What year is your favorite J-45 / J-50?

[Br1ck]

Originally Posted by Jinder

I’ve owned several J45s and have played a ton of them belonging to bandmates and friends. None of them have quite matched my 1967 for tone and responsiveness. It’s loud, dry, sweet, balanced and beautiful. I normally use 13s on my other guitars but the J45 only requires 11s to make it sing, such is it’s light and responsive build.

It has a K&K Pure Mini in it and sounds fabulous through my AER amps via the K&K Pure preamp. At some point it was refretted with jumbo frets and I converted it to a fixed saddle bridge a few years ago. Initially the conversion didn’t change the tone at all, but it has grown into it with more play time. It plays like butter and sounds wonderful.

Here is the tale that tells the story of Gibson in the sixties. I've never played a Gibson later than 66 that was good. Yet, they managed to make some. Finding one is a quest. 60 to 62 is a pretty good bet, and it seems to have gotten worse throughout the sixties. But I played a 72 that was very good once. You just have to play a lot of guitars.

[SuperB23]

1949 of the several I've played.

[hovishead]

I used to own a 1946 J-45, it was a nice guitar, but in all honesty my 2011 J-45 kicked it's *** and that's why I sold the 1946 model.

That said, I think I got lucky with my 2011 guitar. I've tried loads since and I haven't found any that have it's character.

[ghostnote]

I’ve played a few that I liked but I didn’t really pay attention to what they were because I wasn’t shopping. The only one I own is a Sixties J45 that I took a chance on around 2016 or 2017. It was new when I got it. I really like it. It came from the Custom Shop with a bone nut and saddle already installed and the more I play it the more I like it. One thing I’ve noticed is that it records very well - it sounds great on recordings. I think it needs a couple of tweaks in it’s setup, but I’m afraid to change anything because it sounds so good!

[rc3797]

I played a 1956 J-50 as my only guitar for a couple years before moving it on. It was great. I kept Gabriel Tenorio brass 13s on it, and they sounded awesome, new or worn in.