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Wire ABR-1 on 1960 Switchmaster?

blauserk

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Mar 12, 2002
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1,778
This guy recently arrived at my house. Well-worn, but fabulously playing ES-5 Switchmaster.

You sometimes see guitar ads that say "guitar was never gigged." This is not that guitar. Some jazzer gigged the living hell out of this guitar. As you can see, a lot of playing wear both where the arm wrapped over the guitar and on the back of the f-hole; no gold left on the top of the pups; very little finish on the back of the neck; no finish left on the rim of the neck heel, which is a bit rounder on the treble side. Although the guitar has never had a strap button and there's no wear to indicate a strap connected at the headstock (i.e., it was played seated), he managed to wear through the finish at two points on the back of the body, I guess from buttons on his suit.

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Two things of note. As noted in another thread, it appears that the owner managed to wear through the side of the bridge PAF. Middle pickup is lowered; looks like he picked there. The other pickup adjustment screws are still shiny; the bridge pup adjustment screw is is badly corroded, presumably from hand sweat and funk.

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Anyone have another explanation?

They're jake underneath:

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But although the guitar is a 1960 production, the bridge is a wired ABR-1, with mostly unbeveled screws--a couple have been replaced more recently with beveled screws. The wire arrived in 1962, right?

So what gives? Did the prior owner wear the first bridge out and have to replace it with a wired ABR-1? Or, as has been discussed in other posts, is this an instance where the Switchmasters were low-enough volume guitars that this hung around the Gibson factory until the wired-ABR-1 era before being sold?

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If you go to my Lilypix account (same username), you can see larger, more detailed versions of the photos above.
 

bizzwriter

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Oct 23, 2002
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I don't know the answers to your questions. All I know is that I WANT that guitar!
 

blauserk

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Mar 12, 2002
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Rev.WillieVK

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Did you check the bobbin colors when you were 'under the hood'? :biggrin:

I have seen very late '60 Bursts and SGLPs with no-wire ABRs so I would guess that this one was replaced at some point.

Beauty-full! :dude: :salude
 

blauserk

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Did you check the bobbin colors when you were 'under the hood'? :biggrin:

The bridge pickup looks like a double-black through the "viewport." But it's pretty dark in there . . . .

Haven't checked the front two.
 

apossibleworld

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Oct 16, 2008
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I would love to hear your thoughts on the sound and feel of this guitar. I've been fascinated by PAF Switchmasters for a long time.
 

blauserk

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Mar 12, 2002
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I would love to hear your thoughts on the sound and feel of this guitar.

It plays great. Ordinarily, I prefer 24.75 to 25.5, but for some reason, this guitar feels very natural to me and I don't mind the extra length. The body depth and width takes a little getting used to--it's a big guitar (17" wide at the hips and looks about 3.25" deep)--but it sounds sweet and has a variety of tones on tap, particularly when you turn all three pups on and just play with the volumes. The eBay auction I linked above has a video of a demo of the '58, and that seems pretty accurate to me.
 

Unbound Dot Neck

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Wow, thats some serious pickin to wear down the pup cover..
Must be superb, playing and sounding, perhaps he did swap out the original bridge after it cried "uncle" !!
A well played instrument is a treat for 1 reason, its great.
:salude
 

blauserk

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Mar 12, 2002
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Man, what a great-sounding and versatile guitar. I was playing it tonight for a couple hours and found I could get credible Cream, Faces, Black Crowes, Stones, and even Who tones out of it. (Although the PAFs don't quite have the clarity of PAF Filtertrons). But with six knobs and a four-position switch on tap, I guess that is not that surprising. The thing that amazed me the most is the cutting tone of the bridge pickup. The neck pickup gets to sounding a little loose when everything is dimed, but you can tighten up the tone by mixing in some of the bridge pickup.

The middle pickup sounds out of phase with the other two, so you can mix in some "quack" by adding the middle pickup with the bridge or neck--good for the solo on "lowdown in the street."

For less than the street price of a Gustavsson, there is a hell of a lot of PAFy goodness in these guitars. If I didn't already have one, I'd buy the one at Gruhn (unfortunately with added bigsby).

Edited to add porn:

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Tom Wittrock

Les Paul Forum Co-Owner
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Aug 2, 2001
Messages
42,567
But although the guitar is a 1960 production, the bridge is a wired ABR-1, with mostly unbeveled screws--a couple have been replaced more recently with beveled screws. The wire arrived in 1962, right?

So what gives? Did the prior owner wear the first bridge out and have to replace it with a wired ABR-1? Or, as has been discussed in other posts, is this an instance where the Switchmasters were low-enough volume guitars that this hung around the Gibson factory until the wired-ABR-1 era before being sold?

Maybe it didn't come with an ABR-1 to begin with? Just a wooden saddle?

Also, your bridge base appears to be rosewood .... wouldn't this model have an ebony bridge? :hmm
 

blauserk

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Mar 12, 2002
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Maybe it didn't come with an ABR-1 to begin with? Just a wooden saddle?

Also, your bridge base appears to be rosewood .... wouldn't this model have an ebony bridge? :hmm

I think the ABR-1 arrived in 1955--the same year the ES-5 became the Switchmaster (although I've seen ones without the switch but with the ABR). The rosewood bridge matched the fingerboard.

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This '56 is still for sale at Gruhn. Looks like someone finally bought their early '60 with the added Bigsby.

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And a blonde '61.
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apossibleworld

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Oct 16, 2008
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I believe on "jazz guitars" you could request a wood bridge as a stock option from Gibson. If you look at pictures of original L-5 and Super 400s from the mid-50s, in the ABR-1 era, it seems to go either way.
 

blauserk

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Mar 12, 2002
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So after owning this Switchmaster for almost 10 years, I consigned it at Carter Vintage. It sold quickly. And based on my Instagram feed, it looks like the new owner is . . . Joe Bonamassa!

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TM1

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Jun 27, 2003
Messages
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I would bet that it originally came with a wooden bridge and was replaced sometime in the early/mid Sixties with the ABR-1. Also these came with Heavy Gauge Flatwounds on them and those Flats will make the bridge collapse over time from the string tension. These were made out of very cheap cast Zinc. Zinc isn't a very strong metal.
 
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