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Everyone;
Thank you very much for all your insights. It really was very helpful and some really good points of view!
I didn't realise the Greco was a rare or valuable guitar at all. I think the best course of action may just be to only do the necessary modifications / repairs. I do really enjoy the guitar and it inspires me every time I pick it up and truthfully, I can't justify the expense of a 'real' ES175.
Thank you again everyone.
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06-17-2016 03:49 PM
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Yes, it was a good deal, and works very well live. However, my 'right guitar' will always be the '58 L4CES conversion guitar that I bought in 1976 for £212. A month's net earnings, then!!
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Funny thing is, I had to make myself play my real 90s L5CES, whereas this copy hasn't been put down much recently.
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It is funny how some guitars just have a claim they make on us. I have a very inexpensive Loar LH650 in natural blonde finish. I actually named it "Melinda" after my first girlfriend, because she also was very... well... I won't finish that... Originally Posted by Franz 1997
Anyhow, this guitar, the cheapest one on the rack, is often the one I pick up to play. It just has a quality about it that makes you want to play it, even though it's a cheap and unsophisticated mass-market knock-off of the L4c... though it does have solid, carved top, back, sides, and a one-piece mahogany neck... But with two Gibsons on the rack as well, you'd think the Loar would die of loneliness. I love my Gibsons, and play them devotedly, but the Loar still speaks to me as well.
You know, kind of an inexpensive date with a pretty girl who doesn't ask much...
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Aww, man! You can't leave us hanging like that! Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Good question – but wrong one! You know, some of us live in the area where 'bought expensive and upgrade anyway'!
(If You mean Gibson expensive. And definitely Gibsons has to be upgraded.)
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Last year I upgraded a cheap guitar. Put a Benedetto S6 on a Washburn J600k, new jack and pots and got the frets leveled. Big 17 x 3.5" laminate 25.5" scale. Many finish boo boos. Less than $700 all in zero resale value. I like it. Sounds like an acoustic with a pickup.
This year's guitar is the new Ibanez GB10SE. Very different guitar. 14.5 x 2.5" 24.7" scale narrower fretboard 2 relatively hot Humbucker floaters. Perfectly setup right out of the box. Gorgeous finish. 1299 too new for a resale value probably less than a 1000. Sounds like an electric with some woody tone.
Love playing them both didn't break the budget with either. I get the new guitar itch in the spring.
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I wouldn't pay too much attention to the notion that the so-called "real deal" will make you much happier. The guitar you have was built to the highest standards, the music you get out of it is up to you, not to some magical properties of a name on the headstock.
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My take on it is don't worry too much, play the hell out of it as is and give it time, craving for an actual 175 might go...or...not
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the conundrum is..a cheap guitar with extensive mods is always percieved as being a cheap guitar..so an epiphone broadway with lollar pickups and completely rewired with bumblebee caps and bourne pots..is still considered an epi broadway...esp $$$$ wise..you lose your mod $$$
on the other hand, a very expensive collectable guitar is always more valued in pristine original condition..who wants a 56 es 175 with an added strat pup and b7 bigsby...painted metal flake blue!??..as good an idea as it seemed at the time!
moral-be careful where your personal quest$ take you
cheersLast edited by neatomic; 06-17-2016 at 08:23 PM.
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I think that's right. We sweat over subtle nuances in tone that are completely buried in the bandstand. Even I can't hear the differences in my own tone once the drums and bass and horns start blowing. We spend a *lot* of time and energy on this (although the tonesniffers on Gearpage carry it to real extremes) that might be better spent on other endeavors. Originally Posted by Franz 1997
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Without pursuing the, er, girlfriend analogies, it's true; some guitars just work, others don't. It's a very personal thing, and I've found it to be regardless of brand name; I have sold 20 times the number of Gibsons than I've kept. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
But it makes sense; when we pick up a guitar, we don't look at it, we play it - and so what matters then is how it feels, how easy it is to play what you want to play at that moment, and how it sounds. At that point, all those appearance and is-it-a-good-copy cosmetic issues don't matter. Especially if you play with eyes closed. ( No, let's not..)
