1984 Greco EG59-45 = bottom of the EG line

[guitar hiro]

all outta Grecos for some time so, I thought I would grab this bottom of the EG line EG59-45 EB all black

all original, all solid and amazingly just a hair over 8 lb.

gotta love that top carve

I think this one may be a lot of fun ....... we'll see

 

[guitar hiro]

1984 Greco EG59-45 arrived today and I would rate the condition as very good.

Everything on this 39 year old Greco EG looks to be 100% original; even the jack plate looks to be original which some are changed out for a metal piece.

Guitar weighs in at 8 lb. - 3.5 oz. which is quite light in weight for a solid EG.

I was expecting a 3 piece maple top but this one is a 2 piece/center seam top.
Hog back is also a 2 piece but is off-set from center.

Neck is a bit on the thinner side at fret 1 for my taste but will be putting new strings on the beast to see what she sounds like.

Always wanted a black LP Standard type and this one is all black.
I think I will call this one '8 ball.'

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

HNGD!

 

[Sigmania]

Indeed. Congratulations!

 

[Freebird]

The lightweight could mean that it’s semi hollow. Maybe, maybe not. Take out the pickups and see what you see.

 

[guitar hiro]

The lightweight could mean that it’s semi hollow. Maybe, maybe not. Take out the pickups and see what you see.

I have owned several solid EGs and a couple 'hollow' examples too.
The seller posted the two photos below so, I knew before bidding the routes did not exhibit the typical known hollow EG configuration. Also, the toggle route is a clue, which is solid, with the typical small worm route as seen on solid EG examples.
No doubt the example I purchased is solid.

 

[Sigmania]

Cool at least one of the pots that I could see looked like it was from August 1983?

 

[guitar hiro]

all four pots are coded 38 K and 504042

It is really nice to see an example such as this one at 39 years of age with the original wiring harness, pots, everything, etc. fully intact and no broken solder. The pots work just fine with no issues. Not a huge fan of the Screamin 1982 pups but working the volume and tone pots can make these things sound pretty decent. No real reason to change a thing on this one, yet. LOL

As far as hollowed out EGs: I recall one particular 1980 example i had many years ago with a pretty nice laminated flame top and a dark burst finish color. I believe the guitar had UD pickups and the guitar weighed about 7.5 lb.
It sounded a bit like between a Les Paul and an ES type guitar; very interesting guitar.
I prolly should have kept that one. Oops .......

 

[Freebird]

Maybe the light weight is attributed to the non-maple top. I think some of them were made out of Sycamore.

 

[guitar hiro]

@Freebird per previous post the top is maple.

flame laminates for some EG models were sycamore but I'm not aware of any sycamore solid tops. That would be news to me. 1982 EG59-45 is listed as having a maple top and that spec changing in 1984 would seem a bit odd, to say the least.

My guess is the Mahogany body back (did they use African Khaya then?) likely has some very wide annual ring separation/width which would typically lend itself to lighter weight lumber. Difficult to know though as the entire guitar is covered in black paint.

Below is pictured the body back of a BLS-59 I sold several years ago. It has a 1 piece body back made from rift sawn African Khaya with some quite wide annual ring spacing. This one was 8 lb. even.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

guitar hiro is right - this is the old European-American language divide causing confusion about what kind of tree a sycamore is:

Americans tend to call trees of the genus Platanus aka plane trees (Platanus occidentalis) "sycamore", which is unrelated to maple and doesn't really play a role in instrument making. In most other parts of the world, particularly in Europe and Japan sycamore usually means Acer pseudoplatanus, which is - as the latin name indicates - indeed a species of maple. It's even known as "sycamore maple" and more often "European" or "English" maple in the US but it's not a native species there and calling it just "sycamore" causes misunderstandings. Even Gibson produced "sycamore" (...-maple) guitars without making this distinction.

This medium hard and dense type of maple has a long tradition in instrument making, its comparatively high yield of (flame-) figured wood made it a standard for famous violins and generally stringed instruments since ancient times.

 

[Sigmania]

Fun fact, Tokai used sycamore laminates on some Tokais in and around 1985. I had a 1985 LS80 with sycamore laminate. The grain does resemble the Patanus grain and I can see where the confusion may come from.


And obviously guitar hiro knows his woods.... Have had those conversations already around mahogany and the like.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

You mean they used American sycamore? Now I'm really confused.

American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis):



Tokai LS with sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) top:

 

[Sigmania]

From a distance it looks like this.

 

[Sigmania]

Didn’t mean to hijack the thread by talking about another guitar.

I guess no matter what it is there is maple under the veneer. So that wouldn’t affect the weight unless they used different species and or grades of maple with painted guitars.

Trying to bring the horse back to the barn. Lol

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Ah OK that makes sense, that looks like (lower grade) sycamore maple (veneer, it's almost always used as veneer). To help with the horse, I've played a lot of cheap guitars that were sounding great, expensive timber is mostly expensive for its appearance and whether or not that also impacts the sound - oh, that's another rabbit hole....sheesh.

 

[guitar hiro]

Just so anyone here knows: I'm not here to be 'right' and no one else here is wrong.

We are all here as members of this awesome forum, we all have opinions and experience and we are here to understand and to learn so, no harm, no foul.

All contributions are welcome and we all learn as we go forward.

 

[guitar hiro]

all four pots are coded 38 K and 504042

It is really nice to see an example such as this one at 39 years of age with the original wiring harness, pots, everything, etc. fully intact and no broken solder. The pots work just fine with no issues. Not a huge fan of the Screamin 1982 pups but working the volume and tone pots can make these things sound pretty decent. No real reason to change a thing on this one, yet. LOL

As far as hollowed out EGs: I recall one particular 1980 example i had many years ago with a pretty nice laminated flame top and a dark burst finish color. I believe the guitar had UD pickups and the guitar weighed about 7.5 lb.
It sounded a bit like between a Les Paul and an ES type guitar; very interesting guitar.
I prolly should have kept that one. Oops ......

I believe the 504042 code is a manufacturer code as I was just looking at some pics of one of Cliff's EGF-1800s and it has the same pot codes

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

504042 is indeed a manufacturer, item or production code (often found on tone pots, 504072 on volume pots). 38 is August 1983 and (IIRC) K usually indicates audio (log-) taper.