Another bucket list guitar "fell" into my lap.
Just minding my business, and along in my fleabay saved searches comes a '68 Melody Maker, Pelham Blue (obviously... you guys should already have figured that part out by now )
Now, your saying to yourself, "there are plenty of vintage MM's available in PB. what makes this so special?"
and you are right!
thing is, I was after a bit of a different beast. I hate the smaller headstock, I just feel like it was cop-out by gibson, and i'll never understand it. it's fine, but i much prefer the open book headstock.
Now, later in the run, they move to the big headstock (68-69ish) not sure of the exact date. they are a bit rarer, as they made less near the end of the run for MM's.
And lots of these big headstock models are the awful walnut with a gross walnut headstock. ew.
let's get trickier. What about a stinger headstock? the stinger headstock is the black cover on the reverse of some Gibson headstocks. these were done to cover up any imperfections after the neck is sanded down. At this point it wouldn't be worth it to Gibson to scrap it, as many hours had gone into the guitar at the point. So they shot a black "stinger" onto the back of the headstock to cover up any knots, etc.
If you were to ask me what my "dream" vintage MM is? easy.. Big Headstock Pelham Blue w/ Stinger
best part? I paid hundreds less than asking price.
https://reverb.com/item/405607-gibson-s ... r-1968-pel
