NDIGD - Gibson ES355 (Mono/Varitone/Vibrola)

[Ursa Minor]

Great score!

And happy belated bday, Kev!

Yannis too!

Again proving your tastes of pure class in another great thread. Well done!

[Despot]

Thanks Nick.

[mediocreplayer]

Happy Birthday! I love the birthday ritual you describe and the way you wrote the story -- it's like tasteful erotic letters about...guitars? These posts also make it very hard for me to uphold my resolution to not buy. Anyway, congrats and looking forward to your next NGD post!

[Despot]

It's several years later and I still legitimately have dreams about Someneck. That Travis Bean and '61 (I think) SJ they had when I was there...

They've actually moved since you were over Matt - they're across the road in a bigger/nicer store. I think that TB went to someone from OSG (iirc), though I've no clue about the SJ.

My store picks at the moment have to be the beautiful old '59 ES345 (which is silly clean, but plays/sounds great), an early '90s historic ES335 (beautiful guitar) and the '67 Gretsch Country Gent (but that might be already gone).

If anyone finds themselves in Dublin they should check the place out - and if you do try to get to play a McNally guitar. The guy who makes them is a young guy from Belfast who worked with Lowden and has now gone out on his own - he tends to make parlour sized acoustics with really really good wood. They're sort of voiced a little bit more American than Lowdens though, which I like, but share a similar plain look (which I also like).

And the all of the above is a shameless plug for the store, which I think is deserved given how Owen sorted me out with the ES355!

[Despot]

Ha! Yeah, I'm in the same hate your posts/love your posts boat.

Happy Birthday & congratulations on the new guitar (bet you don't keep it for more than a year, even if it is a desert island guitar).

I was reading through this thread to try to talk myself out of trading this guitar for the SG Custom ... and I had to facepalm when I read your post Mark.

I'm still not sure that this trade is going to happen - or whether I even want it to happen after playing this last night ... but re-reading this thread is helping to give me a bit of context about what I could be trading away for an (admittedly excellent) SG Custom.

Pretty much everything I've said about this guitar holds true. I know I posted a lot about how I grew to dislike the 57 Classics that were in it, mostly the neck pickup which wasn't clear or bright enough for me ... but with that problem being (mostly) solved by the OX4s it's a hell of a lot of guitar.

[Despot]

Edit - remembered how to doctor the original photos so that they'd be visible again.

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Ha! Yeah, I'm in the same hate your posts/love your posts boat.

Happy Birthday & congratulations on the new guitar (bet you don't keep it for more than a year, even if it is a desert island guitar).

I was reading through this thread to try to talk myself out of trading this guitar for the SG Custom ... and I had to facepalm when I read your post Mark.

Can't you hold out for another 4 weeks? Technically that'd make it "more than a year".

You know, the other day I was thinking about folk on here (you & David in particular) who seem to constantly change up the gear they've collected, and seem generally happy for it . I'll admit to being pretty jealous. It's not an impossibility for me as I have at least an amp, an acoustic & a couple of vintage guitars that I could swap or sell & have a pot of cash to re-invest in other gear. I'm just scared that I'd end up buying a couple of holidays instead though, or just gradually fritter it away.

It must take a fair amount of willpower to keep in the game the way you do. I guess that's where swapping gear makes it easier as you generally don't have that time, newly acquired cash in hand, to do anything too stupid.

I'd love to have maybe one or two other guitars that I wasn't all that attached to. It'd be a lot of fun, trading them every few months or so, until either the right keeper came along or....er....cheap flights to New Zealand show up!

[Despot]

That's a fair assessment of it Mark - and you're right. Whenever I end up selling gear (or making a trade that sees cash come my way) that money will get used on something non-guitar related unless it's very quickly put back into guitars. I've been guilty of this - and while I enjoyed the things I did with 'spare' guitar money like holidays, these things would have been funded anyway so it sort of seems like a waste of opportunity.

I look at this as like a library to an extent - I buy a guitar or trade for one, and overall I stay at a more or less constant in terms of how much money I have in it all ... but through doing this I manage to get to try out lots of different guitars. I've managed to be able to own (briefly) old Gretsch guitars, Guilds, all sorts of Gibsons and Fenders, old acoustics and newer ones, new/small build stuff like Bilt ... and this process has helped shape my understanding of what I love in guitars.

My preferences, through trial and error, are for:
- Hollow or Semi-hollow
- thicker than average neck
- single coil or humbuckers that are bright/low output

I'm now down to the 'permanent' guitars:
- 1962 ES345
- 1963/3 Jazzmaster
- 1962 ES330
- 1965 SG Junior
- 1966 Telecaster

These are the keepers - there are a few others in addition to this ... but those above are the keepers.