From j-mako–(at)–chicago.edu Wed May 17 13:44:08 CDT 1995
Article: 51772 of rec.music.makers.guitar
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.guitar
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From: j-mako–(at)–chicago.edu (Jeff Makos)
Subject: In Praise of Early-70s Les Pauls
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Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 17:30:01 GMT
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As a newbie to this group, I don’t know if this topic has been discussed
before. However, with all the discussion about current Gibson quality
control, and the amount of guitars one has to check out before finding a
*good* Les Paul (I agree that this is a big problem, BTW), I’d like to add
my $0.02 about Gibsons through the years, especially the early 70s and the
dread Norlin era. Some of the finest LPs that I’ve played have been circa
70-75–you know, the ones that are all *wrong*, with 3-piece necks, 3-piece
pancake bodies, the volute on the neck, bad pickups etc. etc. My point is
NOT that these are ALL good ‘uns. This era produced more crappy guitars
than the current era ever will. But, if you look hard and check out all the
used stuff that you may run across, you will find beauties out there. I’m
serious. Some early 70s models have slim necks straight out of 1960, with
pickup tone straight out of 1958, and with smaller volutes than most. In
fact, in the Chicago area, some stores are now selling ANY 70s-era models
as *vintage* with prices going from $1000 to $1500, and “Vintage Guitar”
always has dealers listing 1968/1969 early LP reissues as high as $2500. Of
course, most of these are not worth $350, but its always worth checking
them out–a lot of times the prices are very reasonable just BECAUSE they
are 70s-era, although theses are getting harder to find. Good luck finding
the good ones. I’d be interested if anyone else out there has had good
experiences with 70s-era LPs.
Peace, Jeff.