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Old 11-22-2021, 02:11 PM
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Boozehound Boozehound is offline
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Default Vintage Gibson J45 Problems (Calling all Repair professionals!)

Hi - I'm hoping some of the experts here can weigh in. I took delivery Saturday of a 1949 Gibson J45, purchased from a dealer with a 7 day return policy. I'm hoping to get it to Brothers Music for an in-hand evaluation, but so far haven't received a return call from them and am not sure if they are working this week. The good news is that the guitar sounds amazing and plays well. The bad news is that there are quite a few issues, and I'm not sure if I can / should keep it. Sorry for the lengthy post.

Issue #1: The truss rod nut looks pretty mangled. Fortunately the relief is perfect, but I'm not sure that the rod is functional at this point. Perhaps you could cut the existing nut off and replace, but the actual threads on the end of the rod look pretty bad too, so you'd have to contend with that as well.



Issue #2: The nut itself is very poorly installed and not flush with the headstock. This would seem to be a pretty simple case of getting a new nut cut.



Issue #3: Gnarly b-string pickguard crack with misaligned sides. I assume this would be a 'glue and cleat' repair, and not necessarily a big deal.



Issue #4: There is about a 3" stretch on the rear upper bout where the top is separating from the side. It's hard to notice, but you can see/feel it move when you push on it.



Issue #5: Not sure if this is a big issue or not, but it looks like some fairly sloppy glue work was done at some point.



Despite all this, I love the guitar (The tone is amazing, and the neck is straight) and am considering keep it and getting these issues fixed, but I'm not sure if there is enough here that I should be concerned about what I don't see (if that makes sense).
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Old 11-26-2021, 12:34 PM
HarryQ HarryQ is offline
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If the problems you outline were not fully disclosed by the seller, I would definitely have a problem with that. Especially if you paid full market price for one without issues. If you really like the guitar, I would contact them and see if I could get an adjustment on the price based on the cost of repairing these issues. The glue on the inside of the top and braces is a little sloppy, but would not be too big a deal for me, the other issues I would have a problem with. Good luck!
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