# No respect for the elderly



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I walked into Spaceman Music here in Ottawa, and was confronted with this monstrosity:








Now, if a vintage instrument is: a) not a rare breed, or b) actually improved by a modification, then I have few qualms about modding vintage pieces. I've modded some things older than most here, so it would be disingenuous of me to be indiscriminately harsh to those who have modded vintage pieces.

Here, however, we have something that is uber-rare: an ES-300 with a cutaway AND the slanted single-coil pickup (Unlike Fender, Gibson has only rarely used a slanted bridge pickup). If you do an image search for Gibson ES-300, you'll find a wide variety of models over the years, but mostly non-cutaway with a P-90 in the neck position. A few will have the very rare slanted single coil. I've NEVER seen a slanted single coil on a cutaway instrument. That makes it ultra-rare: the sort of thing you need George Gruhn and Walter Carter to track done the lineage of.

So what does the owner do? He goes and plunks a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the neck position. Just exactly what sort of medication was this person off of? First, why would anyone expect a big box jazz guitar to sound great with a Super Distortion pickup on it, regardless of what's by the bridge? Second, how on earth could you take something this unique and destroy it lkike that so that no one could ever hear its original sound again? That's like making up some chopped whooping crane salad sandwiches because you're bored with the food court near work.


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## hummingway (Aug 4, 2011)

I wasn't aware they made any ES-300's with a cutaway. I've got a 1941 which looks just like this one here: Gibson 1941 ES 300 Electric Archtop - Guitar museum

Any chance that's a ES-175?


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

It's probably a good thing it wasn't a solid body or he probably would have dropped in a Floyd Rose.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Just out of curiosity, how much are they asking for it?

VERY cool guitar...apart from the Super Distortion neck humbucker !!

_*"That's like making up some chopped whooping crane salad sandwiches because you're bored with the food court near work." .....*_This is one of your gems that I must always remember...LOL.....BRILLIANT !

Cheers

Dave


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## urko99 (Mar 30, 2009)

Whooping crane salad! lol! Hysterical!


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## jimihendrix (Jun 27, 2009)

That DiMarzio Super Distortion looks to be of vintage lineage...so it's sorta okay to wreck a vintage guitar as long as you use vintage parts...you know..."two wrongs make a right"...right...???...


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## rollingdam (May 11, 2006)

Here is a link:

Guitars - Electric - Gibson ES-300 1941 - Spaceman Music


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## rollingdam (May 11, 2006)

maybe the mods were done by the same guy who modded the headstock of my 1960 Gretsch


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## jimihendrix (Jun 27, 2009)

Check out these mods...

'59 Les Paul...










Van Halen guitar










Gibson SG Junior...???...











1974 Strat...


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

mhammer said:


> I walked into Spaceman Music here in Ottawa, and was confronted with this monstrosity:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ted Nugent?

j/k---maybe, a bit.

Any ways--I'd love one of those with the real long pickup.
they look so odd, I love the look.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3865/1712/1600/1940gibsones330.jpg


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## Hammertone (Feb 3, 2006)

The cutaway, like the Dimarzio and various other bits, was added at a later date.


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## puckhead (Sep 8, 2008)

rollingdam said:


> Here is a link:
> 
> Guitars - Electric - Gibson ES-300 1941 - Spaceman Music


lol... "Collectors may want to keep waiting"


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

Looks like an improvement to me. Guitars aint furniture or things to be put in glass cases and prayed to. Use em, modify em, beat the shit out of em................


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## CSBen (Mar 1, 2011)

Accept2 said:


> Looks like an improvement to me. Guitars aint furniture or things to be put in glass cases and prayed to. Use em, modify em, beat the shit out of em................


Loved the sarcasm!


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## CSBen (Mar 1, 2011)

Hammertone said:


> The cutaway, like the Dimarzio and various other bits, was added at a later date.


How do you know for sure?


