1960/1969 Gibson J-50 Slope Dreadnought Guitar

This guitar is a bit of a mystery-box but I think I have it pegged as a 1960 J-50 body with a later, late '60s or early '70s three-piece Gibson neck and "mocha-colored" adjustable saddle. I'm guessing it either got that way as a repair-shop victim at the Gibson factory or as a "partser" leaving the factory in '69 or '70 with an older body from storage and newer neck when the round-shoulders model was being retired.

Let's examine the features in the body: it has an R6601xxx factory order number (1960) stamped at the neckblock. It has the single-ring rosette typical of '50s and early '60s Gibsons and the thin celluloid pickguard of a '50s or early-'60s model. The bracing on the back is tall and thin and it has a small, thin maple bridge plate rather than the usual, later-style ply affairs with their big profile. The bracing is a little lighter in the top than I expect for a late-'60s model but slightly stiffer than a '62-'65 or the like and so it's morethe late '50s style and the sound is a little midsier and cleaner and more collected in the bass than the usual woofier mid-'60s sound.

As far as the neck, it's a non-volute, 3-piece mahogany thing with no serial number stamped in the back. It looks the same as what I've seen on '69 J-45 and J-50s before the long-scale, '70-style, square-shoulders thing gained traction.

So -- what you have is the late-'50s/early-'60s sound with the narrow-nut, rock-and-roll-style neck profile. Old guys awaiting a ribbing on the shop floor call these "ladies' neck guitars" but, frankly, I think anyone who's playing a lot of closed-position chords up and down the neck all night long will enjoy the profile. I've owned a few and my current daily driver acoustic is much the same -- narrow in the neck and curvy in the fretboard -- which makes it easy to move sliding chord-shapes quickly all over the neck.

Work was mildly-involved on this one despite it's rather clean aesthetic shape, but now that it's done it plays spot-on and sounds fantastic.

Repairs included: all back braces reglued, back center seam reglued, replacement back center seam cleats/reinforcement installed, center top seam on lower bout cleated/sealed, pickguard hairline crack cleated/sealed (small one), a fret level/dress, minor reglue of headstock seam, replacement truss rod cover, cleaning, and setup.

Weight: 4 lbs 9 oz

Scale length: 24 5/8"

Nut width: 1 9/16"

Neck shape: slim C

Board radius: 10"

Body width: 16 1/4"

Body depth: 4 7/8"

Top wood: solid spruce

Back & sides wood: solid mahogany

Bracing type: x

Bridge: rosewood

Fretboard: rosewood

Neck wood: mahogany

Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
String gauges: 54w-12 lights

Truss rod: adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: wider/medium-height

Condition notes: either the neck is a later addition to a '60 body in a factory repair fix or the '60 body was taken out of storage and mated to a new neck in '69 to fill an order. Who knows? The bridge also got a '69-era "mocha brown" adjustable saddle at the same time. Remarkably, it was installed in the correct place and so intonation up and down the neck was good without the modification usually needed. The bridge pins are replacements (ebony) from my parts stash. The center seam on the top is obviously filled/repaired as it shows a little discoloration down its length. There's also a repaired hairline crack next to the pickguard under the high E string. The back center seam shows a lot of tiny chipping in the clearcoat finish but it's not obvious at a glance -- when this arrived, the back was separated almost 1/4" and all bracing on the back was loose or fallen-out completely so maybe that's to be expected. There's a little bit of glue-trails on the back-inside here and there -- sorry!

It comes with: as of the moment, no hard case, but I will include whatever I have spare when shipping.