OGD - Old Guitar Day - Maestro Goodies

belleswell

Tele-Meister
Joined
May 30, 2021
Posts
256
Location
Western Central Michigan Lower Peninsula
Old Guitar Day and some Maestro goodies

On the road in the early 70's with a '63 SG Special. Either Tulsa or Austin iirc.
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This guitar is one that has had me on the phone 3 times with Gibson in the
last dozen years. Basically I wanted to know the date. The walnut finish on the
SG Customs were a release that began in '69. Before that, the color offered was an
Alpine White. However my last call to them a little over a year ago answered my questions.

Apparently some of the records had been locked away in a safe for decades and finally saw the light of day. The first couple of times I talked with reps at Gibson, they told me records were a bit sketchy for customs made in the 60's and they were not much help. What they should have said the first couple of times was that they did not have the records as they were locked away.


It was made in late '68 for one of the early releases of these for '69.
The body is mahogany, but the finish is "walnut".

It was made in Kalamazoo, my home state. I bought it in '72 from a girl who had
bought it for her church band, but her words when selling to me were, "It's
too much guitar". Lol

It is now worth many fold what I paid for it. I used it with an Echoplex, Cry Baby wah
made by Thomas Organ, and fuzz pedal, Maestro Phase Shifter, and a 100w Marshall JMP full stack I bought new at Zoppi's in '72.

This guitar has seen more road and play time than any other in my collection.
It was my one and only for many years and has enough mojo to where every other one
of my guitars are jealous.

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'86 Special on the left. It came with a factory installed Kahler.
'68 Custom on the right
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Here they are making a goldtop sandwich.
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Some old fx that are now high priced collectables.
These also were used with the Custom

Maestro Phase Shifter - Slow - Medium - Fast
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Maestro Rhythm n Sound
If bass only was selected, the blue rocker switch, then the guitar
would play an octave below it's normal notes. Pretty cool for the
late 60's. My mouth fell open when I saw what these are selling for
nowadays. Wow wow, Echo, Fuzz, even some cheap sounding percussion instruments.

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Maestro Echoplex EP-3 made by inventor Mike Battle. RIP
I bought a few extra tape cartridges from his estate sale
when he passed.

The trick to keeping these sounding good was too clean the three
heads often with Q tips and alcohol.
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Under the hood of one of them
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Last edited:

jays0n

Friend of Leo's
Joined
Jan 11, 2009
Posts
2,928
Location
San Francisco, CA
Whoa, that SG is amazing (your hair was pretty good too). Thanks for sharing this with us. Except now I am jealous. I say it’s better than the Les Paul any day. It’s awesome that you kept it all this time.

Oh man, the Maestro effects too. Only see those in shockingly high prices reverb posts and JHS videos. I love their style, and all those big colorful clicky buttons.
 

dogmeat

Friend of Leo's
Joined
Oct 12, 2017
Posts
4,285
Age
72
Location
Alaska
I played one of those in 1970 in a music store in SF.... at the time it was the best guitar I had ever touched. they wanted something like 400 bucks... used... I didn't have the jack. a 50's/early 60's Strat or Tele was about $125 - 150. that year I bought a '53 Tele missing the front pup for $75
 

Fiesta Red

Doctor of Teleocity
Joined
Nov 15, 2010
Posts
10,659
Location
Texas
Very cool story and great trip down a memory lane…

It is amazing how those “primitive” effects did so many cool things way back in the day.

It’s also cool how so many people (yourself included) only had one guitar for many years. Shoot, even when I first started playing (c1989) I had four guitars within a year and a half—and I couldn’t play worth a crap!

I sometimes think about doing that—paring down to a few select pieces. And then I realize that I’m a materialistic idiot and like my other stuff too much.
 
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