Kind of silly to get all bent because a certain wood combination is no longer available. Here’s just a few sob stories about manufacturers dropping unpopular models over the years.
Fender
Back in the 60s and 70s, Fender used to offer a few dozen “custom colors”. Most old Ps and Js you see, especially pre-CBS ones, are sunburst. They probably shipped 20 or 30 bursts for every custom color order. Today they give you a choice of just 3 or 4 colors and they change them up all the time, with burst and black pretty much always available (but got forbid you want to match the fingerboard wood with the color). When I got an AmStd P5, it was “Candy Cola” with a maple board. Rosewood boards were only offerd that year for bursts and white. The color was red, but not Candy Apple Red, darker. If you wanted Lake Placid Blue, Seafoam Green or CAR, too bad. A few years later the color choices switched and Candy Cola disappeared.
Today’s AmPro II P4 2024 colors are burst, black “Dark Night”, “Miami Blue”, “Mystic Surf Green”, and Olympic White. Burst, black and white come with maple or rosewood boards, but the others are either maple only or rosewood only. The P5 is only in burst/rosewood, dark night/maple, miami blue/maple and white/rosewood.
The 2024 P4 Ultra is sunburst or “Mocha burst" with rosewood board or “Arctic Pearl” (white) with maple board.
The 2024 P4 Performer is Satin Lake Placid Blue with maple board or sunburst or arctic white with rosewood board. No sunburst!
The 2024 P4 Player Plus is “Silver Smoke”/maple, “Olympic Pearl” (white)/pau ferro, Fiesta Red/maple, burst/pau ferro and a lefty (only) in “BelAir Blue”/maple.
The 2024 P4 Player is burst/maple or lefty (only) “Tidal Pool” (blue)/maple. Forget about pau ferro or rosewood.
Wait a year or two and the color/fingerboard choices will change again.
Walter Woods (handbuilt amps)
I was on Walter’s waiting list for 3 years to get a “green light” 450W amp. I checked in with him every year until he told me he was only building the “blue light” 1200W version ($600 more) because not enough people were asking for his other models to bother making circuit boards and ordering the parts. The 100W (“red light”) and 600W (“amber light”) were also on permanent backorder. He told me if I wanted the 1200W in either mono or stereo I could have one in a few weeks, but if I really wanted the 450W I should find a used one. That’s what I did…found one in about two weeks...and Walter has since done a repair for me for free, even though he knew I wasn’t the original owner. He also talked me through a repair that he said was simple enough there was no reason to send it to him.
Steinberger
After Ned sold his company to Gibson they immediately dropped the XP basses. They started selling imported “Spirit” versions of the XL, XM (and later XQ) basses which were all wood and had passive electronics unlike the one piece carbon fiber construction of the XL and the carbon fiber necks of the XM and XQ (all with active electronics). In the mid 90s the carbon fiber models were all discontinued and a new imported wooden Synpase model with carbon fiber stiffeners in the neck arrived. The Synapse and Spirits both disappeared after a few years but a few years ago Gibson started selling Spirits again. The possibility of Gibson ever making carbon fiber Steinberger basses again is probably zero.
Gibson Thunderbird
After being released in 1963 with one pickup (oddly called Thunderbird II) or two pickup (Thunderbird IV) neck-through models (the Firebird guitar models were I, III and V…got it?) they switched to the “non-reverse” body set neck style in 1966 and dropped them in 1969. Most were sunburst, but a number of other colors were offered…blue, red, white, green and maybe others but not black! In 1976, a “bicentennial” non-reverse Tbird IV came out in fewer colors and lasted until 1979. Then nothing until the Tbird IV came back in 1987 but with different pickups and bridge designs, for many years sunburst only but now and then, black, white, red and “heather poly” were offered. Along the way there was a brief period of the Tbird “Studio” with set neck construction and even a short scale model. Not to mention endless variations in the Epiphone lineup and ongoing pickup changes. There was a reissue of the “non-reverse” Tbird IV in 2021 that’s still in the catalog in green, blue and “burgundy” but not burst and the r”reverse” Tbird IV in burst only is officially discontinued but it might come back at any moment…and the saga continues… So if you just want a Tbird II, forget it, be happy with sunburst and if you want a Tbird IV with vintage style pickups and hardware it's only available from Epiphone.
