OffsetGuitars.com

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Mark, I immediately thought of the calendar too!

fullerplast wrote:Mark, I immediately thought of the calendar too!

And what does Luau say on the very first page, nearly 9 posts in?

luau wrote: .....We've got enough beautiful guitars around for a damn coffee table book.....

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Yep. Let's start throwing ideas around and see what sticks.

When I first envisioned this I saw it mostly as a beautiful pron book with short histories on actual guitars and user's comments. Like a picture book of all our beautiful or not so beautiful guitars. But I agree with above, this could be so much more and does have the potential to reach a wider audience.

Personally, my interests are mostly vintage offsets and history. Zhivago's vintage hotties could be a book unto itself for example.
But I don't think we should stop there. I like the idea of having different chapters. I think we could have a massive undertaking on our hands, but if its organized and well layed out it could be feasible. Its natural to want to include EVERYTHING, but I'd like to draw the line somewhere. I don't want to just regurgitate that J. Mascis played vitbange Jagwurs or that the cover of Loveless featured a blurry pis of a Jaguar super imposed on a Jazzmaster - no shit! We need to give them something more - which is why I believe we're all here in the first place. If it weren't for you guys, I wouldn't know a fraction of what I do now.

Sections could be....

1) Address technical setups, maintenance and quirks. Make a go-to guide for offsets to dispel the misinformation. I don't want to get too far involved, an offset maintenance guide could be its own book.

2) Historical Pictorial - not just pre and post-CBS, there are so many little variations from year to year and month to month. We could easily break it down by model and year, if applicable. (e.g. - Jazzmasters would have more info and pics from 58-66, but not so much from 67-80.)

3) Vintage Restoration - Doug comes to mind, naturally. Pron + methods, materials, etc. Tips and Tricks. And especially, "What not to do with a vintage offset that you find in a barn or inherit from your granny."

We could host submission of pics for collaboration on photo-sharing site for all to see. We will be at the mercy of everyone's ability to take good photos though. Most of the awesome ones here work fine for web, but high-res print is another animal.

Happy to help. If you want any pr0n of any of mine I'll offer them up (I guess the two original are Ultraboreal's old '62 Jazzmaster and my beat to hell '65 LPB Jaguar).

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It would be difficult to impossible to use pics found across the interwebz for print anyway. I think we can rely wholly on OSG photo submission. Though usage right and waivers would have to be made clear.

Guidelines for photo would be imperative.

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Great project. I'm happy to offer editing help, too.

DocCarlson wrote:It would be a actually cool point of pride to be able to say that the photographic material was supplied wholly and entirely by the users of OSG from their private collections.

That was my thought. Otherwise I'd shop the idea to Fender and just use the Chinery collection and call it a day. I want this to be a labor of love from within OSG. Let us show the world our offset prowess.

That's the way to go Nick. I'm not a collector - I have guitars to play the hell out of them, but I do see myself as being a curator in ways ... like with my Jaguar and the whole 'Ron Joy' mark in the neck pocket. OSG revealed the probable identify of the guy (who turned out to be of Irish origins too!) and found a few more with his name in the neck pocket. It's that sort of cool back story that would interest me as well as the pr0n. I like to know as much of the back story as I can find about any old guitar I have - sometimes you hit a brick wall (i.e. "I bought it from a store and I never asked them"), but sometimes you can find out a little bit about them.

I mean, how many of ... say ... Pat's guitars have a cool history behind them. Or the Telliotmaster. Or your own '64 JM Nick.

I'm just trying to think about the stuff I'd have been interested to read as a kid or teenager ... I'd have lapped up background stuff on cool old guitars, as well as the pics.

Despot wrote:That's the way to go Nick. I'm not a collector - I have guitars to play the hell out of them, but I do see myself as being a curator in ways ... like with my Jaguar and the whole 'Ron Joy' mark in the neck pocket. OSG revealed the probable identify of the guy (who turned out to be of Irish origins too!) and found a few more with his name in the neck pocket. It's that sort of cool back story that would interest me as well as the pr0n. I like to know as much of the back story as I can find about any old guitar I have - sometimes you hit a brick wall (i.e. "I bought it from a store and I never asked them"), but sometimes you can find out a little bit about them.

I mean, how many of ... say ... Pat's guitars have a cool history behind them. Or the Telliotmaster. Or your own '64 JM Nick.

I'm just trying to think about the stuff I'd have been interested to read as a kid or teenager ... I'd have lapped up background stuff on cool old guitars, as well as the pics.

I traced that blonde '58 back to some guy in Texas (now deceased) who had a little repair business out of his house. I even messaged back and forth briefly with his grandson. I'm really into stuff like this ^ .

I love the various markings, stamps, and signatures we've collected as well.