This vintage J-200 sounds amazing, plays like a lemon peppered grilled salmon fillet on roller skates, and, I must say, tastes every bit as good. We search the cosmos for J-200 guitars from this vintage-within-memory period and few are ever seen. Gibson made 110 sunburst J-200s in 1960 and 57 more in natural. Sure there is extremely light (not into the finish) button or belt marks on the back – nothing really – and a gold-plated strap pin insinuated in the center obverse of the heel but it is, notwithstanding in lovely-though-played condition. This description may make you feel that this guitar shows a lot of wear, but in fact that, and a small amount of the usual minor dings and nicks are really all there are. The Brazilian rosewood fretboard shows pitting in the first seven fret positions and there is corresponding friction wear in the finish on back of neck but only up to the third fret. The original owner (not the last owner) was such an uncaring beast that he actually wore down a small section of pickguard adjacent to the lower treble edge of the bottom of the fretboard (to the right of the widders-peak at the bottom of the board), making a small indent there in a manner that we have never seen before. The worst thing one can say about this exceptional instrument (and it does sound marvelous, even thrilling) is that there is pickwear on the bass side of the soundhole, and, as well, along the bass edge of the ported orifice. The string spacing at the bridge is a comfortable 2 3/16” the neck is low profile but not skinny. The fully 1 11/16th” nut and saddle appear to be bone – there’s plenty of room left on the saddle, and the bridge pins are matching crème color. The black bell-shaped truss rod cover is lightly bordered in white and held in place by two gold Phillips-head screws. This particular example has newer Schaller sealed-gear, large metal button gold-plated tuners installed on its black-capped headstock with the Gibson postwar script logo and pressed flower inlay.
It had the 6-ply black and crème top purfling plus the two concentric rings of crème and black around the soundhole, the four-ply back border, the two-ply heel cap and the single-ply neck and headstock binding. It had the open moustache™ bridge, the decidedly deep and delightful vintage sunburst shading, the four large yellow painted flowers with the 8 equally yellow buds and the 8 ¾” vine on the 9 ½” tortoise color pickguard. This isn’t called The King of the Flattop Guitars for nuthin’. Another feature of the SJ-200 Limited-edition Vine is Gibsons weight-relieved hand-scalloped top bracing, which provides strength while allowing the top to vibrate with a piston-like action, which is another one of Gibsons secrets to exceptional tone. #A34756, sunburst, maple and parallel-grained spruce, Factory Order Number R4184-16, in very good plus condition with original black Lifton “Built Like a Fortress” hard shell case.