It kind of depends on what era vintage you're speaking of...and what new model you're considering. Wartime J45s are the cats pajamas. Most of those post war, up to 1955, are also lightly braced and built, and can have the penultimate Gibson tonality. Then, after that, things get a little murkier, but its all pretty good, until you get to the mid-later 60s....where Gibson really tipped the scales, from tone, to minimizing their warranty liabilities. You can find good ones from the 60s, but they're less common.
The newer True Vintage J45 that I tried was a better J45 than any I've played from the 60s and later, pre-Montana. The 1994 model I had (an exceptional sounding, and extremely lightweight guitar) compared very favorably to the better 1950s era models I've played----but it wasn't quite as robust as some of the wartime models, and early post-war models I've encountered.
So, to sum it up, I think that a good example of a True Vintage or Custom J45 from Montana, might just hold its own with a significant percentage of what is available in the vintage market, except the wartime and post wartime models, up until past 1954 or so.
I like a lot of the Montana J45s and J35s I've played----and the one I owned was really something special. They're out there, you've just got to find the right one.
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