For Real and a New Addition to the Herd
Saturday, July 31st, 2010After all my ranting about refins and fret jobs and just about everything else on the 66 ES-345 I recently acquired, I consulted 4 different collectors/dealers as well as all my friends on the Les Paul Forum and the consensus (by a wide margin) is that the finish is, in fact, original. I spoke to the gentleman from whom I bought it and he told me the story of how he came to own it-having bought it from the original owner. he said the guy was a bit of a nut case about keeping the guitar clean-he handled it with a towel and a polishing cloth and got upset when said buyer took it in his hands. Oddly, the fingerboard was complete mess-it looked like it hadn’t been touched for 40 years. There was a layer of gunk right up to the top of the first 10 frets or so. All he needed to do was to take a few minutes of the time spent with polishing the body of the thing and spent it putting a little oil on the board. That’ll usually take most of the fromunda off the thing. I did just that and there isn’t a mark on the fingerboard-some fret wear and a possible refret but the guy must have kept his nails cut to the quick because there wasn’t so much as a scratch in the rosewood. I love being wrong. This guitar sounds amazing-well balanced pickups and likely the early post PAF type with the maroon wire-the ones you want. I can’t know for sure without pulling a cover off which I don’t plan on doing. I may keep this one for myself it’s so good but if you’re interested in one of these, keep your eyes on the For Sale page and see if this unbelievably shiny ES 345 shows up. It ain’t mint-it’s got some wear on the hardware and a few chips and some checking but it’s got to be a 9.8. Cleanest 60’s guitar I’ve seen in awhile and totally untouched. The pot cans are intact, the solder is original, the pickups had never been removed or even unscrewed (which is one of the ways I knew it wasn’t a full refinish). I love a happy ending and I’m sure the seller didn’t want to have to deal with authenticating the finish and reselling it. This is a good cautionary tale. No matter how much you know about a particular model of guitar, you don’t know everything and getting the opinions of your peers in invaluable. I thank the usual gang at the Les Paul Forum for their experience and their insight. What a great bunch-even if most of them think a Les Paul is a better guitar than a 335. Also, just in case you think I’m just sitting around playing all day, I just bought an early 65 (stop tail-wide nut) 335 from Mexico (which scares the crap out of me) from a very nice and well spoken (in English-I’m sure he’s much better spoken in Spanish) gentleman who, I believe is the original owner.Here’s a photo of the guitar that will hereafter be known as “The Mexican”