Jack Hanson
From:
San Luis Valley, USA
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Posted 7 Jun 2024 4:42 pm |
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| Joe A. Roberts wrote: |
| Jack do you happen to know if that awesome coral color on those has a known paint code or if theres any good modern matches (perhaps based on a car color like the Fender custom colors?) |
Sorry, Joe I have no idea. Sure wish I did, though. All I do know for certain is that in their catalogues, Gibson referred that color as "bittersweet."
If anyone out there does know about modern paint matches and/or codes for postwar Gibson lap steels, please clue us in! It's my suspicion that -- since the market for postwar Gibson lap steels is a mere drop in the ocean compared to postwar Fender and Gibson Spanish guitars -- no one has bothered to research the subject. No doubt the paint codes are out there somewhere. Lots of 1950s cars were painted in similar corals and blue-greens. In fact, I vaguely remember a late '50s/early '60s two-tone coral and white Rambler Classic that my dad had for a second car when I was a kid. And I've seen Nash Metropolitans at vintage car shows painted a similar color.
Such info would have come in handy three years ago when I repainted this one:
I couldn't find any paint to match, or any codes for a blue-green Century Deluxe anywhere, so I ended up painting it Lake Placid Blue Metallic with rattle cans from Guitar ReRanch. It turned out okay; I'm happy with it. Sadly, the Deluxe was a complete basketcase when I bought it, and it had no serial number. Otherwise I would have preferred to leave it as is.
I got a little luckier with the 1955 coral Century pictured above. It had been harvested for its pickup, electronics, knobs, jackplate, and tuners only -- all of which are easily (if not inexpensively) replaceable. Its important fittings (fretboard, nut, bridge, control cavity cover, the rare coral pickup cover, the fragile molded Plexiglas headstock and bridge covers) were all present and accounted for. The body and paint is decent, although it does exhibit the weather-checking quite common to the Gibson lacquer of that era. Well patina-d, so to speak. All I had to do was procure the missing parts, and slap it back together.
The mid-fifties coral Centuries and blue-green Century Deluxes with the wrap-around stop-tail bridges -- as opposed to the more common plated brass extrusions that screw into the top of the instrument -- are among Gibson's finest, in my opinion. The stud-mounted stop-tail bridges sound sweeter and sustain better to my old ears. With a quality P-90 with the correct polepiece spacing, good electronics, new tuners, adequate shielding, and a proper setup dialed in, they can be made to sing like an angel, get gritty, gnarly and nasty -- or anywhere in between.
SORRY, JOHNIE. DIDN'T MEAN TO HIJACK YOUR POST. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR SALE!
IT'S FAIRLY PRICED FOR AN INSTRUMENT OF ITS STATURE. ESPECIALLY IN ITS ORIGINAL "FAULTLESS" CASE. |
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