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1974 LPC Identification Help Please

killertone

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Grog

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My LPC is a late ‘74 early ‘75. It has grovers & reflector knobs. A photo of the control cavity, specifically the hole that was routed for the pickup wires, was a key detail that was used when fellow posters helped date mine. Ill try to find the photos later.
 

Bob Womack

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The move to Grovers was a style fad of the period. My '74 Standard still has the Klusons but I was repeatedly and forcefully adjured by my contemporaries to ditch the silly Klusons and put on a serious set of tuners, first Grovers and then Schallers, like real pros and real men were using. The opinion of the Wafflebacks at the time was that they were needlessly heavy and clunky. I think I even read an opinion from Steve Howe saying that.

However, unmolested is now preferred.
madsmile.gif


Bob
 

guitplayer

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whats the 1st didgit of the serial#? CC should have a square
wiring chsnnel. caps will vary.
 

Grog

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This should be my cavity gut shot. Note the square (rectangular) wire channel.

yP6ySNr.jpg
 

Ted Nugent

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I am in the process of reviving this 1974 (I think) LPC and I have a couple questions.

When did they change to Grover tuners? This one has waffle backs and I see Grovers on the majority of them. They appear to be original.

Do these pickups look correct?

Pot codes date it to late '74.

https://i.imgur.com/fxjQMgm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/HSv1R8O.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/qRXsdSG.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/YEfB02q.jpg

Guitar is a late 74 spec guitar that I'm guessing is from 75 guitar and the tuners can be Waffleback, Grovers or Schallers. What are the pot codes? The pickups look like they may have had changed covers. They look more like they're from the 90's or later. Never seen an earth wire going from the braided pickup cable to the solder blob before? Pickups can be either Pat No pickups with decals or with stamped baseplates in 75.
 

Tom Wittrock

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Wow! :wow

First Bernie, and now Ted!
I look forward to photos of your Bursts and stories from your career! :salude
 

guitplayer

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I think those bushings look bigger than they are supposed to be.
Here is an original look.
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/185825126@N07/49178103076/in/dateposted-friend/" title="May 2019 001"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49178103076_16e7af828b_z.jpg" width="640" height="429" alt="May 2019 001"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/FONT]
 

Tom Wittrock

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I think those bushings look bigger than they are supposed to be.
Here is an original look.
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/185825126@N07/49178103076/in/dateposted-friend/" title="May 2019 001"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49178103076_16e7af828b_z.jpg" width="640" height="429" alt="May 2019 001"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/FONT]

Gibson was using some wider bushings that worked for the Grover size rout. Similar to today's conversion bushings. :)
 

killertone

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My LPC is a late ‘74 early ‘75. It has grovers & reflector knobs. A photo of the control cavity, specifically the hole that was routed for the pickup wires, was a key detail that was used when fellow posters helped date mine. Ill try to find the photos later.

Mine is round. Here's a pic:

https://imgur.com/rdfQrgn

whats the 1st didgit of the serial#? CC should have a square
wiring chsnnel. caps will vary.

First digit is a 4. It's hard to tell but I think the first 3 digits are 4, 0, 0.

Guitar is a late 74 spec guitar that I'm guessing is from 75 guitar and the tuners can be Waffleback, Grovers or Schallers. What are the pot codes? The pickups look like they may have had changed covers. They look more like they're from the 90's or later. Never seen an earth wire going from the braided pickup cable to the solder blob before? Pickups can be either Pat No pickups with decals or with stamped baseplates in 75.

Yup the covers have to have been replaced it looks like. No idea why there is a ground wire to the cover solder. Weird!

The pot codes are from the last week of 74 so this is looking like exactly what you said. A late spec 74 probably completed in early 75.

Gibson was using some wider bushings that worked for the Grover size rout. Similar to today's conversion bushings. :)

Still confused about this. Are you saying these business could be original? The tuners look to have never been removed but of course they could have been.
 

guitplayer

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Cool. This was the only pic I had of an original early 70`s waffleback set. I was concerned the OP
guitar bushings overlapped part of the diamond/center inlay.
 

Ted Nugent

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Dec 5, 2019
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Cool. This was the only pic I had of an original early 70`s waffleback set. I was concerned the OP
guitar bushings overlapped part of the diamond/center inlay.

You can see both kinds of bushings on those early 70's Customs.

This guitar has the larger bushings.

fxjQMgm.jpg


p.s. I'm not THE Ted Nugent you think I am Mr Wittrock.:hee
 

AJCR

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May 2, 2018
Messages
124
Can you show a pic of the pots and electrics.

Pot codes only date the manufacture of the pot at CTS. They then have to be shipped to Gibson, where they get stuck in the inventory to be used.
It is not unusual for 3-6 months to be the gap between pot code and guitar shipping date. So if the pot codes themselves are late 74, then you have a mid 75 guitar.

And wine red is a colour first seen in 1975.
 

killertone

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Dec 4, 2019
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It has a round wiring channel as can be seen in the photo below.

If it is a '75, I am still super confused on the Waffle Backs.

You can see the pot codes after I cleaned up all the years of really bad solder jobs that this thing has been through. Code is 1377452 on all the pots. I think that puts it in the last week of '74?

Wiring is still being redone as I speak. Pots are original as are the caps, I think.

Everything looks like it point to this guitar being built in late '74 and probably shipped to a dealer in '75. Making it officially a 75.


 

guitplayer

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Tuners look like aftermarkets....which is fine. Most if not all those by
now are tarnished somewhat if original. Those are the right caps.
 

AJCR

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Yes, the pots were indeed made in the last week of 74.

Of course that puts it absolutely guaranteed as a 75 now......if it wasn't already almost certain. But with that pot code, its almost 100% certain your entire guitar would have been made during 75 start to finish.
 

killertone

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Tuners look like aftermarkets....which is fine. Most if not all those by
now are tarnished somewhat if original. Those are the right caps.
Definitely not. Original tuners for sure.

Resurrecting this old thread in case some new eyes take a look. This guitar is still perplexing me. I believe it to be an early '75. However, most '74 examples with waffle backs that I have found say they are a sandwich body which mine is not. Did they stop the sandwich body thing in '75 for a bit?

Or, is sandwich different than pancake? Pancake always seemed to be the Mahogany/maple/Mahgonay bodies.....is sandwich just 2 pieces of mahogany?

So many questions!
 
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dwagar

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My '74 had sticker TTops. I don't know if any '74s came with stamped.

Are you saying yours is a one pc body? Is the neck mahogany or maple? Trans tenon?

Reading back through this thread, it looks like it's early to mid '75. With those pot codes it couldn't have been made in '74. AFAIK pancake and sandwich just mean the same thing.
 
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