My vintage Gibsons

[RAB]

Might as well get these two fiddles posted. The Les Paul is one of my main players. It's a 1956 Standard conversion to PAFs and all cherry red finish by Gord Miller. It sounds very close (95%?) to an original Burst of which I've owned 5 over the decades...the other Gibson is my '63 ES-355, exceptionally rare factory mono and stop tailpiece...it also sounds good. All of these fiddles get exercised regularly with the band...best, RAB

[RAB]

Here's the 355

[AlienVintage]

RAB - I actually didn't know you had these awesome Gibsons, too!

I've got a '52 goldtop that was modified for an ABR-1 in the '60s. I'll be taking some photos of that as well!

[RAB]

Thanks! If I had Jim's red '62 Sheraton all of my guitars would be cherry red!

[JimR56]

Sorry I didn't respond sooner here... trying to keep up with the various topics on the forum.

Gorgeous guitars! RAB, I've always been a total sucker for cherry red Gibsons (you probably saw my posts in "The Red Thread" at the LPF). I always used to dream about finding a vintage Super 4 or L5 or Johnny Smith custom ordered in cherry (like those examples in the Tsumura book). They're out there, but they're extremely rare. Many years ago I was tv channel surfing and saw a guy playing a cherry red Super 400C on one of those country music channels (TNN, I think). Still haven't seen it surface on the market. A friend just recently sent me a photo of a '58 ES5 Switchmaster in cherry that he saw at a guitar show near Philly. I still haven't verified that the finish was original, but I had never seen one of those in cherry. Anyway, I did get myself a '63 L5CT in 1990. Probably my favorite guitar I've ever owned.

Believe it or not, I've never owned a Les Paul (always been primarily a Gibson archtop guy), but I've been tempted to find a nice cherry example (everybody and his brother has bursts these days). Your 355 is a special beauty too. Obviously you don't see the mono/stop combination every day. Love it.

I've owned a lot of Gibsons over the years, and being a photo hound, I've got quite a few pics to share. I'll probably do multiple threads here soon to show some of them off.

[RAB]

Thanks Jim, looking forward to seeing your Gibsons at some point!

[RAB]

Hi all, I sold my '63 355 in favor of a more playable '63 sunburst 335 with a big neck profile! I'll post photos soon...best, RAB

[RAB]

Here's a photo of my just procured '63 335...

[RAB]

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=s441gg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i68.tinypic.com/s441gg.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

[RAB]

Gibson update! Traded the ‘63 335 for a ‘59 345, a rare “First Rack” model! Huge neck and a pair of unopened zebra PAFs! Sounds great!