The Gibson ES-335

This weeks ES of the week thinks it's a 69 but I don't. How many things can you spot-before you read the text, I mean, that tell you otherwise.

Here’s something you don’t see every day. A dealer with a reasonably priced 335 that’s dated wrong. On top of that, it appears to be dated later than it actually is-how often does that happen-oh, like NEVER!! I’ve dealt with Ben at Southside Guitars and he’s a nice guy and a straight shooter. I’m not sure how he got 1969 as the year on this one. **UPDATE: Seller read this post and changed the listing**Let’s see what we see. We’ll do the easy stuff first. High flowerpot inlay: These were all over the place so it’s hard to date a guitar from that alone but it’s easy to see and it tells you it’s more likely from 66 or 65. But I’ve seen this inlay on later guitars as well so we’ll move on. In ’68, the cutaways got kind of rounded again-not so round as the Mickey Mouse ears but a lot rounder than the pointy 64-67 ears I’m seeing on this one. In 1969, the nice folks at Gibson decided it was too expensive to put a dot on the “i” in Gibson. After all, you had to buy  the pearl dot and stick it in there and time is money and all that economic stuff. This has the dot which would indicate that it probably isn’t from ’69. One of the more consistent changes made during this long transitional era of 65-69 was the size of the f-holes. It can be really hard to tell the big ones (68 and later) from the thinner ones (65-67). These look like they could go either way but I’m going to call them the small ones which would suggest 65-67. Now, the tougher things-tougher not because they’re harder to spot but because they are easy to change and thus can be misleading. The knobs appear to be witch hats which appeared in late 66. The tuners are another tell but they are hard to see in the photos. What I’m looking for is whether they say Gibson Deluxe (68 and later) or Kluson Deluxe (65-68). They are certainly double line double ring but all I can read for sure in the”… son” part which doesn’t help me. I’m going to guess Kluson which would make it a 65-67. So, there’s isn’t much that says it’s a 69 is there.  Pot codes wouldn’t tell us much because Gibson bought so many in 1966 that you see them for years. The bottom of the pickups might help. If the screws are slotted, we can pretty much eliminate 66 since they were just about all philips then. I’ve seen philips through 1969 but if they are slotted it will get us another step closer to a conclusion. I wrote an email to Ben to ask him how he came up with a 69 date for this but I haven’t heard back yet. I also gave him the URL of this site. If this guitar is, in fact, a 66, then the asking price is in the ballpark. You could also make him an offer. I’ve played some amazing 66’s and as long as you can deal with the thinner nut (and this one looks pretty thin), they can be great playing and great sounding too. I don’t like 69’s very much due to the lack of a long neck tenon and the workmanship can be pretty shoddy but this one looks good to me. I’m going to conclude it’s a very late 66 or very early 67. This guitar, whatever year it is has been played a lot (always a sign that it plays well) and it’s been in some less than ideal conditions. The finish has some serious checking. If you like that look, you can call it serious mojo. If you don’t, you can say the finish is cracked. Keep in mind it’s purely cosmetic, so if you’re looking for something to play rather than look at, this could be your guitar. Oh, and what about the serial number? It looks like 855157 although it’s tough to read.  If I’m right about the serial, that would make it a 66 but of course the last thing you want to go by is the serial number on a Gibson.

Call it checking, call it mojo, call it finish cracks, hell, call it Bob if you want. It says to me that this guitar has been through some rough weather. Takes a knockin' and keeps on rockin'

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 at 11:49 am • ES 335 • RSS 2.0 feed • leave a response or trackback