PS This thread has been v useful; it's helped me realise that I much prefer playing on those lower, 60s style wide/ flat frets, which Gibson don't use for arch tops anymore, but these old 70s copies tend to have. Too old to fight an action that doesn't work for me..I'd rather re-fret, if I have to.
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FWIW, modding my own guitars is what got me into building a dozen or more years ago. I kept trying to put lipstick on pigs. It wasn't necessarily the tone, which on electrics was mostly (not exclusively) about the electronics, it was the playability. However, something about the playability never matched the more finely crafted instruments. Without a good foundation no amount of modifying would fix the underlying problems.
I now build, and sell, my own archtop guitars as a part time business. In a way, a luthier built guitar is the ultimate in personalization. I've chased my idea of "perfect" tone and playability in the guitars I build to the point I now make a mostly acoustic arch tops with carbon fiber soundboard and nylon strings. Fortunately for me, other players have liked the tone and playability of what I created. I've sold a few, BUT the first thing I like to tell prospectives is that this guitar has NO RESALE VALUE!!!
Expensive guitar with no resale value, hmmm... why would anyone buy a guitar from an obscure luthier? But people do.
The point being there are no hard and fast rules. If you are concerned about resale (and why not?) then buy the best name guitar you can find. As you get more money, keep trading up. If resale is not a concern, then play dozens of inexpensive factory guitars and find that one gem in the pile. They do exist. With a good foundation, modify it to your hearts content until it sounds right. Finally, if you have the scratch, find a luthier who builds guitars that match your esthetics and ideas of what a guitar should be and have them build you your dream guitar.
They are all "right" answers.
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Yes, but that Loar 650 has the capability of producing tonal properties I've yet to reproduce on guitars that cost 10 times what the Loar did. The Gagnon bridge replacement really brought that guitar to life - For me. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Wouldn't be something if one could pay X amount of dollars and suddenly play better! Originally Posted by m_d
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I recently bought a Greco ES175 copy; it's a little bit newer than the OPs , it has the "Greco" logo rather than "Gneco" , it would be mid-late 1970s. Has a lam spruce top instead of maple, but I love the tone. What won me over was how it has this really nice 'bouncy' kind of sound, even unplugged .... I guess it's that 'thunk' sound that makes me think of early Tal Farlow.
A friend of mine has a newer Gibson ES175 and the Greco compares very favourably. The newer Gibson is a fair bit heavier, and has a fatter neck, so the feel is a bit different. Tonally they're pretty similar.
My Greco does need a fret dressing, and the action at the nut is a bit high, despite that it still plays really nicely.
I think the lawsuit era Japanese guitars are great value --- there's no way I could afford a Gibson ES175 at the moment, but I've got a guitar that is of the same calibre for a quarter of the price. Should you get a Greco or similar for a reasonable price, I imagine the resale value would be pretty good too.
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So far, I have not played a copy/cheaper guitar that cured my GAS for the real thing... probably due to my mind-set, but just saying....
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spend money you don't have on things you can't afford that are way above your level of talent and dedication so you feel like an idiot =
really, everything is just a husk to me. if the wood is good, i'm good; everything else is fungible. i'm just looking for something worth owning. sometimes, its a lot less than i would have expected. oftentimes, it is not.
if the greco does it for you, then let it do it for you. i sometimes wonder about the fancier stuff, but i play the part below the headstock.
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This decision comes down entirely to personal taste and requirements. That said, I question the broad generalizations regarding cheaper alternatives versus "the real thing".
Gibson for sure is the starting point and heritage for many of these much-copied models. That does not make Gibson the only real thing at all. A recent example: I have a '66 ES-335 which continually inspires, and sets the standard to me for what a good semi-hollow can do. My good buddy has long wanted a suitable semi-hollow. 15 years ago I helped him purchase a (then) new Gibson ES-335. Nothing I saw from Gibson then was close to the oldie I had. We found one that held promise. He bought it, ended up not convinced, and sold it years later. I still keep my eyes out for this guy. As Gibson prices soared upward, it got harder and harder to steer him to "the real thing". Especially with some very fine MIJ alternatives around. Found this guy a used Epiphone Elitist dot RI ES-335. It's a third the cost of a comparable used Gibson ES-335, better feeling and sounding than any of the recent Gibson ES-335s I've tried.
