1963 Gibson SJ Southern Jumbo

When it was introduced in 1942, the Southern Jumbo had rounded, sloped shoulders. But in late 1962, Gibson changed the SJ over to a square-shoulder design, matching the shape of the popular Hummingbird. Structurally, the square-shaped Southern Jumbo was built like the Hummingbird, but it retained the same general features of the earlier round-shoulder model.  This 1963 Gibson SJ features the square-shoulder dreadnought body, and it has a 24-3/4" scale. During this period, the SJ was lightly-built with top bracing spread wide and set forward. In 1965, Gibson switched to a narrower neck across the board, but this one still has a 1-11/16" nut width and the early-'60s neck carve.  In 1962, Gibson introduced a bizarre idea: plastic injection-molded bridges on acoustic guitars. Predictably, these plastic bridges held the guitars back from their full potential. But when you replace the inferior plastic with a properly-sized Brazilian Rosewood bridge, the results are fantastic. Early on in thi