Gibson SG Standard, Cherry (1966)

1966 Gibson SG Standard just in!

This isn't just any SG Standard. In a twisted, hilarious, and downright awesome coincidence, this very SG got stamped with the true mark of the beast- Serial # 000666. We can't make this up!

We went so far as to reach out to our good friends at Gibson to corroborate this. Sure enough, it's listed accurately, and shipped out of Kalamazoo on November 28, 1966.

A '66 SG, verified as shipped in '66, with a serial number of 666...

Shouldn't this be enough to convince you that you need the only original SG Standard on the planet with this serial number?! What if we told you that it happened to be a MONSTER of a guitar on top of all this?!

All puns aside, after putting in some work to get this guitar ready for its next phase of life, it revealed itself as one of the very best sounding and feeling SGs we've encountered from this era. We're gonna tick some pretty significant boxes here. The guitar is free of headstock breaks or heel breaks/repairs- already ahead of the game when it comes to vintage SGs! The electronics are also original to the guitar, including the very awesome sounding set of Patent # humbuckers and fully functioning harness.

When the guitar first came in, it was in desperate need of a fret job. The original frets were still on the guitar, and the playability just wasn't there. Its electronics had also been modified. In the late 70s, the pickup leads were replaced with 4-conductor wire, and wired to a pair of toggle switches installed directly above the volume knobs. Thankfully, the pickups themselves (coil, bobbins, etc) were left alone. We sent the pickups to humbucker wizard Ron Ellis to not only confirm our hunch, but delicately restore this back to traditional 2-conductor wiring. Ron confirmed what we knew- original winds were still intact! The replacement leads were installed back into the original harness, and we were back in business!

In the meantime, we enlisted Laurent Brondel with the task of closing up the old toggle switch holes and refretting the fingerboard. Naturally, Laurent's work is exceptional on this guitar. The fresh Jescar 51100 fretwire combined with Laurent's amazing setup work brought this SG's playability well beyond what it had probably ever been. He did a fantastic job of plugging the mahogany in the body, too. Great finish touchup!

The guitar had old late 60s Patent Pending Grover Rotomatics on it when it came in, which we elected to leave in place. The reflector knobs had been swapped out for witch hats at some point, too, which still remain. The vibrola arm was missing, so we sourced a proper replacement for it. The ABR-1, saddles, and tailpiece are factory, though.

We can't say enough about this guitar's performance and feel. Even with the Grovers and vibrola, it's very lightweight at just over 7lbs. The neck profile is nice and round with great 1st position depth and an excellent taper.

The pickups are freaky good. Punchy, clear, bouncy, chimey, responsive. There's no favorite position- they're all amazing. You could easily take this SG to any gig and have it do whatever you need. Clean tones are just as inspiring as the gained up riffage these guitars were seemingly born to play.

Paired with its original Lifton hardshell (replaced handle)