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## hummingway (Aug 4, 2011)

Accept2 said:


> Looks like an improvement to me. Guitars aint furniture or things to be put in glass cases and prayed to. Use em, modify em, beat the shit out of em................


I'd say for the most part guitars are meant to be played but like most things there are exceptions to that. As for beating them up, well if that's your thing go for it but I probably won't loan you one of mine.

I've got a '67 ES-175 and it came stock with two PAF humbuckers and a cutaway. The person who modded this guitar might not have been happy with that however since the pickup in the rhythm position isn't pushed as far forward. The post 1945-49 ES-300 had single P-90's but they weren't pushed that far forward either. Maybe it worked for him and maybe it didn't. My 1941 ES-300 is a joy to play. It was the top of the line Gibson that year and very well made instrument and prehaps that's why the person decided to modify the one we're discussing. On the other hand, unmodified they can fetch $5000 and I'd be surprised if anyone pays what the stores asking for that one. 

Some guitars should be put in a display case and preserved. A 1940 ES-300, while playing very well, isn't going to sound that great. It was one of the first spanish style electric guitars and of greater historical significance then musical use. The pickups just aren't that good. Clapton himself stopped playing blackie since he felt it wouldn't survive any more playing and saw that it could have another use (raising money for a charity).


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## Hammertone (Feb 3, 2006)

Hammertone said:


> The cutaway, like the Dimarzio and various other bits, was added at a later date.





CSBen said:


> How do you know for sure?


It smells wrong.

When Gibson introduced the Venetian "P" (for "Premier") cutaway archtops in 1939, they carved the neck heels wider at the bottom, compared to the neck heels of their non-cutaway instruments, to be flush with the cutaway rim where the neck meets the body on the treble side. The side of the neck on the treble side lined up with the cutaway. Subsequent "C" (for "Cutaway") guitars continued this design. Non-cutaway archtops continued to have slightly tapered heels.

This guitar exhibits none of that cutaway design thinking. The neck heel looks tapered in the picture, so that there is a "shelf" between the cutaway and the heel. The cutaway is set away from the side of the neck, and looks way too modern for the guitar. And the instrument itself has been modified significantly - tuners, tailpiece, pickups, switching, knobs,case, possible refin, so it is no stranger to modification. To me, an added cutaway of this style is WAY more plausible than an instrument built that way in 1941. 

This is not to say that the work is not of the highest caliber, but the pix are too lo-rez for me to have an opinion about that. I'd need to see the guitar in hand or look at close-up pix of the cutaway to be 100% sure, so I will qualify my statement to "I'm 99% sure that the cutaway...was added at a later date."


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

Doctor my eyes!!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Hammertone said:


> It smells wrong.
> 
> When Gibson introduced the Venetian "P" (for "Premier") cutaway archtops in 1939, they carved the neck heels wider at the bottom, compared to the neck heels of their non-cutaway instruments, to be flush with the cutaway rim where the neck meets the body on the treble side. The side of the neck on the treble side lined up with the cutaway. Subsequent "C" (for "Cutaway") guitars continued this design. Non-cutaway archtops continued to have slightly tapered heels.
> 
> ...


I think your logic holds. Besides, you can change a LOT about a guitar over the space of 70 years (as well as fixing mistakes you made when "improving" it) without having to change the serial number on it.
When I first saw it hanging on the wall, I had thought the angled pickup was still in place and they simply added the DiMarzio. It would appear the hole for the original pickup has simply been covered over with a piece of some sort of dark wood or plastic. That probably explains why there is only a coil-tap switch and not a switch to select between one or the other pickup (Duh!!!).

Accept2,
Some guitars are just fine being beat up, modded, etc., when there are lots of them and you have plenty of others to use as reference points should someone wants to know what guitar X sounded like or how it was made. When there aren't many of a certain kind, you need to preserve some as a historical record. I mean, imagine that EVERY 59 LP burst had been modded by 1970. Where would we be?


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## Hammertone (Feb 3, 2006)

mhammer said:


> I mean, imagine that EVERY 59 LP burst had been modded by 1970. Where would we be?


