Gibson Les Paul Spotlight Special Collection! | Trogly's Unboxing Guitars Vlog #122 Thanksgiving

welcome back troglodytes to your daily dose of guitar information the trogley's guitar show today it's a really special day for me because i bought a collection of what is pretty much my favorite model that gibson has ever made as far as you know like the 70s and 80s because there's cool guitars that were made all the time it's hard to pick an absolute favorite but for something that really stands out above the rest it's always been the spotlight special for me and when i first started collecting guitars in my late teenage years i thought other models were cool but when i finally found these things in that one les paul book this model literally became the only thing i cared about i mean i would classify my old collection of spotlight specials as an addiction i was not mentally well with how much i would sacrifice to get those guitars like when most people say it's a guitar addiction they don't mean it's like an addiction addiction but i'll dive a little bit more into that in a minute but on reverb one night i just happen to see one of the most beautiful spotlight specials get listed so i was reading through the description making sure there's nothing nefarious about it or anything you know had stock breaks replaced parts whatnot and it said hey i'm selling five more of these if anybody's interested in the whole collection i said yup yup that's mine so long story short i bought them i'll tell you the rest of the story as we unbox the others but let's go ahead and see the very first of my new spotlight collection that i had purchased here oh man it's one of the nicer ones out of this whole set so this is a spotlight special i mean you can check out my full reviews and demos on these instruments if you're interested in learning a little bit more about them oh man that one's nice i plan on doing an updated review and demo because there's a few very special ones within this collection they're kind of sentimental to me but the story goes you know 1983 they made about 211 of these now there is a little bit of controversy on the true number because you can also find someone 84 like this one number nine this is the only 84 that i've personally ever owned then i have seen one from 1985 before but i think that was more like hey hey we're replacing this guitar under warranty for somebody or something but this is the first one beautiful antique natural the more rare and desirable finish because it gets the double colored binding so brown binding with cream binding and you get that double mixture here on the fretboard and the top on this one yes that is a very active flame top that is beautiful and it's supposed to be all original and hey this one even has one of those very shortly live gibson usa versions of the lifton case you don't see these too often but they are original however i would argue this was probably about five years after this guitar you normally find these in the late 80s but ooh looks like things fell out of my case pocket that could have been much worse than that was so somebody has modern strap buttons on here for some reason okay oh my goodness this was a ex mike's lebowski guitar mike slobowski is what i imagine everybody else thinks of me like not exactly like he's a rich doctor so he can afford all these cool guitars but slobowski i mean he's probably the reason why i like these spotlights as much as i do and the reason i got into guitar collecting because he had those few basic short articles about really rare norlin air guitars and that ramped up my drive for old gibsons so knowing that this is an ex-lebowski it's kind of cool spotlight specials for me are kind of like bursts for other rich guitar collectors i like to know the story behind the guitar i like each individual model and my old goal in life was simply to own every single one that was ever made and start a museum now that just kind of seemed like a crazy idea back then but you know it's starting to seem more like a reality i'm telling you guys things like my guitar museum and things like that and i truly think it will happen one day so that's why i'm starting to hold back really special examples now will i have a dedicated museum just to spotlight specials no probably not but will i have a dedicated room who knows who knows but anyways the story behind this collection is it was located in colorado i believe it was a father daughter they just started to collect these because they really like the model i'm sure they were influenced by slobowski in those books as well however i'm not sure if the father has passed on or if they just got out of the whole collecting of this i mean they had six of them that's a pretty good amount but the child of the father decided to sell these things off like i think it was on this box over here i forgot to mention it it reads thank you thank you endlessly for your patience through this transaction it was a tough decision for them to sell these ones but they know that it's going exactly where they should be signed keaton and at least two of these guitars you know i'm very thankful to get back but again um i'm just pushing that story a little bit further until we find which one it is and i don't think it'll be this one this should be something else oh no there she is okay so my initial spotlight collection the reason why i sold it is a i felt like i was getting way too