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It's a real shame, Charles, as they are *really* great pictures, you're missing so much!
Nice one Karl, I'd love a trip like that sometime, and the Dickie Betts Goldtop looks amazing, I would have taken tons of photos just of that one guitar!
Sean the reason the paint job on Mikes new guitar looks smudged is because it has not got to the buff stage. Fresh out of the paint room. As for more pix I took 500 of the custom shop and 150 pf the regular production factory. I will have to select the best of the best so you don't spend three years opening up the web page. There are some great pix of the CS including great close ups. Gibson was very generous with allowing us to take pix. The only place we were not allowed to take pix was in the paint room of the regular procution factory. We respected their request. there is some proprietory technics that they do not want to share to the world. That is OK we got such great pix of the CS that you will be very pleased. I will upload the pix middle of next week as it will take a while.
Thanks guys. I thought I'd spotted something clever there. It's water, of *course* it's water...
Looking fwd to the photos Karl. I heard a similar story about PRS recently, they also like to keep part of the finishing secret, because it's embarrassing and would piss the the fans off if they knew.
Anyway, if you have any more photos of that Goldtop and don't fancy posting them to Photopoint (which must be costing you bigstyle!), I'd appreciate a copy, thanks.
you have to be a Gibson Custom Direct customer
requires yearly fee membership
and you have to wait until somebody drops out because it is limited to a certain amount of members and it's full now
call Gibson they can give you more details
yeah, it was great, KK, I figured you'd take that many pix, every couple min I'd see a big flash from your camera I dunno if I want my paddle guitar back, maybe I'll just sand my horrible finish off and make a clock or something... Were the Japanese people that were there like guests of yours? Just wondered if you had them come after you went to Japan. Since membership is closed that'd be cool if I stay the youngest member, btw I was in kid you saw that had the binding...
Ah yes lespaul506 I remember you in the elevator. Good score on that binding. The Japanese folks I did not know, they were just nice people I could practice my Japanese on. Dickie Bettes sure loved em though. I don't think they had ever met before that. He is just a nice guy Dickie to everyone.
yeah, the binding is great, having it I can kinda see what different combinations of binding would look like if I had them make one for me. yeah, Dickie's a really nice guy, he was even nice to me and his stuff was way before me. I thought it was interesting one of the Japanese girls was really getting into the music during the banquet, she was tappin' her foot and moving w/ it, just struck me as odd, but they seemed really nice too.
shouldn't strike you as odd bud...
Japan is more modern metropolitan trend setting than a lot of cities in the USA. A LOT. It's amazing, I love Tokyo because it reminds me of Manhattan (just safer and the streets don't smell like urine). they are an amazing culture, respectful, honest, integrity, and kind.
Mike - Yea, that sure is a nice bookmatch - the figure matches right up across the whole top. Good score, I hope she wails as fine as she looks for ya.
Wow, it's a heady experience just to "walk through" your tour with the photos! It's amazing how much rapid consumer feedback is driving guitar bulding nowadays (as with the Custom Shops, Historics, replicated aging etc.)
yeah, I think someone else might have bought the other one there that looked almost the same. Maybe it was Devlin or something, I dunno. Yeah, Mike that's a great guitar, just add it to the rest of yours...I had no idea you had that many.. Those Dickey Bette goldtops seem to be a pretty cool idea, but I don't care for the darkbacks at all. Was the one he was playing an original 57 or was it his sig. model?
Also forgot to mention that Karl and I met Dave Rogers from Dave's Guitar at the Fantasy Camp Member's Banquet. I told him that I bought a few guitars from him, but the minute I mentioned Dave Paetow's name he connected; he also instantly recognized Karaoke Karl. Dave is a very nice guy. I gave him best regards from the Forum crew, since so many of us have had good experience with him and his store. Also got a chance to introduce myself to Henry Juszkiewicz, president of Gibson; he was really enjoying the Dickey Betts/Lee Roy Parnell jam!