Fewer AVH gasbags on the Les Paul Forum?


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

mhammer said:


> I mean, imagine that EVERY 59 LP burst had been modded by 1970. Where would we be?


We would have progressed and stopped living in the past. Yet again, my signature is appropriate. All hail technological progress.............


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## CSBen (Mar 1, 2011)

Accept2 said:


> We would have progressed and stopped living in the past. Yet again, my signature is appropriate. All hail technological progress.............


I'm not sure I can make the correllation between modding an 50's/60's vintage guitar and the luddites idiology, then or now? 

This isn't a question of industrialisation or automation throught technological progress or advances of a new product. How does this anything away from manual labour? Didn't a luthier make those modifications? A little ironic wouldn't you say?

Curious minds wanna know.

B


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## rednefstarts (Sep 2, 2011)

So, one day in the early to mid 1950's a guy finds this guitar for sale. It has a florentine cutaway NOT a VENETIAN CUTAWAY.It might at this point even have the Grover Pat.Pend. tuners installed.The florentine was most probably done at the gibson factory sometime during or after 1946.The advent of the florentine cutaway in 1946 enabling players to easily reach the upper register was a mod that cost considerably less than buying a new guitar.Life is good and a couple of years later he is in the position to buy a brand new gibson 175. He plays these guitars year after year respecting and maybe even enjoying the two completely different tones he has the choice of.Then one day that huge pound and a half pickup in the 300 dies. Now its around 1970. There is NO VINTAGE MARKET for guitars to speak of, Eric is buying dozens of 1950's Strats for peanuts (100-150) selecting various parts pickups/neck/body to make a strat that has all the things that HE FINDS PLEASING in a guitar, and this guy has a guitar almost thirty years old that you cannot get or find a replacement pickup for. SORRY NO INTERNET YET. Gibson PAFS and Pat numbered humbucker pickups have become popular for those that preferred to not use single coils, only you couldn't just go to the local music store and buy pickups like we all do today. What choices this guy had I can't say but I can say his choices were limited. To remove all that weight and and improve the tone 300% for a few bucks on a guitar that had a street value of a couple hundred at the time...seemed the perfect solution and most logical way to go, so he did it. Good for him, HE PROBABLY FOUND IT PLEASING ! Life goes on and he gets old and passes away. His son is not a guitar player and does not see the sense in keeping two guitars neither one of which he can play. Since his dad bought the 175 new and he has all the paperwork/receipt and case candy he decides to keep it and sell the 300. He also says that the 3oo sounded better to his dad ,hence it was played more and has been refretted IT WAS PLAYED MORE. A GUITAR IS A TOOL TO CREATE MUSIC. An apparatus to enjoy and "PLAY " with. To heap indignities on a human being that has since passed from this earth for the choices he and previous owner/owners of this guitar made, appear as childish/immature to say the least. If you think it is a monstrosity that is your opinion. To post what you obviously don't know much about, only further reinforces my previous thoughts. BY THE WAY THIS GUITAR PLAYS AND SOUNDS BETTER THAN THE MANY OTHER JAZZBOXES I HAVE OWNED. SO IF YOU HAVEN"T FIGURED IT OUT I AM THE CURRENT OWNER OF THIS GUITAR AND HAVE OWNED IT FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS. I have put it up for sale with my friends @ SPACEMAN MUSIC so that someone that is looking for a great player can enjoy it as I rarely play this one anymore since changing playing styles. And if it really has got your goat.. this guitar other than the cutaway can still be put back to original factory specs for well under $1000 .Thanks for your time


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## rollingdam (May 11, 2006)

very well said.


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## Guitar101 (Jan 19, 2011)

And now you have "*The Rest Of The Story*" Am I ever glad I didn't say something stupid in this thread. It really does pay to wait until all the facts are out.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Guitar101 said:


> And now you have "*The Rest Of The Story*" Am I ever glad I didn't say something stupid in this thread. It really does pay to wait until all the facts are out.


