Well in those days Gibson was set on making the best damn guitars possible and setting a new standard doing so. All proved way too expensive and in the 70's commercial interests took over, at least thats how i see it.
The first series SG's are highly sought after at the moment, even the 'players' are fetching a good price.
This kind off takes me back to how i got interested in old Gibsons anyway. It was like in the early 90's i could buy a genuine 54's goldtop, but rerouted to fit humbuckers, tom bridge and had a refinished Top. Mind though it was still the price of a small car.....
Anyway, after playing it, the damn thing just hexed me, couldnt get the thing out of my head, it was THAT sound which made me forget all other guitars. It got snatched off by some collector though.......
Anyway, i found later that the old Gibson players(which did get played alot and were not in a collectible condition) are the best tonemonsters around, and often cost only a fraction of that the same guitar would cost when it were in collectible condition.
Very often i also end up with guitars which have a very bad pickup change and noone wants it because it just sounds dreadfull. So basically i buy it solely on acoustical sound, which is a bit of a risk though.
Still, buying an old Gibson for little money and bringing it back again to proper specs is such a rewarding thing to me. I long forgot that old goldtop now allthough it still had the biggest sustainer frenzy tone(Gary would drool) i can remember ever hearing.
Anyway, still lots off duds around, most players have got some cheaply replaced parts so pretty much your buying wood. If you dont really care much about feely touchy things or cant distinguish the sound of GOOD wood anyway, dont bother and just leave them all to me
:roll:
On the subject of wood by the way, alot of mahagony comes from plantations nowadays, which is different then the century old giants they were making guitars from in the old days. The choise of tonewood just was abundant because of the thickness of the trees back then. Like WezV said, you can still find small quantities, good mahagony is quite expensive though. And on that subject, if you doubt it makes alot of difference, you never heard a good mahagony guitar! :P
