Unusual fingerboard figuring on 2006 R8

earwighoney

ICBM said:

I genuinely don’t understand the obsession with Brazilian rosewood. The various subspecies of rosewood and other closely-related but differently-named woods have so much variation in colour, grain pattern - and hardness and weight - that it’s simply impossible to tell what species a particular piece is just by looking at it, in many cases. Either you like the look of the fingerboard or you don’t, and there’s plenty of “Braz” which would offend those who dislike paler or streaky boards, as well as plenty of other wood which will make a much “better” board if a uniform dark colour is your criteria for that.

The only time it should matter is on an export document, and even that’s a nonsense since it singles out one particular tree species for protection when it’s not the only one that’s threatened.

@ICBM what do you think about the different rosewoods for back and sides for acoustic guitars? I realized one thing, after spending fuck loads on acoustic and flamenco guitars where a 'rare' rosewood was an upgrade I preferred the sound of Mahogany all along. An expensive lesson in choosing an instrument on feature/reputation opposed to my ears.

I've owned guitars with BRW, Indian & Cocobolo and plugged in I don't think I could tell the difference.

ICBM

earwighoney said:

@ICBM what do you think about the different rosewoods for back and sides for acoustic guitars?

The same... I don't care what species it is or what it's supposedly called - as long as it's structurally sound and looks nice it's all good. I highly doubt there's any consistent difference in tone - if there is any effect, it's dependent on hardness and weight, and there is so much overlap between different species that any generalisation is meaningless.

earwighoney

ICBM said:

earwighoney said:

@ICBM what do you think about the different rosewoods for back and sides for acoustic guitars?

The same... I don't care what species it is or what it's supposedly called - as long as it's structurally sound and looks nice it's all good. I highly doubt there's any consistent difference in tone - if there is any effect, it's dependent on hardness and weight, and there is so much overlap between different species that any generalisation is meaningless.

I agree entirely and a great point well said.

fretfinder

WezV said:

A quick flick through the beauty of the burst book confirms that many LP's made between 1958-1960 had paler redder boards, and many had really dark ones.  Most are consistent in colour, but quite a few do show prominent grain or colour change across the board.

I’ve just had a look through my BOTB book and maybe it’s my eyesight or a difference in printing quality but I’d say that almost all the fingerboards on the examples in the book are dark brown to black and very uniform of grain. There’s only a small handful that look very slightly paler (but still quite dark) and very slightly red-brown in colour as opposed to dark brown or black. I can also only spot a small number where the colour/grain isn’t uniform, although I wouldn’t call them streaky by any stretch of the imagination. 

I think the one in the OP would have been an aberration by 58-60 standards (no pun intended) and personally I wouldn’t want a reissue with a two-tone streaky board like that. Others may love it of course and that’s fine, but it’s a long way away from being authentic imho.

WezV

fretfinder said:

WezV said:

A quick flick through the beauty of the burst book confirms that many LP's made between 1958-1960 had paler redder boards, and many had really dark ones.  Most are consistent in colour, but quite a few do show prominent grain or colour change across the board.

I’ve just had a look through my BOTB book and maybe it’s my eyesight or a difference in printing quality but I’d say that almost all the fingerboards on the examples in the book are dark brown to black and very uniform of grain. There’s only a small handful that look very slightly paler (but still quite dark) and very slightly red-brown in colour as opposed to dark brown or black. I can also only spot a small number where the colour/grain isn’t uniform, although I wouldn’t call them streaky by any stretch of the imagination. 

I think the one in the OP would have been an aberration by 58-60 standards (no pun intended) and personally I wouldn’t want a reissue with a two-tone streaky board like that. Others may love it of course and that’s fine, but it’s a long way away from being authentic imho.

I fully agree none of the ones in the BOTB book have the two tone look of this board.  But the variation in colour is there   the colour in the book is known to be a bit off anyway, apparently a lot of the bursts look darker than real life too.

Nobody should be surprised that wood stocks were more consistent in the 50's... But there was still natural variation and even potentially a mix of species.