This is 30 year old Brazilian rosewood. It's not that nearly-ebony-black you see with lots of brazilian rosewood and after 30 years I suspect it isn't going to darken up any more with age. But I love it more than if it were a deep inky black. Wood is not a uniform thing, even a lot of ebony these days isn't uniformly black. There's always richlite if you want that but wood is beautiful and woth appreciating for what it is, in my opinion. That said, there are some boards, especially on the 2018/2019 Gibsons and a lot of imports, that looked washed out, like they were bleached almost. Those I don't care for. But the one in the OPs pictures looks fantastic, especially with that rich darker red and the cream binding. Fantastic looking guitar overall.
If you have money and you're able to play a Gibson maybe you're safe but if you play Epiphone you'll have a problem. Anyway a normal TOM vs a wrap around is way higher. Pictures you've posted shows this clearly. I don't know about vibration transfer. Many people talks about a better vibration transfer with a low tailpiece. This is the reason why they prefer an aluminum tailpiece. Anyway I suggest you to stay with your 50+ years experienced convictions. You are doing it right being so aggressive.
Don't pull that crap, I've worked all my life and earned every cent. You can keep your proletarian nose up there in the stink zone or learn something. A lot of people talk a lot of stuff, that doesn't indicate any real knowledge, just verbal diarrhea.
I think what irks so many people, and what also is the root of so much internet woodoo, is that many people like to make categorical statements based on their personal experiences. Personally, I much prefer button type flies but just because my balls got caught in a zipper fly once don't mean I won't hesitate to say that button flies are the best or that zipper flies catch balls, because would be quite unfair to the fine people manufacturing them. Both flies do the same job admirably. To say that in my experience, even though that might be stretching it because it only happened once and I was drunk, zipper flies catch balls would be a more fair statement since it makes clear that this is just my experience and not an indisputable fact. Whilst on the subject, I have a couple of Epiphones that are between 10 and 20 years old and to me personally nothing has ever happened with the studs, or anything else for that matter, well, actually the stupid wood around the output jack cracked on one of them, but still, that's just my experience. Oh, what was the subject here again?
So you are gonna teach me something? Thank you... you are so good to me. I'm gonna bring my communist nose just behind you to learn the absolute truth.
61’s are lighter body color to mimic the look of a real 1961 as it would look today after years if fading
Hang on... Whilst on the subject of catching your balls in a zipper fly... you're then relating that to owning a pair of Epihones? I think that could be taken in several different ways... :)
Ah, true, and if I didn't ramble that much it would perhaps have been more clear that the subject was categorical statements vs personal experiences. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that owning an Epiphone doesn't in any way resemble the feeling of getting your balls caught in a fly, to me at least...
This is what an SG looked like new ... or close to it. That's Elvis holding it, taken from one of his movies. Scotty Moore apparantly owned it and gave it to Elvis to use during the movie. Interesting how the cover on the vibrola is removed. Wonder why he did that? Anyway, you can see the color as they were new. Pretty close to the color of the guitar in first post I think. Cap298 by Steve D posted Jul 8, 2020 at 10:24 AM Elvis Holding a 1961 SG by Steve D posted Jul 8, 2020 at 10:17 AM
It looks like most of the "guts" and arm have been removed too, making it just a fancy trapeze tailpiece.
I just got a 2019 '61...the fretboard was quite dark, and I treated with Dunlop 65, which darkened it further. A couple of other ones I looked at had very light boards, which I chose to avoid. YMMV.