addicted and b i needed to buy a house because you know i was ready to move out of my mom's house start my own life and ah man that really stinks is it yup it is okay so this was the very first spotlight i have ever owned i took a fantastic trip to purchase this guitar i'll tell you a little bit more about that when i do the full review and demo of this one that i think we should treat ourselves to since i have it back but this is the one that started it all for me and unfortunately when i sold it to that collector guy he bought my entire collection off of ebay and then he parted it out so i really wanted number 21 from fred at americana but he ended up trading this one in 188 to fretted americana for the antique natural that i wanted for my 21st birthday because it was number 21. so i always hated seeing my old guitars at uh david brass's shop because it's like ah that's just a double whammy not only did my collection get split up but unfortunately uh he took the other one that i wanted but i'm kind of sad because this guitar was like almost mint condition like it wasn't perfect it had definitely been played but it did not have any of these big dings and gouges so unfortunately between point a and point b somebody really you know really really ding this guy up like i remember that was there and you know maybe that was there maybe it's just i'm looking back with rose colored glasses and i don't remember all these nicks and dings but i really don't remember it on the top but one thing i do know about this guitar is it is amazing in person i mean look at this thing but it takes photos like garbage this top does not like being photographed now you can get that sweet spot angle like right here but generally it just looks pretty plain until you know you get it at one of those key angles but it's a beautiful guitar i'm not gonna sell this one again i mean i have personal history with it it's number 22. i'm just glad it didn't get broken and shipping this is not the case i sent it out in but i think they kind of played musical chairs for a little bit oh and that's the other thing i'm really sad the guy that bought my collection i used to have journals in with these guitars that documented my entire tale because i thought hey you know in the future i might like to read back on that but the guy took him out of the case he said he was going to send him back to me and he never did and then unfortunately he died but he was the president of the company non-box and i tried to get a hold of his son to see if i could buy back my other ones because i know he has my old super crazy quilt top one and he has number two that's one that i kind of regretted selling as well but if anybody's in wisconsin it's a certain museum that has like a les paul exhibit i'd be curious if my old ones are actually on display somewhere in there or if anybody happens to have access to that family i would love the opportunity to be able to buy those back i know i was shocked when i was i was just looking it up casually one day to see if i could uh contact him because i'd send him an email never heard back from him and then i saw that news articles like whoa gone it kind of shook me because that guy was not that old but he would have those guitars on display at those places so i'm hoping one day i can get my original collection back pretty much 36 is going to be the hardest one to get because i sent it off to hong kong and fun story behind that a guy actually purchased it simply because his wife was giving birth to his child and he wanted to give her a really cool present and 36 was mint condition but right here ladies and gentlemen is my least favorite spotlight special i've ever owned this is the other one there were only two of my original ones within this collection and it was the two that went to david brass at fred and americana now frederick americana if you're not familiar that was the old you know philax show so it's kind of cool that in a roundabout way i did get one of those guitars at the same time but i initially bought this off of a guitar form i think like for 4 000 bucks the first time i mean i'm not sure what all these dents and dings are maybe they actually gigged these things is that what it was but you know in comparison to my other spotlights that i had owned at the time i mean despite this having a nicely figured back like you can see what i'm talking about here it was way heavier than the other ones it's not as heavy as i remember but it just it wasn't as good as the other ones so this was simply a collection piece i honestly didn't care if i got this one back i don't like the antique sunbursts that look like this i'm not as big of a fan of them just because you know it's a darker color i like the more honey burst colored ones and unfortunately yeah i i would say this is definitely in worse condition than it left me so that's kind of a buzz kill unfortunately i was hoping these would be about the same but the uh the family that must have bought these from federated americana they must have gigged out with them and that's kind of cool it adds to some of the story i was trying to get as much information from them that i could but if you're wondering why it says you know sorry for so long it would take her like a week each time just to send one email she had other stuff going on and most people would probably like red flag red flag but that's probably the only way this collection actually sat