Description
Most will recall their initial awareness of the Gibson SG Special Cherry Electric Guitar model through Pete Townsend's use of a 1968 Special for The Who's Live at Leeds album. Shown here is a Gibson SG Special in Cherry Red, built during an earlier part of 1966 at Kalamazoo, Michigan.
This lovely example plays well, is really resonant and fun to play. It is largely original - Grover Roto-Matics have been installed in place of the stock strip mounted tuners, and the short Maestro Vibrola tailpiece was removed long ago. The wiring is stock, very clean and includes the cavity shielding. The black plastic P-90 covers have some wear.
Fret wear is light, and the frets appear to be original, with light wear to the Indian Rosewood fingerboard. In 1965 Gibson reduced the nut width on many electrics from 42.9mm to 39.7mm which in text doesn't seem much, but certainly does in the hand.
The Cherry Red nitrocellulose lacquer finish is in overall good condition for an instrument of this vintage, with some expected chipping around the edges and wear below the vibrola arm attachment screw position. There are no breaks to the headstock, neck joint or control areas. It plays cleanly and comfortably, though there can be an issue with the G ridge on the stop-bar bridge; drop-in replacements are discussed and linked below.
The neck P-90 pickup is notable by its distance from the end of the fingerboard, and this is to allow a longer tenon for a stabler and more durable neck joint.
Sold with a rectangular hard shell case, from the period and possibly what this guitar was sold with. At the time, Canadian import duties on cases and other luggage items sometimes caused US manufacturers like Fender and Gibson to ship guitars without cases to their Canadian distributors.The distributors would then supply locally-sourced cases.
While serial number dates for this period are somewhat vague, in later 1966 the SG Special half-size pickguard was replaced with the wider 'Batwing' style.
The Gibson SG Special appeared in 1961 as part of the complete redesign of the Les Paul design. The new offerings included the Custom, Standard, Junior, Special, and TV. To this point, all of the Les Paul models had Les Paul logos on the headstock or truss rod cover.
However, in the 1962 Gibson full line catalog, the Special and TV are the only models in the line without the Les Paul designation, and have 'SG' in their model numbers. The Special was identified as the SG-R or SG-C for Cherry Red or Cream finishes, and the TV was assigned SG TV. By 1963, all the new models were named SG and the Les Paul designation was gone.
Like the other models, the Gibson SG Special paired a contoured Mahogany 'slab' body with a Mahogany neck. The fingerboard was Rosewood except on the Custom, which received an Ebony fingerboard. Until 1965, Brazilian Rosewood was used. All of the models except the Junior used bound fingerboards.
Originally, this guitar was fitted with a short Maestro Vibrola tailpiece along with the current and original ridged 'wraparound' stop-bar bridge; the Vibrola is long gone leaving its three mounting holes in the top. The Vibrola is available from WD Music as 'Short Nickel SKU:VIB-S-N'.
The wraparound bridge is also available. Issues with the wraparound bridge led to the introduction of the Leo Quan 'Badass' bridge in the late 1970's, a clever grafting of Tune-A-Matic saddles onto a stop-bar design. The bridge on this example is the original 1966 part; these do wear out and swapping in any of the newer styles will improve performance.
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There are no refunds or returns on used items unless authorized in advance by a Twelfth Fret Sales Associate at time of sale. View Our Full Terms Here |
DETAILS:
- Instrument Model: SG Special
- Instrument Manufacturer: Gibson
- Instrument year: 1966
- Instrument Finish: Cherry Red
- Instrument Class: Vintage, Used
- Instrument serial number: 800154, built during earlier 1966 at Kalamazoo MI
- Country of Origin: USA
- Instrument Condition: Good
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Playing Condition: Good
- Right-handed
- CITIES Documentation Required: No
- Case included: Yes
- Case original: No
- Case Type: Hard
- Instrument Weight Imperial: 7.26 lbs
- Instrument Weight Metric: 3.3 kgs
- Scale Length Imperial: 24.65 in
- Scale Length Metric: 626 mm
- Nut Width Imperial: 1.571 in
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Nut Width Metric: 39.90 mm
- Items in Case: N/A
- Consignment: Yes
- Product ID: 190224s
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There are no refunds or returns on used items unless authorized in advance by a Twelfth Fret Sales Associate at time of sale. View Our Full Terms Here |