Pretty similar deal with this Epi as I'm hearing about the OP's Greco ES-175 type. No, not exactly like Gibson, but excellent in its own rite, certainly cheaper, well worth searching for and upgrading. All the props in the world to Gibson, but there are other real things too.
MD
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Got my '97 Epi Sheraton II back yesterday and I am thrilled with the results of the maintenance. My guitar tech completely rewired the guitar added brand new 500k Pots and .47 mfd Caps, installed a Switchcraft p/u selector switch, and setup the instrument.
The biggest part of the repair was the installation of a new pair of StewMac Parson Street Alnico II humbuckers. These new pickups (in conjunction with the other upgraded parts) have completely changed the character of the instrument. It now sounds more "semi-hollow" than "hollow" with a bit more "bite" on the neck pickup and more "spank" and/or "Pop" with both p/u's switched on. As I've mentioned in the past, I have never played the bridge position alone, but the instrument now has a much more diverse and versatile sound than before. I've even played the bridge p/u by itself and enjoyed the resulting tone. The Parson Streets are very well defined and detailed in their response characteristics with excellent string-to-string balance and overall, a highly musical tone, closer to Charlie Christian than Jim Hall or Joe Pass. IMO, they represent an excellent and cost effective upgrade from the Epi Classic 57's that I've been playing for the last 20 years.
I have often praised the work of my guitar tech and in this instance, I think he really did an outstanding job on Sherry. I am very pleased with how she turned out and today is like a NGD or NOGD (New Old Guitar Day) for me.
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Nice! My Sheraton (early 90ies Korean) has a StewMac Golden Age in the neck (don't know if they are the same as the Parson Streets) and that does sound really good. (I don't think btw that 20 years ago the Epi's had those Epi Classic 57s already, but maybe just the name changed). Playability of that guitar is every bit as good as that of my ES-333. Enjoy your NOG!
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Hi Jay, Originally Posted by Little Jay
Agreed. Those 90's Epi Sheratons were an excellent value. Please find pasted below an email interaction I had on this subject with Gibson Customer Service. Our Sheratons will "run with the big dogs".
Regards..
Fred
Hello Fred,
Thanks for getting back to me here at Gibson. The Epiphone Alnico Classic humbucking pick-ups are great sounding pick-ups which have Alnico V magnets, the same type magnets used in the Gibson Burstbucker Pro pick-ups. Thanks.
Best Regards,
Bob Burns
Gibson Customer Service
1-800-4GIBSON
[email protected]
From: fred castellano [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2013 8:14 AM
To: Bob Burns
Subject: RE: Talk 2 Us : Country USA, SN#S97074621
Hi Bob,
Thanks for responding.
So what you're saying is that upgrading to the " latest and greatest" Burstbucker Pro pickups would not give me an audible improvement in tone? Really? This Epi Sheraton really did constitute a great value.
You would not believe the number of compliments I've received over the years from both other musicians and members of the audience regarding the "beautiful tone" of this relatively inexpensive instrument.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Talk 2 Us : Country USA, SN#S97074621
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2013 14:02:40 +0000
Hello Fred,
The serial number appears consistent with an Epiphone serial number from an instrument built in Korea back in 1997. The Epiphone Alnico Classic Humbucking pick-ups used in this model would have a very similar sound to Gibson Burstbucker Pro humbucking pick-ups. Thanks.
Best Regards,
Bob Burns
Gibson Customer Service
1-800-4GIBSON
[email protected]
From: Fred [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 5:39 PM
To: Customer Service
Subject: Talk 2 Us : Country USA, SN#S97074621
Contact info: Fred ([email protected], USA)
Brand: Epiphone
Serial number: S97074621
Message:
HI. I own an older Epi Sheraton. It's 'bout 12 yrs old. I have received so many compliments regarding what a beautiful guitar it is and how great the tone is. 1. Was this guitar made in the Peerless factory in Korea? 2, I assume that Burstbuckers will be available separately. How would putting in Burstbuckers affect the tone. I play Jazz solos in Chord Melody style. Thanks! Fred C.
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