The Gibson ES-335

What’s this? It’s a 355-you can tell by the inlays but it’s blonde and, gasp, it’s mono. And it’s rare-maybe even unique. And it’s a 69, so it isn’t worth $100K (which it would be if it was a 59)

Well, I think I feel a song coming on. Of course how many of you are going to remember the film “The Blue Angel” with Marlene Dietrich singing it? It was 1930 and not even I’m that old. It goes like this:

Falling in love again
Never wanted to
What am I to do?
I can’t help it

Well, that’s kind of the story of the guitar at the top.  And it’s a 1969-way out there at the edge of the “Golden Era” universe. Those who read me regularly know that I don’t collect  guitars. I love to find them, I love to play them and I ultimately sell them. No falling in love allowed. That gorgeous birdseye 58 335? Gone. The red 59 345? Gone twice. The watermelon 60 dot neck that I’ve had for all of two weeks? Gone. But fall in love I do because I love the blondes, I love mono 355’s and I love the rare stuff. This one is particularly interesting to me because I so rarely see any 3×5’s later than 68.

69 was the beginning of the end for the classic 335. The one piece neck went to three piece. The headstock grew a volute (that reinforcement bump at the base of the headstock that everybody hates although I’m not totally sure why). The long neck tenon went away and, horror of horrors, the dot in the “i” in Gibson disappeared. Have they no shame? Seriously, though, 1969 has so many variations that you need a score sheet to know what you’re getting. Let’s see… three piece neck but not volute but long tenon. short tenon one piece neck no volute. There must be 20 different configurations. And what about the “Made in USA” designation? That happened in 69 as well. But I digress. This was about a particular 69.

In my years as an ES fan, player, hobbyist buyer and now dealer, I’ve seen perhaps five, maybe six blonde ES-355’s. One, a lefty, was almost certainly a refinish, so lets say five. There’s a beautiful 59, a stunning 64, my guitar bud Gil had a 60, I had a 64 that was re-necked and my friend Mike has one with an ebony block tailpiece from 63, I believe. Then there’s this 69. All of the others, if memory serves (and it often doesn’t) were stereo. I know the 59, the 60, the 64 and the re-neck were. I’m pretty sure the other one is as well. That makes this 69 the only mono blonde 355 that I know of. There’s probably another one but I don’t know where it is. There were a few interesting features that made me buy this one.

Of course, a blonde mono 355 is a rare and wonderful thing but it’s still a 69. By 69, the blondes were birch plywood (like the 68 335 blonde I wrote about recently). This one is maple (and nicely figured, thank you). A lot of 69’s have three piece necks. This has a one piece (no volute, no made in USA). A lot (and I mean most) 69 355’s have a Maestro tailpiece, which most of you know I don’t particularly like on an ES. This one has a Bigsby. I’d be willing to bet the ranch that those are pre T-tops in there but they’re sealed and I’m not about to crack them open. Every gold hardware 68 I’ve ever opened had pre T’s. This is the first gold hardware 69 I’ve ever owned. It’s got a nice fat neck- a lot like a 64 but with a narrow nut. Bound f-holes are pretty cool too. It makes the oversize late 60’s big f-holes (which look wrong to me), look a little less oversized. So there’s a lot to like here.

I can play a narrow nut-I can’t play it all night long but I can adapt pretty quickly. This guitar has some wonderful tone and it’s enough to make me re-think my emphasis and start writing more about the 66-69’s. I’m not a snob. I specialize in the early ones but I really appreciate a lot of the 66-68’s (and this 69). And there are a lot of them and they are not priced that much higher than the reissues.  So, here’s to falling in love with a younger girl. Not much younger but to a lot of us those 5 years between 64 and 69 were perhaps the best years to be a musician in the history of musicians.

Here are the 59 and the 64 blonde 355’s. Both stunning. Both stereo-not that that’s a bad thing. Thanks to Hank from Hank’s Vintage for the photo.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the pad

I was playing my Gibson- not great, but not bad.

I remembered a blues lick and played it with flair

Just like in the days when I had all my hair.

The block necks were hung not too tight or too loose,

As I waited for Santa inside my caboose.

