Re: The Gibson Years, The Good and The Bad
My favorite Gibson period is right before Norlin, about '67 to '68. There was a brief period when they had very narrow necks (narrow as in nut width, not neck thickness). In this period, the Les Paul was reissued as well, so for the first time both LPs and SGs were available at the same time, as separate models. I have a '68 SG Standard and a '68 ES-330.
Anything before that is generally good...though ungodly expensive, and often so hammered that it isn't so good any more.
IME, Norlin-era Gibsons were mainly odd in terms of specifications and designs, not necessarily in terms of build quality. Designs got uglier and dumber. The Les Paul got made out of more and more pieces of wood, and the neck got changed to maple somewhere in there. Not counting fretboard and headstock ears I think my '83 LP is pieced together out of 7 pieces of wood, and some earlier Norlin LPs with the pancake body were made out of 9 pieces or more. The traditional Les Paul construction is four main pieces of wood (again, not counting fretboard and headstock ears). Mind you, there is no good, hard reason to think that multi-piece guitars are tonally inferior, so that isn't my point. But it does show the general trend toward a cost cutting approach that was taken during this period.
My second favorite Gibson period is from the late '80's to the late '90's, and even slightly into the '00's. There were some damned fine guitars made during that decade or so. It looked like Gibson was back. But then...
In around 2003, I started noticing an obvious drop in build quality (though it perhaps started earlier and I just didn't notice it). It got worse and worse, such that by 2005 or so, I came to believe that every single new standard production line Gibson needed a replacement nut and to have the frets dressed. It's one thing to make guitars this way. But if you do, they should be priced accordingly. Gibson,OTOH, jacked prices up like crazy during this same period when they started skimping on attention to detail.
The Gibsons I now own are:
'68 SG Standard - perfectly built, amazing sounding
'68 ES-330 - perfectly built, amazing sounding
'83 Les Paul Custom - perfectly built, just ****ty sounding
'00 Les Paul Junior - had bad nut and fretwork, but kept it anyhow. Perfect finish, and sounds incredible.
'03 Les Paul Melody Maker - has bad nut and fretwork, but kept it anyhow. Sounds incredible, and was thrown in for free when I bought the LP below.
'04 Les Paul Standard '50's Neck - had crapy nut, bad fretwork, and finish flaws, but I kept it anyhow because I was so enamored with its beauty.
'06 Explorer - has typical modern Gibson problems, but was cheap, and I knew I was basically going to rebuild the thing anyhow
'10 or so Les Paul Special (humbuckers) - Has the typical modern Gibson problems. I got it as a gutted project to completely rebuild.
I've sold:
'02 or so LP Studio Plus - traded for an amazing 4x5 camera system. Photography is how I make a living, and it was a $1,200 (new) guitar straight across for a $20,000 (new) camera system. I miss the guitar, but the trade was a no brainer.
'02 or so ES-333 sunburst - I highly regret selling this, because despite a mediocre nut and frets, it was a good guitar, and the value has jumped significantly since. I just needed money at the time.
'12 SG Special Faded - Found it mis-marked down to $420 at Guitar Center. Snapped it up immediately and flipped it on Craigslist for a profit a few months later.
'14 EB Bass - Bought, played for almost a month, and finally decided to return for a refund due to a multitude of flaws. Good looking design, built like **** on a stick.
...and I've been paying attention to Gibsons, playing scores per year, since the mid '90's.
Point being, these things are what my opinions are based on.
As you can see, I don't own Gibsons from about Y2K onward without planning to spend $150 on nut work and fret work, at the very least...and I don't own them after about 2003/2004 unless it's a cheap major project guitar or else something to flip for a profit.
