Neglected Stepchild No More
Wednesday, July 31st, 2013
Here’s a real nice 59 I had last year. Watch out for repro bridges, knobs and switch tips as folks are scavenging them for their reissue Les Pauls (and others). There are a couple thousand 59’s out there. Get one before the price gets any higher.
I don’t make a lot of predictions about the ES market (although I make a whole lot of observations-not the same thing). Here is the prediction: The early (dot neck) ES-330’s are going to get mighty popular mighty fast. They are the best vintage deal on the planet if you ask me. While the ES-335 market has been kind of flat lately, the ES-330 market has been inching up for the past year or so. The popularity of the relatively new reissue ES-330 has fueled this resurgence to a degree. With the sticker price of the reissue pushing 5 grand and a street price of around $3400, you might want to consider a vintage ES-330. That, I believe is part of the reason the 330 market is so strong. I can’t think of another instance where the vintage price and the reissue price are neck and neck (that’s a joke). I’ve written about 335’s in such fine detail that you probably know the width of the pickguard bevel by now. I haven’t really covered the 330 to anywhere near the same degree. So, now’s a good time to start. It’s pretty simple, really , because the 330 follows the 335 in many respects. While the 335 started in 58, the 330 didn’t follow until 59. The 59 ES-330, like the 335, came in sunburst (on the front anyway) and natural. No (official) reds until ’60. Dot necks followed pretty closely as well making the transition to block in 62. Neck sizes, while not wildly consistent followed a similar timeline with the big necks being the rule in 59, transitional necks at the beginning of 60 and flatter necks by late 60 and continuing until late 63. Tuners follow a similar pattern as well. While the buttons didn’t change (like single to double ring on a 335), the tuners did go from single line to double line in late 64 and into 65. Mickey Mouse ears? You bet– from 59 until mid 63 when they went to the pointy ones just like the 335. But there are things about the 330 that follow their own path. While pickup covers changed on the 335 from nickel to chrome in 1965, the covers on the 330 changed from black plastic to nickel plated in 63 and then to chrome at some point in 65. The rest of the hardware went from nickel to chrome following the same timeline as the 355. The biggest change occurred in 1968. On the original 59-67 ES-330’s, the neck joined the body at the 15th fret. In ’68, they changed them so that they joined at the 19th fret-like all 335’s do. This improved playability but the “long neck” 330’s tend to be a bit unstable at the neck join. This isn’t the case with 335’s because the neck is attached securely to the center block but on a 330, there is no center block and the neck attaches at the heel like any hollow body and gains some of its strength from the length of fingerboard that overlaps the body. Less fingerboard on top of the body means less glue and a less stable join. It’s not like the necks fall off or anything, they just seem a little “whippy”-they tend to move when you stress them (so don’t stress them). Because there are so many shared parts between a 335 and a 330, these less expensive guitars tend to get scavenged for their bridges. So, if you’re buying one, make sure the bridge hasn’t been swapped out. The tuners get swapped out as well. Even though the buttons are different, a set of single line Klusons with the buttons removed are still worth a lot of money. early hard cases tend to disappear as well. More later on these.

This is a 68 “long neck” ES-330. OK, the neck isn’t any longer, it just joins the body at the 19th instead of the 15th fret. That’s just what folks call ’em.