I had them all tuned and I played every one.

The truss rods were perfect, the strings tightly strung.

All of a sudden on the roof of my shop,

I spied an old fat dude just reeking of pot.

He fell off the roof and into the snow.

I asked him right in. Why he came, I don’t know.

There was ice in his beard and mud on his boot,

And I thought only rock stars could wear such a suit.

He took down a red one, just like Eric C.

His fingers flew faster than old Alvin Lee.

It was wailing and screaming all over the town.

I could hear my Dad yelling, “Turn that damn thing down!”

Who knew this weird guy, such a flash with a pick

And a love of guitars, would be old Saint Nick?

I couldn’t believe all the sounds in my ear.

He said, “You get good working one day a year.”

Now Jimi, Now BB, Now John, George and Paul

Would bow to this master, the best of them all.

“You remember that Christmas back in ’63?

When you found a new six string left under your tree?

You started to doubt that I was the truth,

But my gift to you then was a link to your youth.

So for all of the years that would come in between,

Way deep down inside, you’d still feel like sixteen.”

He picked up some cases by Lifton and Stone,

Some old Kluson tuners and a worn out Fuzztone.

“Now, Charlie Gelber you must hear my pitch,

‘Cause this is my time and payback’s a bitch.

The 335 please, the red 59.

I gave you your first one, now this ax is mine”.

And quick as a flash it was stuffed in his sack,

And he waved a goodbye as he snuck out the back.

He jumped in his sled and sparked up a j,

Flew into the sky and was off on his way.

So if feeling sixteen is what sets you right,

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

By Charlie and Victoria Gelber

With apologies to Clement Clark Moore

No visions of sugarplums dancing in this head. Just waiting for Old St. Nick

I found this early 60 ES-335 in red earlier this year but couldn’t convince the owner to sell it. So I kept up the search

Many of the rare ES model guitars that I write about are one offs or customs but there are production models that can be extremely rare as well. Blonde 345’s are a good example. The total number for 1959 and 1960 is just 50 units and they have sold for some really big bucks (over $80,000 or so I’m led to believe). I’ve had three of them and haven’t quite hit that number.  I’ve said more than once that rarity doesn’t  translate to value in many, many cases. Look at Byrdlands and other really low volume models. They just don’t command the big bucks that you would expect that kind of rarity to generate.

I just acquired a 1960 ES-335 in red. It doesn’t occur to many ES players and aficionados that a red 60 would be particularly rare. Red dot necks aren’t particularly rare-there are hundreds of them, right? Yes. But almost all of them are 61’s or early 62’s. Red wasn’t officially a 335 color until 1960, although one 1958 red 335 exists and perhaps 6 59’s have surfaced (I’ve had two). But what about a 1960 in red? Rare. Rarer than any other production 335. Rarer than a 58, 59 or 60 blonde 335.  Not as rare as a black one but black was a special order color, not a regular production color.

Why would you want a 60 in red over the much more common 61? After all, they made 420 of those and an average 61 can be acquired for around $20,000.  A near mint example will cost a few thousand more but the average price for a 61 is the same for red and sunburst and a lot less than a 60. They made about the same number of each. So, what’s the deal on a 60? Why would it command a premium over the much more common 61? What is different about it?

1960 was a pretty transitional year. The necks started out pretty big but became really slim (still wide) by the year end. The amber catalan switch tip disappeared at the end of the year as did the very desirable long pick guard. While red 335’s are über rare in 60, there were plenty of red 345’s and 355’s and most of them had that wonderful red that fades away over the years to a watermelon reddish pink or even orange. That also went away by the end of the year although a few 355’s with that finish lingered into 61. Single ring Klusons gave way to double rings and bonnet knobs were replaced by reflectors. In fact, an early 60 ES-335 is pretty much the same as a late 59. And a very late 60 is a whole lot like an early 61. So, here’s the point. If you want a watermelon red dot neck with a long guard and amber switch tip, you have a tough search. If you add together all of the red dot necks that ever existed with this color and configuration you would come up with around 28. If you want a big neck with that, you might find perhaps a dozen if you look long and hard enough.

