Collings 290 or 360 lt m

Sounds like most of your hero’s play a Les Paul? That said I’ve only played the 290 and it’s a great guitar.

 

every Collings guitar I've ever played was a pretty wonderful guitar. That being said, I don't own any. At one of the summer NAMMs in Austin, I got to play a few of the Collings electrics when they first came out.

Seems like the main difference between the two, other than cosmetics is that the 290 is equipped with Lollar P-90's single coil pickups. The 360 comes with Lollar mini-humbuckers. There are several 290 versions, in both single cut and double cut as well. The 290 seems to be mostly based on the Les Paul Junior models and the 360 on the Les Paul Standard and other such. That's a pretty rough analogy though. I might be wrong.

If you are not familiar with either of those pickup sets, it would probably be worth your time to check out some sound samples on the Lollar website and see if you like one style more than the other. P-90 versus mini-humbuckers. Both are wonderful choices, but you might prefer one over the other. Just looking at your list of players, I'd guess that most of them mostly played humbucker versions - but - most players have quite a bit of experience with all kinds of stuff and I'm sure you could find examples of all the players you've listed playing all kinds of different pickups over the years.

but for that kind of investment, and not knowing in which part of Oregon you reside, you would be best served to make a field trip to the nearest Collings dealer that has those models on hand.

Small amp, clean but dirt at reasonable volume says Fender Champ; either BF or SF. If you are patient enough, you can find pretty good samples out there. the vibro champ comes with built in tremolo (the kind that Fender calls "vibrato"). You will probably get a few hundred other amp suggestions here. My best advice is to just take your time and play through as many amps as you reasonably can.

Allow me to express some skepticism when I hear the words "my first and only electric guitar"... many members here can wistfully remember having had that thought by the time they owned their fifth guitar.

 

I've only played the 290, and only in a store, but it inspired covetousness and greed -- what a nice guitar. You may find that you miss the zing of a maple cap, though, which seems to be an option on the 360.

If you spend all that money for a guitar, you might not have all that much left over for an amp, in which case a Blues Jr / AC10 / Marshall Origin 20 will do you fine for starters.

 

Good thought on the pickups. If not familiar:
-mini's will be very middy, but stay clean on the lows and bright on the highs.
-P90's will be not quite as middy with a more gutsy sound, maybe a "bit of grit" is a better way to say it. Not noiseless either.

 

I've also only really played the 290 - actually owned one for a while. It's a great LP Special type guitar, and has more twang/jangle than an LP Special because the P90 pickups on it are underwound. It was like you put an Tele down on the ground, walked 10 steps and put an LP Special down on the ground. Now walk back toward the Tele 2-3 steps.

It's probably a "guitar I wish I hadn't sold" but it was also far above my skill level as a player. I found I was gravitating back to Strats and Teles so I sold it to a much better player than I who could really make the Collings sing. But he sold it because mine had what they now call the "60s neck carve" (i.e. slimmer depth) and got a double-cut one (the one he got from me was the single cut) with their normal 50s-style neck carve.

Here's my old one:



I did play a 360 when they were first released - but it was the original model (the 360 ST) with 25 1/2" scale, carved top, 3 single coils and a Gotoh tremolo. Think a single cutaway set-necked Strat. I didn't care for it at that scale length; I would love to try one of their current models with the 24 7/8" scale length. For kicks here's their archived page on the 360 ST so you can see what I'm talking about:

https://www.collingsguitars.com/electric-guitars/360-st/

 

It looks like all the 360 variants Collings is making now are their 24 7/8" scale lenght; that 3 single coil/25 1/2" scale model is not currently on their website; only in their archives.

I played it through a Mesa/Boogie Lone Star Special (4 EL-84s, 30/15/5W variable switching). I had to sell the Lone Star when we moved from Kentucky to Kansas - I didn't want to move it in the car, and we were putting some things in storage while we were between houses for a while. Prior to the Lone Star I was using a Fender Princeton Reverb RI, and after the move I just grabbed a Fender Blues Jr. III from Guitar Center to have something at the house while I looked for other amps. As I say I wound up gravitating back to Strats and Teles (American Standards at that) so I just kept with the Blues Jr.

The Collings sounded good with the Blues Jr., but better with the Princeton and best with the Mesa.