Fender
Back in the 60s and 70s, Fender used to offer a few dozen “custom colors”. Most old Ps and Js you see, especially pre-CBS ones, are sunburst. They probably shipped 20 or 30 bursts for every custom color order. Today they give you a choice of just 3 or 4 colors and they change them up all the time, with burst and black pretty much always available (but got forbid you want to match the fingerboard wood with the color). When I got an AmStd P5, it was “Candy Cola” with a maple board. Rosewood boards were only offerd that year for bursts and white. The color was red, but not Candy Apple Red, darker. If you wanted Lake Placid Blue, Seafoam Green or CAR, too bad. A few years later the color choices switched and Candy Cola disappeared.
Today’s AmPro II P4 2024 colors are burst, black “Dark Night”, “Miami Blue”, “Mystic Surf Green”, and Olympic White. Burst, black and white come with maple or rosewood boards, but the others are either maple only or rosewood only. The P5 is only in burst/rosewood, dark night/maple, miami blue/maple and white/rosewood.
The 2024 P4 Ultra is sunburst or “Mocha burst" with rosewood board or “Arctic Pearl” (white) with maple board.
The 2024 P4 Performer is Satin Lake Placid Blue with maple board or sunburst or arctic white with rosewood board. No sunburst!
The 2024 P4 Player Plus is “Silver Smoke”/maple, “Olympic Pearl” (white)/pau ferro, Fiesta Red/maple, burst/pau ferro and a lefty (only) in “BelAir Blue”/maple.
The 2024 P4 Player is burst/maple or lefty (only) “Tidal Pool” (blue)/maple. Forget about pau ferro or rosewood.
Wait a year or two and the color/fingerboard choices will change again.
Walter Woods (handbuilt amps)
I was on Walter’s waiting list for 3 years to get a “green light” 450W amp. I checked in with him every year until he told me he was only building the “blue light” 1200W version ($600 more) because not enough people were asking for his other models to bother making circuit boards and ordering the parts. The 100W (“red light”) and 600W (“amber light”) were also on permanent backorder. He told me if I wanted the 1200W in either mono or stereo I could have one in a few weeks, but if I really wanted the 450W I should find a used one. That’s what I did…found one in about two weeks...and Walter has since done a repair for me for free, even though he knew I wasn’t the original owner. He also talked me through a repair that he said was simple enough there was no reason to send it to him.
Steinberger
After Ned sold his company to Gibson they immediately dropped the XP basses. They started selling imported “Spirit” versions of the XL, XM (and later XQ) basses which were all wood and had passive electronics unlike the one piece carbon fiber construction of the XL and the carbon fiber necks of the XM and XQ (all with active electronics). In the mid 90s the carbon fiber models were all discontinued and a new imported wooden Synpase model with carbon fiber stiffeners in the neck arrived. The Synapse and Spirits both disappeared after a few years but a few years ago Gibson started selling Spirits again. The possibility of Gibson ever making carbon fiber Steinberger basses again is probably zero.
Gibson Thunderbird
After being released in 1963 with one pickup (oddly called Thunderbird II) or two pickup (Thunderbird IV) neck-through models (the Firebird guitar models were I, III and V…got it?) they switched to the “non-reverse” body set neck style in 1966 and dropped them in 1969. Most were sunburst, but a number of other colors were offered…blue, red, white, green and maybe others but not black! In 1976, a “bicentennial” non-reverse Tbird IV came out in fewer colors and lasted until 1979. Then nothing until the Tbird IV came back in 1987 but with different pickups and bridge designs, for many years sunburst only but now and then, black, white, red and “heather poly” were offered. Along the way there was a brief period of the Tbird “Studio” with set neck construction and even a short scale model. Not to mention endless variations in the Epiphone lineup and ongoing pickup changes. There was a reissue of the “non-reverse” Tbird IV in 2021 that’s still in the catalog in green, blue and “burgundy” but not burst and the r”reverse” Tbird IV in burst only is officially discontinued but it might come back at any moment…and the saga continues… So if you just want a Tbird II, forget it, be happy with sunburst and if you want a Tbird IV with vintage style pickups and hardware it's only available from Epiphone.
