[SteveFord]

If, God forbid, my house caught fire in the middle of the night I'd grab three things:
my clothes
my wife (no clothes for her!)
my guitar

I have a few guitars kicking around but this is my favorite, a 2005 Satin ES-335,
This guitar has a funny story to it: I found it online at Guitar Center so I ran down and my better half put down a deposit on it as this is a birthday gift.  A week or two later we went back to pay it off and they had it back up on the wall as still being for sale!  I nearly fell over but they went out of their way to make amends and even knocked $100 off of the price.  That was the Townsend, MD Guitar Center and they're nice people there.  I try to give them a fair amount of business.

I had to spend a day with a file, emery paper and steel wool to get the frets right but boy did it turn out nice.
Not the fanciest guitar by any means but it just feels like home to me. 
The regular ES-335 has the binding on the neck and gloss clear coat on the body. 
If you're into guitars, you'll know all about this but if not, the ES stands for Electric Spanish and it's a semi hollow body as there's a block of wood which runs from the base of the neck to the end of the body to keep it from feeding back as easily as a hollow body will do.
The fretboard is Rosewood, the pickups are humbuckers (basically two single coils in one so they don't hum when you remove your fingers from the strings) and it's a shame that the photos don't really show the sculpted front and back. 
There's a whole ES family and they're my favorite Gibsons. 
Here's some pictures of the old girl.









Who's next?

[Rclark]

Let me repost what I have going on so far:

A simple Ibanez RG120 amplified through my hifi rig. Sounds awesome. Plan on adding more upscale guitar, a bass, and probably a few amps, starting I think with the BlackStar ID 30.

Another cool thing about that Blackstar amp (from the other thread) is that you can connect it via USB to your laptop, record, tune, etc, but also connect to the Blackstar community and download tones created by other users. Badass.

[SteveFord]

Be real careful with running a guitar through a stereo - it's easy to blow up speakers. 
How do I know, you ask?

It did give me that hep fuzz tone which was good at both covering up my mistakes and driving my parents insane.

[Rclark]

Lol, that's pretty funny  . Not directly into it, the guitar is plugged into the ps3 and from there into my system. It does sound like a real amp though. Maggie's and sub works great. Plus the software emulates infinite tones.

You can find Rocksmith videos and the software perfectly creates the tone for any given song. And you can make your own with various cabs, pedals, and effects. Pretty high tech.

I've just been doing the scale runner mini game all day so far. Still on A Major scale but it teaches them all and makes you faster.

[medium jim]

Here's part of my herd:

2003 Gibson Historic Reissue 1959 Les Paul Standard that I have rewired vintage style and with a couple of NOS 1950's tone caps:



And a few of my prized Fender Guitar and amps....from left to right, a 1955 Fender Stratocaster Non-Tremolo and a 1963 Fender Stratocaster. The amps from left to right, a 1959 Fender Tweed Bassman, a 1957 Fender Tweed Deluxe and a 1960 Fender Tweed Princeton:



Happy picking!

Jim

[SteveFord]

That's a pretty Les Paul.
I'll bet the pattern shifts when you hold it up and tilt it in the light.

[medium jim]

Steve:

It does, without hesitation, it is one if the best historic ri 1959 Les Paul's that I've had in my hands...you are only as good as your tools, or so they say...I wish I could play as good as my tools!

Jim

[SteveFord]

Ditto.
My first wife talked me into selling my 25th Anniversary Les Paul which was a huge mistake.  It was tiger sunburst (very similar to yours).
I went into Manny's in NYC, I guess the salesguy took a shine to me as he was gone for around 20 minutes rooting through them and said this is the best of the bunch - it was a beauty!  I never should have listened to her on that one. 

[Rclark]

Did you make her sell something to make it equal?

[medium jim]

Ditto.
My first wife talked me into selling my 25th Anniversary Les Paul which was a huge mistake.  It was tiger sunburst (very similar to yours).
I went into Manny's in NYC, I guess the salesguy took a shine to me as he was gone for around 20 minutes rooting through them and said this is the best of the bunch - it was a beauty!  I never should have listened to her on that one.