on the market for as long as it did so kind of thankful for that in a roundabout way i was willing to take a risk to get some spotlights back in so these other three should be brand new to me there is one that i'm kind of excited to see because it's my first goofy top but will it be this one i'm not sure but this is the like gibson style lifting case that you would see at these times as compared to that other one i was just showing you the case on this one not in the best of shape i i suppose i can glue it if i want to but let's go ahead and open this up to see one that i have not seen before okay so this is the one that was actually publicly listed on reverb i think she had it for 7 000 bucks i was tempted just to buy it like that because it's like dang if somebody else buys this guitar i will be sad like it's got good movement heavily quilted figuring this is one of the nicer asb spotlights that i've seen now it's just got that really great tight quilting it's got some good movement it photographs well at pretty much every angle that's not always a good thing though it's like sometimes my original 22 might look better than this one but the condition is definitely better on this i was kind of turned off by the chipping on the headstock around the tuner posts that's something i generally really dislike but thankfully this example it's fairly minor it's just in the clear coat no breaks cracks or repairs on this but this is number 15. i don't think i've ever seen this one it's got a few nicks and dings i mean it's it's in the condition that i remember my 22 being in but that is just a beautiful example this one's all original some of these other ones have had replaced parts but i love the spotlight knobs pretty much the only downside to this one is you know the gold's kind of tarnished right there but not that big of a deal so i think this is another one i'm gonna hold on to because now i'm at the point do i get addicted again and start buying them all up or or do i just keep the really nice all original ones or the ones that have the unique interesting tops i mean thankfully i have a youtube channel that can support that addiction if i wanted to be the crazy spotlight guy again but if i tell you guys that's what i'm doing then the prices are gonna go up so no spotlights suck nobody should buy these things they're terrible garbage guitars you'd be lucky to get a thousand bucks for one on the other extreme i used to track all the spotlights that ever showed up and there were certain guys who had owned them like from brand new and they said i will never sell you this guitar but if you ever start that museum i will gladly donate it to you so like there's some motivation there to start that museum just to get donated spotlights but man i'm having a big snow pile over here so one of these things was actually in pretty bad condition i probably wouldn't have normally bought it but as with most things in life if you buy things in bulk you get a better deal and hey i'm never going to turn down a spotlight even if i don't want to keep it it's easy enough to find a new owner for it but i would hate to be the evil villain in somebody else's story that parts out the collection so it's like a roll reversal eight years later on i'm the guy buying the collection but in here oh yes so this is one i was talking about last time these are the two face tops i like these because they're just so darn goofy and i fell in love with mike slobowski's one of these because one side is ridiculously quilted kind of reminds me of my old i think it was number 83 something like that but then the other side is barely even figured i love these they're just goofy it's like if i was gonna choose which side should be heavily figured it should probably be this one because that's what the audience would see because your hand kind of covers it up and whatnot but this is not the one from the slobowski collection that one's actually on reverb and it's sat for like seven and a half thousand bucks i've tried to buy it before but we could just never you know meet on price but this thing i like it it's got a really cool vibe to it i love the ringage on the neck i don't think i've ever seen that on a gibson neck that's cool and obviously one two at least three different sets of tuners this is a marked a factory second i didn't know about that but i don't really care but hey it's number 42. this is the guitar that is the answer to everything and it's got beautiful finish checking like that is just gorgeous natural checking on this thing loving that and i'm curious if this is actually one of the mahogany center stripe ones kind of early for that so it's probably still walnut now unfortunately somebody swapped out our knobs but these are vintage in their own right and the frets surprisingly in good shape for one of these things looks like a swapped out bridge and whatnot but i don't think i'll care about that too much that's kind of cool to see in person but my friends we have one last one and i believe it was her favorite one so that worked out pretty nicely here so let's hop over here and take a look i was really hoping none of these would get broken because there's nothing worse than a spotlight special that's broken when i first started buying these like the antique sunbursts they'd be like 35 to maybe 45. the natural ones people would advertise for like seven and a half like the fred americana one you'll see it in