Author Topic: Old Gibson pickups and controls (Read 228 times)

edwardofhuncote · « **on:** November 02, 2015, 06:14:13 AM »

Hey folks, I?m getting ready to have a buddy of mine throw this stuff on ebay? but if any of you are interested in the set for a project, just pitch me a fair offer. (use my contact here) The guitar they came off was a late-1960?s Kalamazoo, essentially a house branded Gibson two-pickup Melody Maker. They worked fine, but the switch was a little wonky IIRC. I modded the guitar, then ultimately sold it, so this stuff has been sitting in the shop since.

gtrguy · « **Reply #1 on:** November 02, 2015, 09:53:18 AM »

Cool. The date code on the CTS pot is either a 1966 or 1968. I kinda think it's a 68.

edwardofhuncote · « **Reply #2 on:** November 02, 2015, 10:46:11 AM »

I think the serial # on the guitar was in fact 1968... Gibson serial numbers at that time are notoriously random. It was a cool little guitar in it's own right, even before we modded it with a set of Stewart-MacDonald Golden Age humbuckers and pre-wired harness. At least it let me keep all this stuff intact.

Forest and Joey will get a kick outta' this... though they had nice maple necks with rosewood fretboards, an adjustable truss rod, even all the same hardware as their Gibson counterparts, the bodies of the Kalamazoo instruments were made of this mysterious greyish-beige composite. I later read that Gibson had contracted another local business to mold them. Their main gig was molding (wait-for-it) toilet seats. Yeah... no joke.

I actually had a guitar and a bass. =)

StephenR · « **Reply #3 on:** November 02, 2015, 11:02:36 AM »

I used to have a student model National solid body resonator guitar. We referred to the body finish as Mother of Toilet Seat... I kind of wish I had held on to it, cool guitar and I had a nut extender that made it a neat little guitar for playing slide on. Pretty sure the guitar in the link below is the same model... I sold mine 30 years ago and have no pictures.

https://reverb.com/item/128623-1965-national-reso-phonic-acoustic-resonator-m-o-t-w-original-case

bigredbass · « **Reply #4 on:** November 02, 2015, 10:32:50 PM »

You knew I couldn't let that shot across the bow just lay there, ya just had to bait me. OK . . .

. . . so I guess in the intervening years, MOTS has gotten so expensive to make, they only use it for inlays today.

I once had a 2PU Melody Maker (the original Gibson with the straight peghead), and those pickups were utterly the best AM radio I ever owned. It was great though when bad weather was coming: It would hear the lightning before I could !

Joey