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Rather than respond to every posting individually, if it’s OK I’ll try my best to cover everything in one. If I miss something out just let me know.
1. History - The guitar is ex-Gruhn’s, I can’t say whether it came from his private collection or from stock. What I do know is that my French-friend, Matthieu purchased the guitar from George and it came to me via Richard Henry. I haven’t seen any video of George with this or any other SG, so I can’t comment on video-footage.
2. Refrets - I’ll be absolutely frank over this one. Given the overall condition of this guitar and lack of fretboard-wear, it never even occurred to me that it could have been re-fretted. If there has been a re-fret it was done some time ago and very professionally for the reason of personal-preference. That said, I also take on-board that there may not be a 100% definitive spec for a 61 SG. I shall contact George for his comments and post when I receive them.
3. Other visible signs of wear - With the exception of a slight indentation behind the top horn (which is not recent) there is minimal wear. Very very light surface scratches on the back, but nothing approaching anything that could be called ‘buckle-rash’. As I inferred earlier, the guitar could easily pass as a NOS, Custom Shop guitar. In terms of fading... I’d say there is none. Differences in exposure between pictures - taken by my good-friend above - may exist, but this is a perfect cherry-red with no checking. The tuners are all original and show no sign of shrinkage or cracking.
4. Price - The price is exactly as stated, £6750; and that would be for a cash-deal. I’m not averse to considering a p/ex for a Custom-Shop Gibson or Fender, but that would have to be reflected in a revised price. Essentially I would only consider a p/ex to include a guitar that had a solid residual...
I can understand why people will look at this guitar and try to find reasons to knock-down the price, and that’s fine; however I would ask them to bear in mind that this isn’t a Custom-Shop Strat. There are very few SG Specials like this in the world... possibly a handful but probably no more, and there are unlikely to be any others of this standard that will come up for sale in the UK. This is a one-off guitar not a commodity-item, hence the price-tag.
Thanks for all of the interest and feedback, I’ll let you know more once I hear from George; however my guess is that George’s input will have less impact than may be imagined, because this guitar will either speak to you or not, and ultimately will depend upon whether you have the ability and interest incommitting funds to purchase it.
Sorry if any of this sounds ‘arsey’.
This guitar would have come with roughly the same size frets from the factory that it currently has, so it does beg the question as to why the guitar was re-fretted and, by extension, raises a question as to the originality of the finish. A guitar that required a re-fret due to playing would likely have more wear than this one is showing.
I'm not trying to be arsey myself and the guitar may well black-light perfectly, but if you're selling a guitar for the best part of seven grand, you need to have your ducks in a row.
I'm sure, as a vintage dealer, he would have checked it out thoroughly - before selling it on.