the background of like all their old videos it sat for seven years nobody wanted it for seven grand so you used to get them for five or six and now you're lucky to even touch one with a headstock repair for four and a half let alone find one at the time of recording all i can remember that's currently on the market is the ex lebowski one and then i believe it's eighty four zero zero one i'm still salty about that one because it was gonna get sold to me but somebody swooped in that just happened to be in canada and then they're trying to get 10 grand for it i think uh that seller was going to sell to me for like five and a half that was the first 84 i'd ever seen i was all freaked out about it but now i've seen enough 84s to know that there's a good amount out there all right let's see what is the one that she almost said i can't sell oh yes that's nice so it's got a very wide quilt-esque flame to it all right with that natural head stock now you're starting to see some of the differences between asb and ant antique naturals so this just has a very natural blonde beauty presence like to be honest only two of these were in the condition that i was hoping they would pretty much all be in but spotlights are spotlights to me i just like to know the individual stories of each and unfortunately i mean they couldn't tell me too much besides you know they kind of picked a couple of these up and then the other ones they just bought online so there wasn't much of a tale but this one is 17 from 1983 oh nice a little bit of flame figuring within that mahogany neck you can see it kind of running up and down here and then a little bit of like candy cane striping it is a three-piece mahogany neck sometimes you can find three pieces other times you find one piece i mean it just really depends the whole backstory behind these is a lot of guys go oh yeah they're old 50s tops that were cut too short so they put some walnut now according to randy leonard a guy who was participating in building some of these things these were left over from the heritage 80 elite series they were just too short to make a full top so they slapped some walnut in here that they were trying to get rid of sometimes you'd also find mahogany in the later runs and birthed this beautiful guitars that are highly collectible today some guys don't like that faux neck through vibe but i think that's what makes them special so troglodytes i hope you enjoyed getting to take a sneak peek at a few of these obviously i'm going to keep the really nice ones that i enjoy the other ones i i suppose i could be convinced to part with them at the right price however i think i'm i'm pretty well locked in i think i paid a little bit more than i would have for some of these simply because i could buy a collection i was getting my original ones back but man we need to get a beauty shot here it's kind of bittersweet having a collection of spotlights again because it's not my collection so i don't have quite as much of a physical attachment to most of these like i like to buy these from the original owners when i can get the stories and preserve those and pretty much the only one i can do that is my original 22 button as i said i'll tell you that story again another day but until then it's nice to have these to scratch the itch so to say yeah this one that's gotta be my favorite one of this entire set like that guy great because it's slightly sentimental this one's a bit quirky so i like it that's a beautiful natural one but that's just stunning this one's pretty nice too if you like the flame tops and ye old faithful as far as truss rods go four of them are good two of them got issues so surprise surprise the one that's been heavily gigged you know somebody's been cranking away on that truss rod it's not the worst one i've ever seen but definitely getting towards limited adjustability so that might be a good candidate for the truss rod reset that stu mac was going to help me with and then surprisingly enough mint condition beauty here has a truss rod that has some threads sticking out however to me it looks like i left the factory like that because there's still lacquer even over top of it and sometimes that happens so it might just be that that rod's a little bit longer but technically you know as that sticks out further you're not going to be able to get your tool in there to adjust it so it should potentially be reset so that's a big bummer on this one but at the end of the day these are more so collection pieces for me and they still play fine as is so i'm not as worried about it as i would be on others all right troglodytes i hope you enjoyed don't forget to like comment and subscribe and we will catch you tomorrow on the next episode take care [Music] [Music] do

Channel: The Trogly's Guitar Show

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Keywords: the trogly's guitar show, trogly, gibson, gibson les paul, troglys unboxing vlog, trogly unboxing, guitar unboxing, Gibson spotlight special, gibson spotlight special, gibson les paul spotlight special, gibson spotlight special unboxing, trogly spotlight special, Trogly Thanksgiving Unboxing, Trogly Thanksgiving 2021, Trogly Spotlight Collection, Trogly Collection, troglys guitars, the troglys guitar show, trogly gibson les paul, rare 80s les paul, 1983 spotlight special

Id: dSJDJQSNfRg

Length: 22min 27sec (1347 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 26 2021