An interesting 140 I picked up

[JohnCovach]

This guitar came up on gbase for a very nice price so I snapped it up, not entirely sure of what I was getting.  Well, it showed up it turns out that it's a 140 without the sharp cutaway.  The picture shows it as a goldtop, but it's actually completely gold.  Somebody put DiMarzio pickups in it.

 

I cleaned it up and adjusted it to my taste (the picture is a "before" picture).  What's really cool about it is how light it is compared to a regular Les Paul.  And it's got loads of resonance.  It makes me wonder if this one has a mahogany top, not maple.

 

Anyway, I had thought 140's all had that sharp cutaway; and I don't often see completely gold guitars.  This makes me think this must have been a custom job.

gold 150 1.jpg

gold 150 1.jpg_thumb

[Gitfiddler]

Yeow, Dan...DiMarzio double-whites in a resonant, lightweight solid body?!

 

That baby must really sing through a cranked amp.

 

How's the neck profile and overall condition?  It looks great from the pic.

[JohnCovach]

Part of the mystery solved: it's actually a 150P.  I thought it was a 140 because it's about 1/2" thinner than my 150CM and 157.  But I removed the control backplate and it's clearly marked as a "150P, gold."

 

The guitar's in good shape.  I touched up a couple of dings with my Gibson nitro touch-up pen, cleaned up some finish gunk and put lemon oil on the fingerboard.  The neck profile is a bit thinner than my 150CM--a lot more like my 155's.  It's an "N."

 

I'll crank it up when the boys come over to rehearse on Sunday and we'll see what it's got.

[slider313]

Real nice guitar.You should be able to see a seam somewhere if it has a maple top. If it's all mahogany, the body would look more like a LP Special.

[Kazwell]

The guitar's in good shape.  I touched up a couple of dings with my Gibson nitro touch-up pen, cleaned up some finish gunk and put lemon oil on the fingerboard.  The neck profile is a bit thinner than my 150CM--a lot more like my 155's.  It's an "N."

 

John,

 

Don't want to throw this thread off course, but I just had to ask you about the Gibson nitro touch-up pen. Reason I am asking is when I added my RS electronics upgrade, well it was late and to make a long story short, I dropped some solder on the back of my H-150. Left what I would describe best as a boil the size of a thimble. I didn't touch the wood thankfully, but the nitro cellulous laquer definately was burned- or actually picture a lot of tiny little bubbles.

 

I was wondering if you could let me know where you got that touch up pen possibly. Maybe you or someone may have some advice on how I could possibly remove the lacquer just from that spot to fix this problem myself. I don't know what to do with it. Some say just not to worry about it, but as you and many folks here can understand, we all cherish these masterpieces called Heritage guitars.

 

Than

[JohnCovach]

The "P" stands for poplar, as I understand it.  It's not a flat top, but a carved-arch one, like a regular 150.  My guess is that the top is carved from the same piece of poplar as the body, and this accounts for the thinner depth.  Of course, any seam is covered by the binding and is not visible, though I may get curious and look inside the pickup cavity.

 

Anybody have any more info on the 150P?  Maybe I should drop Ren a note and see what he can tell me.

[JohnCovach]

On the touch-up pen: Gibson has stopped making these.  I got mine at the House of Guitars here in Rochester, where they had a bunch of them for about $5 each.  It's basically a kind of Sharpie pen, but instead of ink you get nitro lacquer.  It's not real good at healing finish blemishes--you can still see them.  But it is good for getting a couple of layers of nitro over any bare wood that's showing, which usually makes the mark a little tougher to see.  Finish blemishes are notoriously difficult to fix up, but StewMac sells a special brand of super glue that can be used to touch up spots that don't go through to the wood.

 

I can sympathize with your situation.  I've left little soldering gun marks on my guitars before--I never seem to learn!

[Kazwell]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the touch-up pen: Gibson has stopped making these.  I got mine at the House of Guitars here in Rochester, where they had a bunch of them for about $5 each.  It's basically a kind of Sharpie pen, but instead of ink you get nitro lacquer.  It's not real good at healing finish blemishes--you can still see them.  But it is good for getting a couple of layers of nitro over any bare wood that's showing, which usually makes the mark a little tougher to see.  Finish blemishes are notoriously difficult to fix up, but StewMac sells a special brand of super glue that can be used to touch up spots that don't go through to the wood.

 

I can sympathize with your situation.  I've left little soldering gun marks on my guitars before--I never seem to learn!

 

Thanks John!!!

 

Since it's on the back, I haven't gotten much sympathy from other folks I have talked to about this. They are like "what's the big deal? Nobody will see it."

 

Guess it just one of those "Heritage things" that, like I said, folks like yourself and a lot of others on this forum, can only truly understand.

[brentrocks]

OMG!!!

 

that is a killer 140!!!!!

 

that is a great find!!!!

[Dick Seacup]

I'm really starting to feel inadequate in the Heritage department lately.  Great find, John!

[brentrocks]

i bet you have yourself a "one off"

[peerless]

SSSShhhhhh!  Heritage 50P's are top secrete.  Most players knock poplar.  But I am going to tell ya'll two things.  In a blind taste test performed by Fender CS 4/5 players will pick a poplar body over Alder, Mahogany, or Ash due to its light weight feel and resonant properties.

Second, 150P's astonish their owners!  These are VERY good sounding guitars that can be had cheap.  For the most part, poplar is considered inferior.  Mostly due to its physical appearance, but it's is considered to have poor sustain and harmonic detail.  However, these tonal characterizations (found in many guitar texts) are not true.

 

Poplar is assumed to be poor sounding because it is cheap and used in many budget guitars.  These guitars generally sound bad, but this is due to cheap and poor quality bridges and nutwork.  Not the poplar.  When Heritage did the 150P series it defiantly showed how nice sounding poplar can be and these are some of the best sounding guitars Heritage ever made.

 

Guess I let the cat out of the bag....

 

peerless

www.peerlesstone.com

[JohnCovach]

I have to agree with this, at least in the case of this guitar.  There was a story about tone woods in a recent issue of Guitar Player and poplar was indeed described as inferior.  I had to do a double take when the writer characterized poplar as lacking in resonance and of a limited harmonic response.  I'm sure the writer was just repeating something he had read elsewhere, which is how a lot of uninformed remarks become accepted wisdom.  This guitar is a great little axe.

 

I did find out a little more, via some reviews from 2001 on Harmony Central.  Users there mentioned that the 150P was the "budget" version of the 150CM, costing a couple hundred dollars less.  You could get the all-gold paint job for an extra $100.  All this sounds right to me.

 

BTW, one reason I thought this was a 140 was because that's how the dealer advertised it.  I suspected that this was wrong, but then when the guitar showed up and was so much thinner than my 150 and 157, I guessed is was a custom 140.  It turns out that there are probably many more gold 150P's out there somewhere.

 

If I had known it was a 150P, I might have passed on it.  But that would have been a mistake on my part, so I'm lucky things turned out as they did.