Anyone tried a P90 equipped SG?

[Alfi27]

Evenin'! I just got an offer for one of the guitars I am selling: a Gibson SG Special Custom Shop VOS with P90s. I own a Les Paul Special DC with P90s and a 61' RI SG with humbuckers, but I have never owned or even tried a P90 equipped SG! What does it sound like? Not that my 61 RI sounds like that, but can it sound a bit thin and lack body? Do you think it would sound good with a bit hotter pickups like the Supermassive, or should I stick with Nantuckets for that one too? The guitar looks really cool and I figured that I really like SGs, so it is very tempting. Altough, it is always a bit risky when I cannot try it first. And if I decide that I really like it I need to move the strap button to the upper horn, which feels a bit "wrong" with such an expensive guitar. What do you think?

It's one of these:

[Telerocker]

An SG will always sound brighter than most Les Pauls. The Gibson P90's - they are close to Nantuckets - are not bad at all, but yeah, P90's are single coil and sound full yet with some snap on top of it.
Beautiful guitar btw. The Historic seems to be quite a bit better than the 61 RI. I think the pickups are not the problem when you buy it. Investigate if the neck didn't have a crack repair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0eeLrT9guw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWME5_2nNPs

[Alfi27]

I doubt that it will be better than my 61 RI, which plays just as good as my Historic 1960 RI Les Paul if not better! Both my LP Special DC and SG 61 RI were made in 96 and are sick players both of them, which seems to be a particularly good year for Gibson for some reason. Both of them play just as well as any Suhr, PRS or any other expensive high end guitar I have owned at a fraction of the price! But yeah, you are totally right. The Gibson P90s are actually very decent pickups, not lightyears away from the Nantucket. Nice videos by the way, and even though they are recorded with camera mics and I listen to it through laptop speakers I can hear that it is not far from my DC Special in terms of tone. Very cool!

I think I want to go through with the deal, the deal is my R0 for the SG + £1100-1200 depending on how convincing I am The guitar seems to be mint except a slight yellow discoloration below the bridge. The issue with the R0 is that it is just «too nice». It is not a guitar you bring out to rock n' roll gigs and rock out all you can with. It is also gloss instead of VOS so it is totally, totally mint and all glossy. Not even a slight scratch in the finish. The guitar is lovely and it sounds epic. It is indeed my cup of tea, but at the same time not quite. Hard to explain. Well, here is a photo of that handsome devil as well

[Telerocker]

Such a decision is very personal. For me it's simple: when I don't grab an expensive guitar every week, it has to go.

[Alfi27]

I do play it quite a lot, but at the moment I just play home before I move away for music school in less than a month. There will be a lot of gigs, band practices and many, many hours of guitar playing every day. My main issue with the R0 is that it just doesn't play or sound better than the SG and DC Special, even though it is much more beautiful to look at of course. For me that alone is simply not worth four times the price, so it has to go even if I trade it for the SG or just sell it. But I think the SG would suit me very well, so we'll see

[Telerocker]

I do play it quite a lot, but at the moment I just play home before I move away for music school in less than a month. There will be a lot of gigs, band practices and many, many hours of guitar playing every day. My main issue with the R0 is that it just doesn't play or sound better than the SG and DC Special, even though it is much more beautiful to look at of course. For me that alone is simply not worth four times the price, so it has to go even if I trade it for the SG or just sell it. But I think the SG would suit me very well, so we'll see

For sure if you dig SG's. The CS looks classy, but not posh. I like the no frills look of SG's, but I can't get really get on with them.

[Dave Sloven]

I haven't had neck dive issues with SGs, except when I've put Grovers on them. Even then I fixed it with lightweight acrylic buttons for the tuners.

The SGs that seem to have dive issues have Grovers and/or the chunky '50s profile necks.

SGs were of course never designed to balance with a fat neck, that is something that Gibson started doing later

All of mine have '60s style necks and no dive issues with standard strap button placement

Here's a video of an SG with P-90s (a '63 Special)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYrHmIhz-uc

[Alfi27]

I decided to skip the deal, there was some funny looking discoloring on the upper half on the back of the headstock among other places. A bit suspicious, like if the serial number might have been fiddled with or something, especially on such an expensive guitar.

The SG 61' RI is very neck divy, but it does have Grovers. Never understood the deal about putting Grovers on everything, my LP Special DC from the same year also had Grovers when I got it... The strap button was placed at the SG-position, which was pretty much useless. Moved it and everything felt much better. Replaced the tuners as well, and then it felt just right! Overall weight was also noticeable lower! The issue with the SG strap button placement however, is not only the balancing issue, but it feels very weird and unnatural to me, even if it would have been perfectly balanced. And even though it rarely happens, it is not very nice to have a strap button poking me in my belly which is full of scars after three significant surgeries. So it will get moved next week, and we'll see how it works out

Got a bit off topic here, but thanks a lot for your answers and contributions nevertheless!

[Telerocker]

Wise decision. If you have any doubt about such an expensive guitar, leave it.Another one will come upon your path. Oops, thats sounds quite biblical. 

[Dave Sloven]

I decided to skip the deal, there was some funny looking discoloring on the upper half on the back of the headstock among other places. A bit suspicious, like if the serial number might have been fiddled with or something, especially on such an expensive guitar.

That discolouring is most likely from it some idiot leaving it on a cheap guitar stand.  If you could afford that much money for a guitar you'd think you could afford a Hercules stand with non-reactive rubber, but I've seen SHOPS here put nitro finished guitars and then wonder why the finish has yellowed - or, even  worse, melted! - where it was touching the stand and then have to drop the price a long way to sell it, much much more than the price of a decent stand or hanger

If it is on the actual headstock (rather tha just below it) though then the finish might have been retouched, and you are right to ask why.  Could be stolen, or have been repaired

[Alfi27]

Yeah, it was on the upper half on the back of the actual headstock. But there was also a stripe of discoloring on the neck, as well as a quite small circle underneath the bridge. It could have been totally random and legit, but I didn't want to take the chance. The seller's grammar was worse than my 11 year old brother as well, so it's safe to say that he didn't give me the overall best vibe...

At the time I only own and use Gibsons, so I use Hercules stands as well. Some of the guitars I have owned had some pretty nasty nitro reactions going on like you described here. The finish had melted on each edge of the headstock on one lf them, but it was not very visible from a distance.