The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Some of you know who Pete Moreno is, a Gibson employee from 1960 until 1983 or so then the guy in charge of Gibson warranty repairs for another few years. He now has his own luthier shop and, more importantly, decades of stories.

    This one I shared before. Gibson was reorganizing its storage. Ted McCarty told Pete to take these boxes of old style pickups to the dump. Pete loaded up hundreds of unused pickups in heavy boxes and threw them in the dump. These were PAFs.

    Another one is that Pete got five Crest bodies with the neck attached at a garage sale. New owners of the house found them in the attic above the garage. I think he paid $50 for all of them. He actually was there before the garage sale started. The woman who owned the house was trying to pound a sign into her front lawn and was struggling. Pete was driving by and stopped to help. After the sign was in the ground the lady showed him what she had. He took all five of the Crest bodies and over a period of about 20 years turned them into guitars.

    Wonderful Gibson story-crest-jpg

    Today I brought in a guitar to him that had a staple pickup on it. That evoked another story. When Gibson was moving to Nashville they offered Pete a chance to buy a lot of things they didn't want to move. For example they had a large number of new cases. Gibson wanted $1 each for the soft shell and $5 for the hard shell. He bought them all. He also bought gallons of guitar finish for spray guns. He still has some of it. The best was that they had 10 boxes all taped up. Gibson offered them to Pete for $25 per box, but he could not open them. All he knew was that they were guitar odds and ends. He bought all 10 of them. One of them was filled with a lot of unused pickups, many being staple single coils. Another box had 11 new original Charlie Christian pickups still in the wrapper. Those he sold for $350 each back then.

    It's always fun to visit Pete. He has a large workshop with old guitar parts, like bodies and necks, leftover from Gibson

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    I actually dealt with Pete on a weird warranty thing. Gibson could learn a lot from him, a good guy.

  4. #3

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    hundreds of PAFs in the dump !!!

    omg thats too awful ....

    my head just exploded ....


  5. #4

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    old habits die hard...gibson in 2019..destroying their own guitars



    cheers

  6. #5

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    Not doubting his word but why would Gibson throw away pafs when the only difference between them and the 'new' patent # pu's is a little sticker on the bottom. It wasn't until later that the specs on patent #s changed. It also puts in question the long held belief that when they used up the pafs they switched to the new patent #'s, hence the fact that many guitars have a mix of both.
    The only reason I could see is that when they started using chrome parts instead of nickel in the mid 60s it wasn't worth it to unsolder the old covers to install chrome.
    If you happen to talk to Pete I'd be curious if he could elaborate.

  7. #6

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    What's the story with the Crest? What kind of wood is that top? I don't think I've ever seen one.

    On edit: I guess I could have just googled it, lol...

    Gibson's Crest Models | Vintage Guitar(R) magazine

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    old habits die hard...gibson in 2019..destroying their own guitars



    cheers

    Oh no, I saw it before and I wished to never see it again.

    Now you posted it, I will resist to click the video.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by wintermoon
    Not doubting his word but why would Gibson throw away pafs when the only difference between them and the 'new' patent # pu's is a little sticker on the bottom. It wasn't until later that the specs on patent #s changed. It also puts in question the long held belief that when they used up the pafs they switched to the new patent #'s, hence the fact that many guitars have a mix of both.
    The only reason I could see is that when they started using chrome parts instead of nickel in the mid 60s it wasn't worth it to unsolder the old covers to install chrome.
    If you happen to talk to Pete I'd be curious if he could elaborate.
    I don't know why the pickups were discarded. Pete was in his early 20s and was told by the boss that they needed space and obviously weren't using this pickup.

    PAF (pickup) - Wikipedia

  10. #9

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    The Crest guitars had laminated rosewood bodies. They were like ultra-deluxe ES-330TD guitars. They had ES-355TD appointments, except for the small humbucker pickups. They were fully hollow and sported (accordingly) wood-based bridges.

    I always thought that they were some of the most striking and great sounding of the Gibsons from that period. They make good jazz guitars.

  11. #10

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  12. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Marty Grass
    Some of you know who Pete Moreno is, a Gibson employee from 1960 until 1983 or so then the guy in charge of Gibson warranty repairs for another few years. He now has his own luthier shop and, more importantly, decades of stories.

    This one I shared before. Gibson was reorganizing its storage. Ted McCarty told Pete to take these boxes of old style pickups to the dump. Pete loaded up hundreds of unused pickups in heavy boxes and threw them in the dump. These were PAFs.

    Another one is that Pete got five Crest bodies with the neck attached at a garage sale. New owners of the house found them in the attic above the garage. I think he paid $50 for all of them. He actually was there before the garage sale started. The woman who owned the house was trying to pound a sign into her front lawn and was struggling. Pete was driving by and stopped to help. After the sign was in the ground the lady showed him what she had. He took all five of the Crest bodies and over a period of about 20 years turned them into guitars.

    Wonderful Gibson story-crest-jpg

    Today I brought in a guitar to him that had a staple pickup on it. That evoked another story. When Gibson was moving to Nashville they offered Pete a chance to buy a lot of things they didn't want to move. For example they had a large number of new cases. Gibson wanted $1 each for the soft shell and $5 for the hard shell. He bought them all. He also bought gallons of guitar finish for spray guns. He still has some of it. The best was that they had 10 boxes all taped up. Gibson offered them to Pete for $25 per box, but he could not open them. All he knew was that they were guitar odds and ends. He bought all 10 of them. One of them was filled with a lot of unused pickups, many being staple single coils. Another box had 11 new original Charlie Christian pickups still in the wrapper. Those he sold for $350 each back then.

    It's always fun to visit Pete. He has a large workshop with old guitar parts, like bodies and necks, leftover from Gibson
    Im trying to contact Reverb customer protection and can not get to them does anyone have a suggestion?