Well I made a little dig at Ted Nugent--so unless he's posting here, I'm in the clear.


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## DarthElvis (Feb 14, 2011)

Personally, I think it's beautiful. The owner(s) modified the form to achieve a function. Probably sounds great.


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## 2N1305 (Nov 2, 2009)

My eyes are hurting from everything I saw... not only the ES-330, actually mostly the other stuff...

Well, looking at it again, it isn't that bad, and given the explanantion, I guess it was the only choice. I think what jumped at me was the weird slanted pickup, so I'm more annoyed by the stock look of the guitar! funny.
I guess it would be possible to get the original pickup rewound.


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## 2N1305 (Nov 2, 2009)

Accept2 said:


> We would have progressed and stopped living in the past. Yet again, my signature is appropriate. All hail technological progress.............


sigh..
Whenever I see this about "not modifying vintage instruments" talk, I am happy. I like it when people, just like the poster of the thread said, respect instruments. But every time I read or hear about this, I (or every other person thinking the same way) is eventually brought down like we're the freakin' bad guys. I might be a little, euh what's the word, pretentious? but really why should we feel like we're the threat when all we're saying is essentially "Keep it as it is?" Does it really hurt people when they are told that "it's too bad you modified such a valuable instrument"?

I don't mean any disrespect to anyone in the thread, I'm just voicing my opinion on this "vintage guitars respect" issue. I very much like vintage guitar magazine.
I guess I like to treat guitars and cars with the respect that endangered species are given (or _should_ be given).

Audio equipment: Now there's something that you don't see too many people modify...


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

2N1305 said:


> Audio equipment: Now there's something that you don't see too many people modify...


Touche ...


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

1) Not modding audio equipment?! That's almost where modding got started. Look up the Val Alstine mods for older Dynaco equipment. Or did I jump the gun again, and presume seriousness where there was really tongue-in-cheek sarcasm?

2) I am properly chastened by rednefstarts post. Apparently Rod Stewart was slightly off the mark. Maybe every picture does tell a story, but in this instance it was not the correct one. My heartfelt apologies for jumping the gun and assuming what was not truly the case. I guess that puts me in the came category as Usain Bolt...sort of. Of course, he just jumped out of the starting blocks, whereas I came out both guns blazing inappropriately.

There WAS a time when proper restoration of such an instrument would have been very difficult to do, unless one was in the "right" city and knew the right people. I visited the old Parsons Street Gibson facility in 1982, just before Gibson moved out of Kalamazoo permanently and sold the facilities to the Heritage Guitar folks (former Gibson staff). At the time, restoration and repair of heritage/vintage instruments - chiefly archtops - was about 60% of what they did. Of course, that was 1982, and as avid a reader of Guitar Player as I had been at that point (starting around 1974 or so), I had no idea such a location existed, and I imagine the previous owner did not either.

The sad thing is that a) restoration of such instruments is pretty much a piece of cake these days (hell, I bet the guys at Spaceman could have done it; I've probably got the right gauge wire sitting in my garage right now), and b) the attempt at making it playable required a hole to be cut in the top. 

Had there been a hole already, the use of a Super Distortion to fill it would not have perturbed me as much, and would have simply been a difference in taste amenable to change at any time (e.g., the owner could have decided to switch gears and arranged for Jason Lollar or someone similar to produce a P-90 to late 40's specs that would fit in the hole). What bugged me, and felt like so much desecration was cutting a hole for the _purposes_ of a Super Distortion.

3) I have to confess that I too had an early issue Super Distortion Strat pickup in the late-70's and had stuck it on my '64 Epi batwing Coronet to replace the original P90. It was, in fact, one of the few after-market things you could buy. The idea of after-market pickups with lower output, that captured the best of what the "golden age" had delivered, really didn't dawn on the guitar-playing community until some years later. There was a period where raunch was pretty much all we wanted.

