Cliff's Gibson J200

[ecca]

Wine Red.
All Gibsons should be Wine Red.

[alanbakewell]

Not all of 'em

Gibson SWDC 001.JPG

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[ecca]

Except that one.......

[alanbakewell]

Yes.

And sounds very nice through the new amp.

[alanbakewell]

Apologies to Andy for hijacking his thread. Sorry Andy.

I am very pleased with this guitar and my new AER Compact 60.

"Guitar Tango" here we come.

Happy easter everyone.

Cheers, Alan.

p.s. Ecca, the kettle's on.

[abstamaria]

Alan, not a problem at all. Which model is that (sorry for that very elementary question)? Does it have a pick-up (I am assuming so, as you mention the AER). What a lovely guitar.

I have the exact same amp. My cousin, who plays jazz in Santa Criz, CA, was over for a visit the other month and was playing a nylon-stringed guitar through a Fender Acoustasonic. Then we plugged it into the AER. What a difference. His guitar sounded "unplugged" through the AER, only louder.

Congratulations on the guitar and the amp.

Andy

[abstamaria]

Phil,

I'm a bit confused. In your first post, I understood you said that the "Apache" J200 is still with Cliff and that it was refinished after a repair. The sunburst stain was removed, allowing the natural finish spruce and maple to show through. Is that correct?

By the way, here's Cliff with a J200, which may or may not be the "Apache" J200.

cliff's J200.jpg

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Andy

[AlanMcKillop]

I'm sure JJ reported prior to the 50th Anniversary Tour that Cliff had his 'original' J 200 re-finished, not sure on what thread though, but there are details somewhere on the site.

[alanbakewell]

Alan, not a problem at all. Which model is that (sorry for that very elementary question)? Does it have a pick-up (I am assuming so, as you mention the AER). What a lovely guitar.

I have the exact same amp. My cousin, who plays jazz in Santa Criz, CA, was over for a visit the other month and was playing a nylon-stringed guitar through a Fender Acoustasonic. Then we plugged it into the AER. What a difference. His guitar sounded "unplugged" through the AER, only louder.

Congratulations on the guitar and the amp.

Andy

Hi Andy, it's a Gibson Songwriter Deluxe Custom. It has the Fishman Aura Ellipse pickup system.
I'm very pleased with it. It seemed only fitting to invest in the AER to do the guitar justice.
"Unplugged through the AER only louder" sums it up nicely.
Cheers, Alan.

[Phil88]

Hi Andy just saw your post.

The J200 Cliff had resprayed was the one with a dark wine red top and mahogany stained maple back and sides.
He told me that he had it from new when he got it imported from the gibson factory in 1959 around the same time as the original Strat. He didn't use it live till around 1969/1970. There was a sunburst model for sure J200 but acording to Cliff it wasn't his personal instrument. He can't remember the exact origin of the guitar and said it was probably just a a spare used for photo shoots and touring. Being mainly a singer and not a guitarist Cliff was probably not too bothered about using his own gear and just used whatever was there in the early days. He said he was often just handed a guitar last moment in those days.

The guitars were probably bought around the same time and Cliff kept his red/mahogany one for his own use at home or in the studio.

When he split from the Shads and started to play guitar properly and more regularly on stage I imagine he would have wanted to use his own gear.

Burce and Hank can both be see playing the sunburst model in the films(Bruce in Wonderful Life for On The Beach and Hank in The Young ones for The Girl in Your Arms).

One way to differentiate between the guitars is to look at the hardware.

http://youtu.be/Lnu7KF-MnYo

http://youtu.be/m1IuSTKSsUI

http://youtu.be/tnMoeVY2JoA

If you look closely you'll see that the tuners on the sunburst model are gold plated and the dark red(later blonde) model has chrome tuners.
A bit hard to tell I know but there you go.
As to which guitar was used by Bruce in the early days in the studio i'm not 100% sure, he probably used them both. Maybe someone should ask him if they get a chance at this years Shadowmania...

Hope this clears up any confusion. let me know if you want any more info. I'm actually a relitive of Cliff's and a keen guitarist so have asked him every question under the sun about his guitars (especially the J200) in my early guitaring years
Kind regards
Phil