...and not so good for my savings account.
In discussions with Collin before I pulled the trigger on his '68 365, I mentioned my flurry of activity in April. He asked me to post some pictures.
I had been thinking about getting either an ES-335 or an Explorer (yes, vastly different), so set up some saved searches. This led to a somewhat 'accidental' purchase of a Custom 1959 ES-355 Historic Dot Reissue - a little nicer than I was shooting for. Musician's Friend was auctioning one as a 'scratch and dent'. Pictures on it looked absolutely fine, so I went ahead and put down a bid that I really didn't expect to come close. Whadayaknow - I won it. A little surprised, but not the least bit disappointing. Guitar is perfect except that there was a little bit of fret sprouting on a few frets and the binding is very slightly deformed on those frets. Very nice guitar.
Before I deleted the Explorer searches, a 'NOS' 2012 1968 Reissue came up, so I got that. I really don't know what Gibson was up to with a 1968 Reissue (did they actually make any in '68?, is it hypothetical?
Anyway, nothing too interesting about it, but picked it up. Solid little guitar that plays really well. Great for channeling your inner Nigel Tufnel.
I then somehow stumbled on a bit of an oddball. Part of the MIdtown series which seems to draw a lot of love/hate controversy (particularly "hate" from people who don't have them but post about how bad they are/must be and "love" from many who do have them....). This one is a MIdtown Kalamazoo and there were around 400 made for the US. Sam Ash had it listed online, again as a 'scratch and dent/demo', but you couldn't see anything wrong in the photos and could see that the protective film was still on the pickguard. Again, perfectly good, untouched guitar - better than most on display for retail. It's a little like if a Les Paul mated with an ES-335, but with a Byrdland neck (and no, the Gibson USA construction is not up to Custom Shop standards, as expected, but is by no means bad). Liked the idea of a shorter scale neck. Nice little guitar. I'm actually really impressed with the '57 Classics in this, particularly when tapped and running single-coil (and I don't particularly like '57s, in general). Pretty happy with it.
May isn't starting out too bad, either, with Collin's 365 on the way, but I think I'm going to need to throttle back a little.
Life is suffering; the cause of suffering is desire. Envy is a deadly sin. Save your soul, go ahead and buy another one....
