar in that shape... Halve it, and we'll talk...

Iamnobody

impmann;242242" said:

Player grade not investment grade. @ICBM is spot on - restoring the tailpiece to a better position and refinishing it in a solid colour would do wonders for it. But I wouldn't pay £1500 for a guitar in that shape... Halve it, and we'll talk...

Yeah I agree with you both. I've seen much better guitars from that era in
original or more original condition for much less.

I guess I was annoyed by the marketing blurb - it clearly is not an investment.

I can understand the tailpiece alignment (now @ICBM) points if out -but it's been shifted back quite far for no (apparent reason).

No problem with what the chap is doing re. buying and selling by the way.

ICBM

Iamnobody said:

I can understand the tailpiece alignment (now @ICBM) points if out -but it's been shifted back quite far for no (apparent reason).

I'm guessing the reason is to allow the bar to be screwed down tight without the strings pressing on the bridge, because the neck angle is far too steep so the bridge is way up in the air.

It is most definitely not an investment. It's a gamble which was a dog when it was made, will probably always be a dog but could, just possibly, turn out to be a vaguely decent guitar if you don't mind doing a huge amount of work to it and don't mind a high bridge.

So I would say it's possibly as much as a grand overpriced.

Yes, I was joking about the case latch… easy enough to fix, I just thought it was funny that even the case has issues .

Skipped

The stop tail thing is a bit puzzling. You can see that the correct position would have had a steep angle from the bridge.
Perhaps it was moved before Top Wrapping was invented.       

Iamnobody

Yeah that would make sense - I've played a few guitars with high tails and don't like them.

If that's the only way to get it screwed down on this particular guitar I can see why the previous only might want to do it.

It's a shame the seller doesn't have your insight (or doesn't want to reveal if he does) @ICBM as it would probably enhance the listing if he explained the move. Assuming you are right that is!

ICBM

I'm just going on a couple of 70s Les Pauls I've owned in the past - including the first one I owned where the bridge was so high that it partially collapsed under the string tension, since as Skipped said, no-one did top wrapping in those days and the previous owner had just screwed the tailpiece right down. (To be honest, I don't like top-wrapping either and not knowing of the potential for bridge damage back then I would probably have done the same.)

The best solution is to put a Bigsby on it, using a B3 model without the front tension bar. I did that to the second one I had with the same problem - I made a threaded adaptor for the tailpiece stud hole and drilled the 'foot' of the Bigsby so I could screw it to it, which keeps it tight down and also grounds it without needing to run an extra wire. That was a good guitar actually.

p90fool

I've had a couple of 70s LPs through my hands with the same issue, and one with a badly-aligned bridge which rendered it almost unplayable.

I've played some great 70s guitars too, but a lot the ones which had issues were far more of a problem than todays occasional cosmetic blemishes.

It's certainly put me off ever buying a Heritage
)

richardhomer

ICBM;242180" said:

To be fair, it looks like moving the bridge was necessary to cure a factory-original alignment problem - look where the old holes are! The strings are centred on the neck now, so they couldn't have been before - this isn't actually that unusual with Gibsons.

Indeed. As mentioned in the 'Semis' thread, the bridge post and stop-tail bush holes were drilled in the wrong place on my 335 (too close to the neck) and on a Les Paul Heritage Standard 80 I've seen, offset from the centre-line, resulting in the strings running off towards the bass side (and being massively out of alignment with the pick-ups pole screws - particularly the bridge's).

I suspect all four holes are (were?) drilled using a jig which would have ensured they were appropriately spaced from each other - though not necessarily in the right place, if the jig were wrongly placed on the top of the guitar....

Clearly whoever was on drilling duties had no idea how fundamental to the instrument's function these things being in the right place was. At PRS, I understand sub-standard guitars are bandsawed and never see the light of day.

Skipped

I feel some nostalgia for these guitars and cannot say for certain that I will never buy one.  :-O You have to remember that for many people the Les Paul Deluxe was the first Cherry Sunburst Gibson Les Paul that they had ever seen in the flesh. And in the early seventies the status of 'Bursts was now at fever pitch thanks to Page and many others.

But if you don't have to deal with Nostalgia - It seems logical to ask if there is some other reason why a Les Paul deluxe would be anywhere near the top of your £1500 to £2000 Les Paul shopping list.

Iamnobody

Ok I'll answer that one. I'm after a YOB guitar. I can't substantiate why - but look around the forum and you'll see I'm not alone.

I've allocated £1200 - 1500 for the right guitar. That guitar might be one that I can try in the flesh and take it because it plays well or I might buy unseen if I 'like the look of one'.

I'm not really a Les Paul player so this one (when I find it) will be part of the collection and infrequently played at home.

I've looked at 70's Fenders but decided a Norlin Gibson is the way forward.

My '79 SG is a great guitar I'm hoping to find the same in a Les Paul.

