Yes it's like tonewood or endless pickup swapping, It comes down more to the player's touch and feel on the instrument.

Wow, neat info to know! I agree 50s/60s mahogany guitars are special

Iv got a 2001 0017 reissue and it’s my favorite guitar. So much more comfortable to play! Sounds excellent. Plus gloss mahogany is killer.

Occasionally, as a guitar player, we sometimes find an instrument that is immediately revealed as a "Keeper". Great info/story, Thank You for sharing.

Not just old growth wood, lumber was probably seasoned in a pile for decades to dry out noisture naturally, and any remaining sap solidified, a process which cannot be duplicated by kiln-drying. I have a 1920s house and even the big solid floor & roof joists are impressive & so nicely squared. Now it's all engineered wood I-beam joists.

@@j_freed True I've read that the climate conditions 200 to 500 years ago was just conducive to produce great sounding mahogany. IMO, the Earth's climate is always changing, back then was just a good time for naturally growing mahogany in the Honduran/South American region. In any event, these early budget Gibson (and others from the era) offer better unique materials that are unaffordable to most these days in a new instrument. uniqe

They do. The one thing about them is when the strings start to go dead, the guitar does too, whereas spruce tops will still have a little life left. Just need to restring a bit more often.

Last week I've seen a great YT video on the kinds of wood in accoustic guitars, and how they sound: Paul Davids. He played the same song on several guitars, and he explained things. Like, soft wood will give you a bit less volume, digging in deeper will get you some distortion instead of more volume. The harder woods can sound brighter, and playing louder is no problem. Thing is, try playing quiet and louder, and listen how your guitar responds, you really feel it, the kind of woods applied, it makes a difference. Some luthiers do great combinations, say, a top literally one half in spruce, and the other half in hardwood. That way you can expect something in between, both a warm tone and also bright, I guess. Those are the luthiers one should press their subscribe button. And lesson here is, do not think mahogony is no good for you, this is a great example, this kind of Gibsons is not horribly expensive yet, and still very very very beautiful.

I agree. I have an all mahogany Vester Custom Shop from 1990. It’s 💯 mahogany. I have much more expensive “brand name” guitars but that Korean built Vester is my favourite!

I had one about 20 years ago, and I ruined it in a stupid ploy to turn it into a resonator after reading a Dan Erliwine article about it. I really miss that guitar. Not my best idea ever.

It's just you.

That is a loaded question because you have to consider market value from a collector standpoint and sentimentality. If the guitar holds high sentimental value to you by all means fix it. If you’re willing to drop the money that’s a good idea. But if you’re looking to flip it at this point in time it may not be such a good idea. A lot of people would say that it’s worth converting it to an express guitar that depends on whether you want an express mahogany guitar or you like the ladder bracing. There are a lot of things to consider but a few things that I would say are a must One you must replace that plastic bridge in my humble opinion. Those plastic Bridges crack tops in time and they don’t transfer sound efficiently. To you should get some reinforcement installed around the sound hole. On vintage ladder braced guitars this is a spot where they like to fold up. If you go to all the trouble to have it fixed and it folds up in 10 years it’s a waste of money. As a secondary recommendation I would say you would probably want to either put some sort of a reinforcement on the bridge pad as it is made out of spruce and quite soft. There are lots of things to consider in my opinion I would say yeah fix it if you enjoy the guitar you like the sound And you’re willing to spend the money on it then by all means like I said fix it but if you’re looking to flip it you’re not gonna make your money at this time. That’s not to say you won’t make your money in 10 years so if you’re looking to flip it keep an eye on the market and when the market is high that’s the time to fix it.

I meant to say X brace. My phone had other ideas. Apologies

That depends on the situation your guitar is in. The guitar that I worked on had to collapse around the sound hole. Once I braced the sound hole and straightened all that wood out the action was pretty respectable so I could avoid a neck reset. I am in Canada and the cost to do what I did to my friends guitar would run you in the neighbourhood of about $1200-$1500 Canadian. Now a good example of one of these in top playing condition is going for about $2500 Canadian on reverb. You could change it into a dobro. Keep the action high for slide. I would still at the very least look at having a bridge made for it and just getting somebody to stiffen up around the sound hole a little for you because what will happen eventually is Glue joint failure on your neck block and cracking in the back because that’s where the pressure is. Once you step in the top up then the pole of the neck which pushes the fretboard extension down will be stiffened up. But if you avoid a neck reset you’ll be saving yourself about three to $500 Canadian. That’s a pretty significant savings. But then the question is is it worth it for just a slide guitar and you’re the only one who can answer that question. Just a few things to think about before you jump in. 🤔

OK. My first bit of advice would be to keep the fibreglass matting resin out of there. That’s going to add a huge amount of weight to the Body wood. The resin will do much the same thing. Your instrument relies on the ability of the wood in the body to move up and down to project sound. That would be akin to taking a speaker cone and dipping it in resin. You lose the volume of the instrument. In your situation with $500 for a budget I would honestly take it to a luthier and explain to him that you have a $500 budget. I would prioritize a bridge, cleating the cracks and getting some kind of support around the sound hole. Another option would be to get a bridge made have the cracks in the body cleated and put a JLD bridge doctor in it. A bridge doctor is $50 it takes about a half an hour to install and it will minimize a lot of that warping at the bridge. You may be able to get away with not bracing around the sound hole although I’d still recommend it. That would be money much better spent then spending that money on fibreglass resin and mat which isn’t cheap and basically killing the sustain of your instrument. If you turn it into a slide guitar you want that boxy bluesy tone which comes from the thin top and the ladder bracing. If you’re not too concerned about maintaining originality another thing you could do is buy a trapeze tailpiece and have a floating Bridge. That will negate the need to have a glue down bridge. If you’re confident you can do your own nut that’ll save some money and another thing too is that if you want to strictly play slide on this instrument your bridge doesn’t need to be compensated. But if you’re at all planning on playing this guitar in the conventional manner rather than strictly slide then you’ll have to have the bridge compensated. A lot of vintage slide only Martin’s and Gibsons just have a straight saddle rather than a slanted one. From what I understand you can also buy a premade bridge for this instrument online and they are fairly reasonably priced. That would probably be a good investment especially if compensation isn’t 100% vital. To be fair the original Gibson bridges were not compensated terribly well either so he would be getting essentially an original replacement only made out of Rosewood. But that would be my advice take it to a luthier explain what you want explain how much money you have and see what he says. You might find $500 does exactly what you want to have done only professionally and in the end will give you an instrument that will give you quite a bit of hassle free service

I played the LGO and loved it. But the Guild has a unique sound that Is astonishingly beautiful. I could always pick it out when listening to live or recorded music at the time.

Is this a scam?

It's funny that people are telling you the LG1s are more desirable because when I talk to people about my guitar they always turn their noses up at it because it's not a big body Gibson🤷 haters gonna hate I guess

I also think with other guitars in a similar tier like the Guild M-20 or Martin 000-15 that it doesn't compete as well with them tonally.

I meant to add... if you find one w a plastic bridge - you'll find it has shrunk, deformed. The plastic is held on by two nuts & bolts. No glue.