“Goof Strip”??? Updated
What the what? A "goof strip"????
What’s the heck is this? Here’s a very original 64 which is complete with all of its original paperwork-including the invoice and it seems to have an extra piece of plastic between the neck pickup and the neck. Now, Gibson has been know to “adapt” partially built guitars to become slightly different guitars. Most of you are probably familiar with the “goof rings” on some 70’s goldtop Les Pauls that fill the gap between the mini humbuckers that were apparently placed in the P90 routs.
Here's a genyoowine '60 burst with the same strip sent to me by one of my regular guitar buddies. I wonder how much that takes off the value.
Waste not, want not, I guess. But, while those aren’t particularly common, they aren’t exactly rare either. But the “goof strip” if that’s what it is on this guitar is a new one on me. It was sent to me by a reader who asked me if it was original and I have almost no doubt that it is. I asked him to pull the neck pick to see what the rout looks like. I’ll update the post as soon as I get it. It would make sense, I suppose that if the router slips on an already completed 335 body, that it wouldn’t automatically hit the trash bin but I would expect maybe a “2” stamp to indicate a flaw. Not here. We all are aware that weird stuff happened all the time and if any one of you out there has some oddball feature like this, I’d like to see it. The first thing I though was that perhaps they were messing with a new way to do the neck join at the tenon. Gibson did do some unusual things like that-I had a 335 that appeared to have been stained using a rag rather than a spray gun that was authenticated as original. I guess the sprayer got clogged and he needed to hit his quota. It was, perhaps, the darkest cherry 335 I’ve had. Back to the “goof strip”-it occurred to me that it was sort of like the upper cover on an SG which covers part of the tenon. But I really think it’s covering an oversized or misplaced rout , in fact, you can see a little bit of unfinished area at the lower left hand corner as well. But, generally the pickup ring is pretty much butt up against the fingerboard so you couldn’t even fit this strip in there. So, here’s another theory-perhaps the buyer wanted the neck pickup to be slightly farther from the bridge for some sort of tonal reason and asked Gibson to make him a custom. Gibson being Gibson, instead of custom routing one, maybe they just took one that was completed, enlarged the rout to accommodate the move and put in the strip. Sounds a lot like Gibson, doesn’t it? What would we do without all these silly minutiae that occupy so much of out time and make this all so much fun.
In case you’re wondering what “goof rings” look like, here’s a 70’s Les Paul Deluxe probably routed for P90s that got minis. Cheap bastards.
If you routed the thing for P90s, just put in the damn P90s and sell it. Ass covering is a pet peeve of mine. Pay no attention to the loony behind the curtain
Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at 10:12 pm • ES 335 • RSS 2.0 feed
• leave a response or trackback
There was a 60′ burst on Dave Roger’s site for sale last year and it had the same plastic strip but in cream color…also seemed to be much bigger!!
But seeing the same thing on a 335 is a first for sure!
Lennon’s ’65 Casino had the black ring around the selector which was probably stock. It’s there in the early pictures from before he stripped it down.
I knew I’d seen it somewhere else.
Have seen the “filler strip” on many SG’s, but never on a 335. It looks from the closeup that the length of the actual fingerboard may have been shortened, possibly the end of the fingerboard was damaged, then recut prior to the binding being installed. This slight gap between the pickup ring and the end of the fingerboard is not that uncommon…..take a close look at your ’65 “Mexican” 335; it shows an almost identical gap, but with no strip.
I finally got around to removing the pickup ring and there is a small cut that runs under the “goof strip” about where the B string would be. I’ve been told it is factory and to leave the strip, so i think that is what i will do.
Wonder how much this affects the value?
May I note that on this same guitar, the truss rod bell cover is so close to the nut, that it has been shimmed straight just a fraction on the end closest to the nut so that it could be installed. A normal bell cover has the rounded end where the screw is placed.
I wonder if this had anything to do with the “goof strip” on the other end of the neck?
has anyone ever seen that before.
The goof strip is factory and shouldn’t affect the value of the guitar appreciably. Knock off $100. Really., That’s Gibson. The truss thing usually means the nut was replaced-I’ve seen it before and in every case it looked like the nut had been redone. It is because the replacement nut is wider than the original and once the repair guy has widened out the slot to accommodate it, he doesn’t realize the truss cover won’t fit any more and he can’t make the slot narrower now that he’s already widened, so he has very few options. If the nut is definitely original, you could asssume the same thing could have happened at the factory by a worker with a heavy hand on the router (same guy who screwed up the pickup rout). Must have been a Monday guitar or the guy had a few with his lunch that day.