I spent nearly ten years searching for a red 59 dot neck stop tail. I finally found a Bigsby version that had once had Schallers. Then I found a stop tail in Paris but it had a Varitone. I bought and sold both of them. Now, I’ve found a stop tail red 60 and managed to buy this one. It is almost the holy grail. If the neck was 4/100ths of an inch bigger, I’d be keeping it.

Later 60 but still a long guard, watermelon red and still stupid rare. Serial number is actually the FON on this one. Gibson did this for a short period in 1960.

This may be the most important part of your tone generation. I don’t care how old your wood is (insert joke here) or how hot your PAFs are (insert other joke here), if the saddles are notched wrong, your guitar will sound like crap.

Good news and bad news. I set up a lot of 335’s (and 345’s and 355’s). The good news is that they are very consistent and setup is usually pretty easy. When you work with the same guitar over and over again you learn what causes the various problems that can plague these guitars. The other good news is that almost all of the problems are pretty easy to fix. There is no bad news.

Typically, ES-335’s and their brethren rarely have neck problems. Most need a minor truss rod adjustment-usually they have been adjusted too tight and the neck is dead flat or slightly back bowed. A quarter turn counter clockwise is usually all it needs. The exception is late 60 and 61’s. There is so little wood between the truss and the back of the neck that they can crack, often a hairline crack in the middle of the neck between the 5th and the 9th fret. It isn’t a structural issue but it’s something you should look for. I usually dial in a bit of relief-not a lot, just enough to keep the string buzz away. A dead flat neck doesn’t work so well on 335’s.

Another issue is inconsistent output between the neck and bridge pickup. Sometimes the bridge is louder than the neck and sometimes its the other way around. I don’t find that adjusting the individual pole screws does much of anything but raising or lowering the pickup does quite a lot. there is no reason not to raise up the bass side a bit if those strings aren’t punching through as much as the higher strings. I like to start by raising the pickups are close to the strings as I can and then adjusting downward as needed. I sometimes flip the pickup ring on the neck pickup if it isn’t sitting parallel to the strings. That usually flattens it out.

The biggest and most common problem in setting up a 335 is dead strings-usually the B or the G. In my opinion, the most important element contributing to the great tone of a 335 isn’t the pickups. It isn’t the construction either. It’s the nut and the saddles. I don’t care how great the pickups are and how wonderful the old wood is…if the saddles and nut aren’t just right, it’s going to sound like crap. Call the saddles point A and the nut point B. It seems like a really small thing but if the strings don’t vibrate freely, you get lousy tone and lousy sustain. These are the things everybody chases. Getting your strings to ring out and keep ringing out is the key. It all happens between point A and point B. So, if your guitar isn’t sounding the way you want it to, the first thing to do is figure out if the problem is the nut or the saddles.

If the strings are sounding dull and lifeless (and you’ve changed them recently) you probably have a problem with the saddles or the nut or both. First, if they sound dull open but not when fretting, then you know it is the nut. That usually means the slots are binding and not allowing the strings to vibrate freely. Widen the slots slightly and see if that helps. Gibson nuts were often to tight from the factory. If it sounds dull even when fretting, then its probably the saddles. More often than not they have notched and renotched and widened a few times and changed a few times. Too deep a notch will cause the string to vibrate less freely. Too narrow will do the same. Too wide a notch will often rattle but it won’t usually cause a dead string. I make the saddle notches as shallow as possible and still hold the string in place. If the string isn’t sticking out above the notch, it’s too deep. I try to have at least half of the wound string above the notch. The plain strings are also slightly above the notch. The B and G strings are usually the worst. If the saddle is not too deep and it still sounds terrible, try widening the slot slightly. If that doesn’t work, get a new saddle and start over. You can sometimes file the saddle down to make the slot less deep but there’s a limit to that because it will affect the string height.

If this is scary for you, have your luthier or tech do it. There is no reason for a 335 from the era to sound dull. I’ve gotten every single one I’ve owned to ring out and sustain (as long as the neck is straight and the frets are good).

If the saddles are notched correctly and your guitar sounds dull on the open strings, it could be your nut (enough with the jokes). Get the nut and the saddles right and then you can worry about the rest of the package.