At the same time, the Coronet was a "student" model of which many had been produced. I have a late-1930's Kalamazoo KG-21 arch-top nd have been pining away for a neck pickup since I bought it 25 years ago. There is nothing commercially available that will fit between the body and strings - and I mean NOTHING. I don't imagine it is anywhere near as rare as the EH-300, but still, the very idea of cutting a hole in the top to fit in a pickup of any kind (coulda been the pickup off of Charlie Christian's very own guitar for all I care) just felt and feels like sacrilege.

Again, I am now in a privileged position, since I have: a) the information available at my fingertips, b) the materials (magnets, wire, coilform materials), and c) the building experience, to make my own pickup that will slide in the available space and give me what I want without destroying the heritage properties of the instrument. We didn't always have those luxuries.

So, sorry for malignment.

T'would be nice to get that original pickup restored, though.


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## Alex Csank (Jul 22, 2010)

Whooping crane sandwiches?!?! Yumm!! That sounds great! As for the guitar? This thread could be used as a model for 'typical internet forum thread of the week'. The bottom line is that some like originality, some prefer modifications, some like their axes new, some like them old. This guitar has an interesting story and will be a wonderful music-making tool whenever it (hopefully) winds up in the right hands. Originality is great and drives the prices up really high for both the sellers and the buyers. But a 'player' is usually much more fun and gets used to create music.... and as far as I'm concerned, although I love to look at, touch and smell nice guitars, hearing great 'tones' is where the real magic is for me.


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## rednefstarts (Sep 2, 2011)

I am not one to spend a lot of my time contributing to forums, as I seem to never have enough time in the day anyway. In 100 weeks I will be able to retire and am looking forward to spending more time with my guitars. I am however glad that I joined and posted on this forum. I gratefully accept and acknowledge mhammers apology/explanation. I somewhat wrongfully, felt, that these forums were a place for people to vent and complain. As I have been reading the replies since posting, my opinion of contributing members has changed quite dramatically for the positive. Thanks for taking the time to respond...you have proven yourselfs worthy of my respect and hope I will continue to earn yours..regards..rednefstarts


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Psst .. were canajun's :smilie_flagge17:




rednefstarts said:


> .you have proven yourselfs worthy of my respect and hope I will continue to earn yours..regards..rednefstarts


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## hardasmum (Apr 23, 2008)

Alex Csank said:


> But a 'player' is usually much more fun and gets used to create music....


I like players too. On another guitar forum (which will remain nameless!) I've read extensive threads about the best way to polish this certain brand of guitar. People suggested a car wax that was only available in a few US states as the best especially when buffed with diapers. 

I swear some people must spend more time shining their guitars than playing them.


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## 2N1305 (Nov 2, 2009)

hardasmum said:


> ...
> 
> I swear some people must spend more time shining their guitars than playing them.


Hmmm... Polishing guitar(many times) --> thins finish --> thin finish = more resonance --> more resonance = better tone --> better tone = more time playing the guitar. Aha, they're onto something!

Even George and John did it to their Epiphone Casinos


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## 2N1305 (Nov 2, 2009)

mhammer said:


> 1) Not modding audio equipment?! That's almost where modding got started. Look up the Val Alstine mods for older Dynaco equipment. Or did I jump the gun again, and presume seriousness where there was really tongue-in-cheek sarcasm?
> 
> .


No it wasn't sarcasm, and yes you're right about the Van Alstine modifications. However I meant a t more cosmetic level, not electronic level. Like, you don't change the buttons on your Kenwood KA-30 amplifier for the ones on your Onkyo TA-2000 receiver, you know?

I guess, well I guess we all know what we mean lol!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Okay, gotcha now. And yeah, THAT sort of "modding" doesn't really occur.

rednefstarts,
Thanks. You're a good sport, as they used to say. Welcome aboard!
The pervasive tendency to vent and complain will likely never go away in our species, but when folks set a good example and are helpful to each other...regularly...venting and complaining tends to move down the list of reflexive actions, rather than remain near the top.


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