Gibson Southern Jumbo Deluxe Kalamazoo Sunburst

This is a rich sounding mid 70s Gibson SJ Deluxe dreadnought. The guitar produces a nice, full sound with a tight bottom end and crisp mids and highs. The neck is also quite comfortable with great action up & down the fingerboard. The guitar is in fair condition overall. Cosmetically the areas next to the sound hole and pickguard are deeply scratched along with small nicks, dings, dents and chips throughout the guitar. The neck is in excellent condition with great action up and down the fingerboard & the truss rod functions perfectly. Double-bound dreadnought body with solid spruce top in sunburst finish. Rosewood bridge with ivoroid saddle, tortoise pickguard and multi-ring rosette.

Neck: Comfortable mahogany neck with a bound rosewood fingerboard & pearloid block inlays.  Frets are in great shape with some light wear.  Nickel Grover tuners are in working condition, with one of the tuners a different tuner.  Despite the cosmetic flaws, the tone and playability of this instrument is excellent.

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We are also happy to provide high resolution pictures to anyone interested in purchasing a guitar.

History: Gibson introduced the Southern Jumbo also known as the Southerner Jumbo or SJ guitar in 1942, as a more "deluxe" version of its popular but plain J-45 model. It featured a sunburst spruce top, mahogany back and sides (a few rare early examples had rosewood back and sides, or rosewood sides only), rosewood bridge and fingerboard, with Gibson's "deluxe" split parallelogram pearl inlays.[1] From 1947 onwards the model also featured a white bound fingerboard, in contrast to the plain (unbound) fingerboard of the cheaper J-45 and its sister (natural finish) J-50 instrument.

For the first 20 years of its existence, the Southern Jumbo - along with its later "sister model", the natural finish SJN or Country Western, introduced in 1956 - possessed a round- or slope-shouldered design, which changed for both models to the more "modern" square-shouldered design (as debuted on the 1960-introduced Hummingbird) in 1962. From 1949, in common with other Gibson and their later sister line Epiphone instruments of the 1960s, the bridge on the Southern Jumbo was of a "belly up" design, which changed to "belly down" in 1969, along with some modifications to the top bracing. In 1970, additional structural reinforcement to the top (the (in)famous double-X bracing) was introduced which contributed to improved structural stability. Along with the Country Western, the SJ was discontinued in 1978

Specifications

History