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#1
10-08-2012, 10:08 AM
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What's a fair price for this Gibson AJ?
I've been looking for a used Gibson AJ. I found one that looks interesting, but the price is a bit high for me - "2006 Gibson Birdseye Maple Advanced Jumbo (25.4" scale)". The asking price is $2300 plus shipping. I could get a brand new AJ for $2499. Since this looks like one of the custom shop Gibson AJs, I'm a little lost as to what a fair price would be. Any suggestions on how to determine a fair price for this guitar would be appreciated.
Also, wondering if the maple makes it more desirable or less desirable (resale?). I used to have a Taylor 615 (Jumbo maple) and I liked the sound, but I'm not sure how it would go with an AJ. What are your thoughts? Thanks! Pete 
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#2
10-08-2012, 11:27 AM
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Offhand, I would gauge that the upcharge for not only figured maple but more to the point birdseye maple would be on the order of $500 - 750.
Maybe it's more... could be a bit less.....(?) Sometimes, the Custom builds like this get a red spruce top, other times, it's just a straight swap of b&s woods and the rest is identical. In the former case, you get a hot-rodded guitar, in the latter case, you get different back and sides wood to ogle, and a different sound. Fred
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#3
10-08-2012, 11:53 AM
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If you go on the Gibson forum and do a search there's a soundbite of one of the 5 of those that were made. Great guitar
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1950 Gibson J45 1959 Gibson LG2 3/4 2001 Gibson L-130 2006 Santa Cruz D12 2006 Gibson J100Xtra (Bubinga) 2013 Gibson OJ 1934 Reissue
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#4
10-08-2012, 12:50 PM
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I played a maple Advanced Jumbo at the Gibson dealership in Tucson, Arizona, and have to say that I really didn't care for it at all. It may well be that it was just that particular guitar, but all of the rosewood AJ's I've played have had a great deal of treble response to begin with, which gets balanced nicely by the natural bassiness of rosewood.
The maple AJ I played had so much treble response that I found it unpleasant, frankly. It was loud, harsh and brittle, and it projected so well that it set all the other showroom guitars in the immediate vicinity to ringing. It didn't quite blister paint, set off the smoke alarms or cause plywood to delaminate, but it was close! It may be is that all that guitar needs is to be played hard for about five or ten years in order to get the low end response to come in fully. But that's not five or ten years I'd want to give up in order to get there. So if you talk yourself into to buying this maple AJ, before you spend your money make sure there's a reasonable return policy. Hope this helps. Wade Hampton Miller
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#5
10-08-2012, 12:58 PM
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Quote:
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#6
10-08-2012, 01:11 PM
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A Gibson AJ made with Maple ??
That's just not right  Yeah, Maple and Rosewood are probably as much opposite on the spectrum of tone as you can get. I don't know much about the AJ history but Maple just doesn't sound right historically. Course, I could be way off base on this, never stopped me before Harmonics101
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#7
10-08-2012, 02:24 PM
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Yes, Gibson's made a few. As you can see from my post, I was not favorably impressed by the one I had a chance to play, but that was only one example. Any others that I run across I'll also pick up and play, but based on that first one, maple doesn't strike me as the ideal back and side wood for that guitar deaign.
whm
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#8
10-08-2012, 03:21 PM
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Quote:
 I have played a number of maple slopes from Gibson, and have generally been quite impressed by them. This began -- for me -- with an audition at Elderly's shop in the latter 90s when I played an original 30s AJ, a 90s rosewood AJ and a mid-90s maple AJ in a side-by-side taste test. The two modern AJs smoked the 30s original (sorry about that, vintage purists!). And the maple AJ provided a well-rounded although somewhat livelier sound than its r/w cousin. The sound of that guitar stayed with me for many years. Gibson has made other slope shouldered guitars in maple (and other woods), including the shortscale J-45/J-50 and SJ, the shortscale AJ models, as well as longscale AJs such as the one that is the subject of the OP's post. While some builders' maple guitars are indeed, to my ears, brash, overly bright, thin, etc., etc., my experience has been that many Gibsons tend to "handle" maple a bit better, and present with a more balanced sound. Bearing in mind the sound of the maple slopes by Gibson that I had tried over the years, I specified maple for b&s on the custom shop SJ I ordered from Gibson a few years ago. It turned out to be a rich and lush instrument, and -- thankfully -- most of the paint is still intact in the room where it gets most of its playin'! Again, YMMV!!  Fred
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#9
10-08-2012, 03:47 PM
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The factory standard AJ's have rosewood backs and sides. The ones with birdseye maple back and sides were a limited run; therefore, the upcharge. You're going to get an entirely different tone out of one with the maple: crisper, brighter and less resonant. It's up to you if that's what you want.
Look for a used standard AJ online. Those can be had for between $1600 and $1800, depending on the shape they're in... and are usually excellent guitars. If you think the model you're looking at is expensive, Gibson did a limited run all-natural finish curly maple AJ back in the 90's with an ebony bridge and fingerboard and fancy custom abalone fret-markers. Those things are very scarce and I haven't seen one for less than $4000. Since that's out of my price range, I never tried one, so I have no comment.
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#10
10-08-2012, 04:11 PM
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I've got one of these and I really like it for fingerpicking. But then I like AJs in general for fingerpicking. As many have pointed out, whether or not you like the tone of a maple guitar is a matter of taste. I recorded a couple of test tracks with mine early on when I was getting used to the maple sound (this is my first and only maple guitar):
Test track 1 Test track 2 Sitka spruce was used for the soundboards on this particular run from the Custom Shop. Here's what the Birdseye maple looks like on mine: 
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