After all that internet searching and dealing with idiots and service-deficient organisations over the past week, I actually found the finish I'd already decided I wanted in a shop I'd not thought to look in because it's on the north side of the city and I just never go to the north side of the city. Who knew that they even had guitar shops up there?
Had I not got the email about the 20 years service bonus I might have gone the import route and saved about 10% but that was going to take months, so what the hey, and here we are.
I rang the dealer up this morning as they had stock Gibson pictures on the website and the tops on these things vary widely, as I've noticed on the Anderton's site, asked them to email me some real pictures, they did - and it's exactly the sort of finish I was after - and I skived off from work for an hour and a half, and came back with a new guitar.
And the staff at the store were good too. "Nice" musos, as opposed to "I'm cool" musos.
It's probably not quite as yellow as it appears in the photo - some sunlight came in as I took the snap. Now I'm going to weigh it to see if I've actually bought a lighter guitar than the one I've got, and then, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to plug it into something.
See ya...
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)