The ES-125T has arrived........

[PorkyPrimeCut]

After receiving the UPS delivery this morning I had to bolt out the door & rush to work. I was 5 minutes late but didn't care (neither did the boss anyway).

I've been sat with a smile on my face all day getting all restless & constantly checking the clock. Finally at 4pm they took pity & let me leave early.....

Got home, broke out the scissors. Cleared a space & carefully slit the package open down the middle.....

Damn he just sent me a box full of polystyrene shapes!!!!



Phew!!!



The case is in OK shape. A few nicks & knocks but thats expected. Its sturdier than I though. I'll still buy a proper hard case though......



They did a good packaging job. Talk about building up the anticipation. More packaging.......



Well hello!!

....I think I need to sit down....

More later.....

[northern_dirt]

Looking good!

[RumorsOFsurF]

Looks great!  Seems to be in awesome condition, too! 

[chrisjedijane]

lovely, just lovely! 

[luau]

Major congrats! That's a beautiful guitar. 

[PorkyPrimeCut]

I'm leaving the strings to settle properly after re-tuning it (thankfully the seller loosened them!!).

After my initial childish euphoria these are my thoughts on my purchase.....

1) There are about 6 dinks on the headstock - kinda like someones tapped it with the end of a screwdriver. They're hardly noticable but make up the largest area of blemishes on the whole guitar. I guess the headstock gets a lot of shit from people swinging around & shit. All in all this baby is a 9 to 9.5 out of 10 for condition.

2) The serial number (which he couldn't find) was tucked up in the body. A torch found it easily enough - S 1339 20. All I know is that "S" makes it 1959, right?? Hope so.

3) My biggest gripe - there's a mark that didn't show on the big jpegs he sent me that suggests a bridge re-glue (admittedly quite common with old Gibsons). There's a patch just infront of the bridge that looks like it was once attached there. Its been re-glued 5mm or so further back. Its barely noticable so I'm cool with it. The bridge also seems to be glued on ever so slighty wonky. I hope this won't effect the playability. The bridge is remarkably new looking but identical to any others I've seen so I'm pretty sure its the original one. I've emailled the seller to say that all is well but I've asked him about it too. Kinda sneaky not to mention it. I reckon it could've sold for a little less if he had!

4) I'm digging the case. The arse-end has a tear on the rim - possibly from standing it up straight too many times. Also there's a tiny leather strap thats connected between the body & lid (kinda like a hinge) thats torn with age. No biggy. Some of the fabric that covers the back of the clasps is coming loose but glue will fix that perfectly.
I fuckin' love the colour. As you can see in the pics its a nice dark tan with paler binding, then the inside is a gorgeous dark browny red. The handle is plastic but solid nonetheless, as are the clasps. No rust whatsoever.

5) The sunburst looks like my JM would have, had it been an original finish!! 3TSB thats faded out to a kind of tobacco burst - drop dead gorgeous!! Also the binding has yellowed baeutifully.

6) The single line klusons are mint. Nuff said. 3 of the bushings weren't pushed in completely. 2 went in fine. The last one might need a bit of TLC to coax it back in.

7) I wish I could tell you what this baby sounds like plugged in to an amp but it doesn't arrive till tomorrow - conveniently on my day-off. Wooooooaaaaahhhhhhh!!!

If we get the same sun we got today I'll post some seriously filthy porn. Until then.............

[StevenO]

Beautiful, really. I know you're going to love it. !

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Further to my post about the bridge, it seems its never been tampered with.

According to the seller he was the only previous owner & the guitar never left his house. I'm inclined to believe him as he's been pretty good at keeping up communications & strikes me as an honest guy.

Therefore I reckon the blemish by the bridge must've been done during the manufacturing. Its like it slipped while the glue was setting.

I'm gonna put some flatwounds on her I think. I can't get over how loud that squeak is when you run your fingers down the strings.

Also there's a wee bit of buzz around the 9th fret on the E & A strings. I'll have to have a little fiddle around with the adjustable bridge. It ain't a JM one thats for sure!!!

[fuzzking]

woaaahhh lovely!
+1 on the flatwounds

did you get rid of the fret buzz already?

[PorkyPrimeCut]

did you get rid of the fret buzz already?

All sorted.

[fuzzking]

did you get rid of the fret buzz already?

All sorted.

enjoy... njum njum njum!

[vibroverbus]

Noice dude!    I have an old beat on 'players' ES-125 that looks just like it from the top (but not the T thinline), and that old vintage P-90 is just ridiculously toneful.

Re: dings, remember how old these things are - jazzers like this are grandpappies in comparison to what would be vintage for strats, so they've been around a long time.  plus the 125 was a 'student' so the build/materials/finish isn't what it would be for an ES-175 or L-5 or whatever.  Mine is well beat up including a few repairs and complete peghead refinish and 'modern' tuners... hence it being a 'players guitar' still I've had it since about 1984 and love the thing.  When I bought it back in the day, all my friends were like 'what are you buying that beat old piece of junk for, why don't you get one of those new Kramers!?'... now they drool (and one guy tried to sell me his vintage Kramer a few years ago).

By the way, some fret buzz is often unavoidable on these.  One good tech explained to me that the truss rod doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the fretboard, so the relief profile isn't a uniform curve - you kind of have a flat spot at the highest frets, which means you either have to live with a bit of buzz or set them up with slightly high action.  The other buzz thing to look into is be sure the nut slots are the right depth for your strings... I think mine has seen a replacement nut as well...

Is that the original cardboard case by the way? I used to have mine but even with care it eventually just fell into complete ragged pieces.

My ES (and my JazzM) are both back on the other side of the globe from me, luckily I just happen to  have taken a pic of the JM that caught the ol' ES...

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Thanks for the info on fret-buzz. I thought I'd cleared it up completely but it still buzzes slightly on the 9th fret of the e string. Nowhere else - bizarre.

Yes its the original case. I can see how it isn't likely to survive if I use it a lot. I plan to store it somewhere safe & dry once I've got a decent hard case sorted.

We appear to share the same taste in offsets & hollowbodies. I wish I had the same amp as you too!!

[vibroverbus]

Thanks for the info on fret-buzz. I thought I'd cleared it up completely but it still buzzes slightly on the 9th fret of the e string. Nowhere else - bizarre.

Yes its the original case. I can see how it isn't likely to survive if I use it a lot. I plan to store it somewhere safe & dry once I've got a decent hard case sorted.

We appear to share the same taste in offsets & hollowbodies. I wish I had the same amp as you too!!

Ahh the BF Pro Reverb.  That's a good story - bought that around the same time as the ES (early '80's) then sold it like an idiot to a good friend for about what I paid for it - $300.  Took me 20 years to get it back from him, and when I finally did, he wouldn't take any money for it.  Now THAT is a true lifetime friend. 

Either that BFPR, or the '64 Blonde Piggyback Bassman that I have with original cab & Jensens are my 2 'godlike' amps, but can't really tote them around to jam sessions like I used to. 

But I have a small pile of Traynors that are for jamming/gigging on the rare occasions that I'm home long enough to play with someone else...  those are really great bulletproof old school amps, but ssshhh don't let out the secret, they're getting too expensive these days, and I need to add a few more for the collection to be complete...

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Holy shit!!! They're beautiful!!!