Steve:

As you know, I'm a guitar dealer, and there isn't one of us, or for that matter a guitarist who hasn't sold one or more that we end up regretting.  Much of the fun is finding nice guitars, the sad side is having to sell them.  Can't keep them all.

42nd street in New York City is very interesting to say the least...hope they gave you a fair price for it.  One of my mentors in the vintage guitar world is Gil Southworth from the suburbs of Baltimore and when he was in High School, would hit the pawn shops and read the for sale ads and buy as many guitars as he could and then drive them to 42nd street to sell them to the guitar dealers.  This is how he started his business back in the 70's. 

Jim

[SteveFord]

Yeah, Sharon went through a lot so I couldn't say no to selling the guitar.
She was a good wife who passed away sometime back. 
(The photos below are not my actual ones but are representative of them)
Other guitars that I wish I had back are my early 70s SG Standard which was a really hot guitar although mine had the later tailpiece and a black interior, not that fruity pink



 a late 70s/early 80s wine red ES-335 with the trapeze tailpiece and a rather useless humbucker/single coil switch



 and an 80s single cutaway, tobacco sunburst Les Paul Special w/ P100 soap bars.   That was just such a nice guitar, real easy to play, light and had a nice sound to it.  Warm sounding but missing the P90 snarl which was disappointing.



Oh, well, you can't keep them all.
What I want to get before I croak is a nice gold top Les Paul, a Firebird that is actually comfortable to play (I had two but sold them as they just seemed so damned stiff if you know what I mean) and an ES-150DC

which I think would be killer.  Probably feedback uncontrollably, too!
I never could get comfortable with the Fender necks so I always stuck with Gibsons. 

Maybe next year we can hook up with a guitar deal - not this year, no funds in the kitty.

 

[medium jim]

Steve:

Those P100 pickups had a dummy coil to cancel the hum and kill the tone, which could be disengaged to get  the P90 tone back.  The P90 is one of my favorite pickups as it can go from sweet to warm to snarly overdrive and is very touch or pick sensitive which relates to more control and attack.

Jim

[SteveFord]

That's why I have an SG Classic - those pick ups are great.
Did you ever see that Firebird with the 3 P90s?  That would have to make my dream guitar list.
I wish I would have known that about the P100s, I would have been in there with a soldering iron in a second. 

[medium jim]

Steve:

With respect to your red ES-335, you should be able to gloss it up using Virtuoso guitar cleaner and then Virtuoso guitar polish.  The satin finish on it is a clear coat that hasn't been buffed out.

Jim

[Ericus Rex]

Steve:

With respect to your red ES-335, you should be able to gloss it up using Virtuoso guitar cleaner and then Virtuoso guitar polish.  The satin finish on it is a clear coat that hasn't been buffed out.

Jim

Really?  Satin finishes usually have a matting agent added.  I guess that would be a cost-cutting measure for Gibson to use.  I just haven't heard of that technique before.

[HAL]

That's why I have an SG Classic - those pick ups are great.
Did you ever see that Firebird with the 3 P90s?  That would have to make my dream guitar list.
I wish I would have known that about the P100s, I would have been in there with a soldering iron in a second.

Interesting variant, as the three pickup Firebirds usually have the minihumbuckers.  The no pole piece covers usually have dual rail style pickups. 

[SteveFord]

You can practically hear Johnny Winter screaming, "Rock and Rollllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!" with this one.
I no longer have my Firebird VII but I'll bet the cutouts for the Epiphone mini humbuckers and the P90s are the same.
It's funny how Gibson originally tried to market this as a jazz guitar.  I can't imagine why it bombed.

[HAL]

The minihumbucker fits a P-90 route, so easy to switch them.   That baby should scream!

[SteveFord]

I know what I'm going to do next year!

[Rclark]

I think your wife wants me to take this off your hands.