I want one while they are still relatively affordable. Despite what anyone else might say the price of 70's guitars are going up. I doubt they will ever achieve silly money but I want in now before the get prohibitively expensive (for me).

ICBM

Iamnobody said:

Ok I'll answer that one. I'm after a YOB guitar. I can't substantiate why - but look around the forum and you'll see I'm not alone.

I've allocated £1200 - 1500 for the right guitar. That guitar might be one that I can try in the flesh and take it because it plays well or I might buy unseen if I 'like the look of one'.

I'm not really a Les Paul player so this one (when I find it) will be part of the collection and infrequently played at home.

I've looked at 70's Fenders but decided a Norlin Gibson is the way forward.

My '79 SG is a great guitar I'm hoping to find the same in a Les Paul.

I want one while they are still relatively affordable. Despite what anyone else might say the price of 70's guitars are going up. I doubt they will ever achieve silly money but I want in now before the get prohibitively expensive (for me ).

The problem with late-70s Les Pauls is that most of them have flat-carve tops (not truly flat obviously, they just don't have the proper 'dish' in the outer areas) sharp cutaway horns and 'paddle' headstocks, maple necks - these aren't flaws that vary from one to another, they were all done like that - and usually heavy weight and steep neck angles. Some of these - like the maple necks - are desirable to some people (including me) but not to most, and most of the others are either undesirable or at best are just not minded by most people…

So you're starting from a really compromised position anyway, and although *some* of them are great guitars, I doubt any is ever going to be as good an investment in the long term as the current 'vintage' dealer market is trying to imply, just because they're now thirty years old. Values have been fairly low for a reason.

If you really want a late-70s Les Paul you're probably best looking at a Custom - these have the lowest combination of bad features, because the big headstocks and sharper horns don't look so bad with the binding, and there are some players who have made the harder, brighter sound of the maple neck and heavy bodies into their trademark. They seem to be well above £1500 for good examples though.

Ironically you may be better spending less on something even more off-the-wall, if you're not really a Les Paul player anyway - something like a Les Paul Special (which they did make around then, although they're fairly rare) or even an L6-S… assuming they haven't had their value totally destroyed by the twat from Razorlight .

Iamnobody

I can accept the design quirks and I don't want it as an investment so that's not a major issue.

I'd look at specials but as you say there's not many about.

I'm in no rush and learning all the time thanks to the good advice on here and other websites.

meltedbuzzbox

I thought late 70s Tokais were the way to go for a good older Les Paul?

I would suspect its better for the budget as well?

ICBM

There's also "The Paul" which are the walnut-body ones, somewhere between a Special and an SG in terms of styling. They also have quite a unique tone and are becoming fairly sought-after now… you've probably missed the boat to get a great one cheap, they used to be about £400-£500 but have recently seemed to be nearer a grand. Also not everyone's cup of tea though, and they sometimes have fairly major structural problems where the body pieces start to come apart along the glue joins, so be wary - even if you buy one that's fine now, it could split later.

Skipped

I totally get the Year Of Birth thing (I know that some of you don't) and that trumps Nostalgia as a reason to buy a 70's Gibson guitar.
As I have mentioned (once or twice) I have sold my first ever electric guitar and my first ever Gibson guitar used on hundreds of gigs. These guitar were sold with a shrug of the shoulders. But a year of birth guitar is special.

ESchap

ICBM said:

To be fair, it looks like moving the bridge was necessary to cure a factory-original alignment problem - look where the old holes are! The strings are centred on the neck now, so they couldn't have been before - this isn't actually that unusual with Gibsons. Though why it was necessary to move the tailpiece to such an odd location as well, I have no idea…

You could probably move it back to the right place and refinish the guitar as a Goldtop and it would look quite nice - the back is at least a decent one-piece. You could maybe even improve the top contouring from the typical late-70s flat carve at the same time… although you can't really do anything about the pointy cutaway horn or the too-steep neck angle.

All in all, I reckon you could make quite a nice £1000 guitar out of it with about £500-worth of work .

Shame the Protector case has a broken latch though.

I'm not sure it's been as bad from the factory as all that.   The marks that appear to be the old bridge marks are right on a top seam and I reckon it's factory filler you're seeing from a flaw in the wood.  The current bridge is sitting on some pretty big holes that have been plugged and a modern ABR put in.  Gibson had the "Sustain sister" thing back in 1979 which consisted of whacking great brass inserts which the APR posts screwed into.  My ES-347 has them and they go right through the maple block.   The other parts on the "sisters" equipped guitars of the era was a TP6 tailpiece, which were originally ('78 and '79) located where the current stop bar is, and a brass nut.

So I reckon that it's simply had the brass barrels removed under the ABR.  At some point someone has drilled the top to take a "normal tailpiece"  As you say, due to the inevitable high neck angle, someone has gone back to using the TP6 bridge holes to allow the strings not to catch the back of the bridge.

Perhaps not a factory dog then? but still overpriced ...