NGD: '61 Reissue Gibson SG

After some inquiries and a little wheelin' & dealin' I bought it off of Reverb.com, which is always a bit of a gamble since (for most sales) you can't really return the item unless it arrives in worse condition than advertised. 2009 Gibson SG '61 Reissue. Excellent condition with OHSC. The only mod the original owner did was paper in oil tone caps.

Upon arrival I found it to be a two-piece body and was mostly in great shape aside from a dry fretboard and the frets needed some love. No fret wear at all, just needed a good polish. A few even had some surface rust starting to form. The seller did tell me he hadn't played it much lately, hence the sale. While I had it on the "workbench" I went through everything. Tightened the tuners, polished the Nashville bridge and the tailpiece. Previous owner had it top-wrapped with 9 gauge strings. I prefer 10 gauge and no top-wrap, so those changes were made. Stays in tune like a CHAMP, so no nut work needed (thankfully). Action is slightly high, but I don't mind.

*I was hoping it still had the original 57 Classic pickups, and the seller said he "thought" that's what was in there, which gave me pause. They did sound great, but I had to be sure. I had already restrung the guitar, so I plugged in a patch cable, set the volume pots wide open, and took some measurements. Oddly the neck pickup was measuring 9.23k whereas the bridge pickup was measuring 7.63k so I wasn't sure what to think. Did the bridge pickup somehow get accidentally placed in the neck position at the factory, or by the previous owner? So I took it apart to look at the bottoms of the pups and they were both labelled as 57 Classic (neither is the hotter 57 Classic Plus). Next I unsoldered both pickups in the control cavity so I could get a proper resistance reading. Both measure 7.9k and all is well with the world.

BEFORE


AFTER (frets polished, fretboard oiled, new strings, etc)

 

Thanks man. I'm not surprised you have a 61RI too, I was doing research on SGs and that was definitely the one that people spoke most highly of. Some prefer the Standard because of the neck shape, but overall it seemed like I couldn't go wrong with a 61RI. FWIW I love the slim neck on this 61RI, quite comfortable to me.

 

I know what you mean, I have a blonde 2017 "50's road worn" tele too haha

 

@Dan R @Jim603
Yeah it's interesting how some folks only play one type of neck. I LOVE the chunky neck on my road worn tele. I dig the slim taper neck on this 61RI SG. A great guitar is a great guitar.

In other news, I weighed it and it's just slightly under 7 pounds. It does do the neck divey thing, but not annoyingly so. It just has a tendency to wanna lean that way, but can be easily persuaded not to.