The Gibson ES-335

Where have all the blondes gone? To collectors who will probably be buried with them, that’s where. They only made 209 of them, so it’s not surprising that they have become so hard to come by. I haven’t seen a no issue 59 stop tail hit the market in almost two years. There have been a few 58’s, some Bigsby’s and a couple of 60’s. This killer 58 will be in my hands soon.

By any standard, the 335 is kind of a deal. Granted there is a pretty big range for the “Golden Era” guitars but when you put it up against the current giants of the collectors world, a 335 is downright cheap. Let’s look at the current market at the top end.

There were somewhere around 1400 Les Paul bursts built. LP guys will argue there are less because all of them can’t still be intact but that applies to any old guitar.  I’ve seen bursts with issues on the market for $80,000 (repaired headstock and a few minor issues) all the way up to $1,000,000. I don’t know what the highest price ever realized for a non celebrity owned burst is but it’s a lot higher than the highest price ever paid for a non celebrity owned 335. I know of at least one LP that sold for over $400K. There are a fair number in the $250K range. Most sales at this rarefied level are private and the prices paid aren’t public knowledge. Could one have sold for a million bucks? Maybe. Seems like a lot of money for a guitar.

I’ve written extensively about the fact that rarity isn’t the main factor in guitar values. Rarity only matters when the supply is wildly outstripped by demand. And that’s true of a few guitars in the Gibson lineup. Take the original Gibson Explorer. They allegedly made somewhere between 35 and 100 of them between 58 and 63 and they hardly ever come up for sale. Again, I don’t know how high they actually go-I know of at least one that reached $350,000. There is one on the market now for $750,000. Flying Vees are in the same ballpark even though there are perhaps twice as many of them as there are Explorers. Again, I know of a Vee that sold for around $300K. I don’t really keep track of these things so there certainly could be higher sales. The shipping totals are speculative. No one seems to know exactly how many left the factory.

There are no other Gibson guitars that even approach these numbers. If you ask me (and I know you will), the 335 is every bit as good a guitar as a Les Paul, an Explorer or a Flying Vee. The circuit is pretty much the same. The pickups are the same. The design is every bit as good and playability is arguably better on a 335 than any of them. Again, my opinion. Tone is subjective but plenty of folks have called 335’s (and 345’s) “burst killers” and some of these folks are burst owners. You know who you are. So why can you buy a sunburst 58, 59 or 60 ES-335 for $20,000 (for a 60 with minor issues) to $50,000 (for a mint 59)? It has to be the demand. There were about the same number of 58-60 335’s made as there were 58-60 Les Pauls. There were around 1700 58-60 Les Paul Standards (some 58’s were gold tops). There were around 1300 335’s made during the same period. Interestingly, a lot more 58-60 335’s come on the market for sale than do Les Pauls. But here’s where it gets strange. The blondes.

There were 209 blonde 335’s built from 58-60. There are a few built later-I know of one 61, one 63 and one 64. Of the 209 dot neck blondes built, I’m sure a few didn’t survive the nearly 60 years since they left Kalamazoo. So, lets be generous and say that 20 were either refinished, broken or simply trashed in some way, leaving 189. There must be at least 100 already in the hands of collectors and probably more than that. I know a lot of the owners and a few with multiple blonde 335’s. They are very attached to them so many of these guitars are effectively off the market for the foreseeable future. So, how many are left with original or later owners or widows and families that will hit the market as “uncirculated” 335TDN’s? Well if the present slate of blonde 335’s is any indication, precious few. There was one 60 at a well known dealer in California listed at $100K. An unbound 58 in the Heartland for $86K which apparently sold recently, although I don’t know the sale price . There is a Bigsby 60 with a 345 fingerboard at $72K and a Bigsby 60 with an unusual “Custom Made” plate in a lower than normal position for $66K. The only other one I know of is a 58 that has a damaged top.  As I said, not much out there.

I know that stop tail blondes approached and, although I don’t have absolute proof, reached $100K in 2008. I predict they are on their way back to that number. There simply aren’t very many left.  The old rule of thumb for blondes was double the price of a sunburst. With near mint sunburst 59’s now approaching $50K, a near mint blonde 59 should be at $90K+. Call me biased, but that still seems like a much better deal than a $300,000 Vee or a $750,000 Explorer.

Unbound 58’s are a little less desirable to many collectors. I think they are very cool. This one looks like the top came from the same piece of maple as the bound one at the top. I sold this one in 2015.

Before you read this post, please read the post entitled “Nothing Like Old Wood. Or Not.” This post was an email sent to me by luthier Ken McKay who built the guitar I’m writing about in the previous post. He fills in a lot of the blanks for me and explains his (and Gibson’s) methodology. Here it is in its entirety.

I enjoyed reading that and generally speaking I wholeheartedly agree.

In 1959 Kalamazoo factory was filled with newly ordered racks pattern grade mahogany, it was just dried the normal way.  They used drying kilns in those days. These billets of mahogany were pattern grade meaning they used the wood to make patterns for automobile parts. They had to be stable. So that is the neck. Just pattern grade mahogany. Still available if I look hard.

Let me get into the other parts a little bit. But first I have to tell you that the ES xx5 guitar design is evolutionary. Once they got it right with the center block they pretty much kept it that way. That is until circumstances made it different and it became an entirely different guitar.  Current 3xx guitars only replicate the essence of the original models. It’s too bad some players get confused and think they’re getting something that they are not. They are simply not the same. If a player wants that sound and feel that comes with a vintage guitar. Then only a vintage or McKay will get you there. If A player goes into a store and plays a new 335, and likes it, that’s a different story. There’s no confusion there and they’re getting what they want. I would encourage players to play a few vintage models though to see what’s really possible.

In my Benchmade guitars I use different quality contour brace material. I also have the veneer sliced to different dimensions using different materials than the current factory does. I use different glue. And like you,  I like to use Brazilian Rosewood for fingerboards.

It’s an engineered guitar. It’s ply construction. Not just the top and back plates but the entire body. If you take a cross-section of the guitar body cut in half there will be 11 layers from top to back. Four veneers for the plates, spruce followed by Maple followed by Spruce again and then four more layers of maple veneer. These are all glued up in different succession to make up a composite. This was the best they could do at that time. The materials at the time were simply wood and glue. Metal was too heavy and Carbon plastics and things did not exist. And some things  were happy circumstances, for example the glue they used dried hard and crisp. This of course could’ve been engineered into the plan but I think it was just circumstance. Because it helps retain the crisp high-end.

Another huge factor is the part of the guitar that is not there, the air. The pickups hear all the parts including the resonance of the air. Air is a cushion. It gives the guitar the acoustic attack and is mixed with the sustain of the center block maple. The amazing thing is they got the proportion correct pretty much from the start. Personally I think it’s a practical thing if they were to have made it thicker it would be too heavy. In the body, the size does seem to be perfect. So this is part of the engineered guitar… the double air chambers.

The center block is soft maple. It’s not too heavy. It’s not too anything for that matter,  it’s just correct. I have used different material and it did result in different sounds. So this, of course, can be part of the process. Generally speaking, though lightweight, soft maple works out best. If you wanted for example little more crisp high-end and spankiness then perhaps hard maple might work out for you.

The Spruce contour brace material is also important because it helps sound waves travel rapidly. I use very straight grain material and the speed of sound is rapid through this material. With this you get a quick attack. I think this would drive up the price of a factory guitar if they used only high-quality material like I do.

And then there’s the other things that add up. Long studs, proper metal for saddle, bridge,  proper nut material. The headstock angle and the neck angle also make a difference of course.

Here’s a picture of my innards.  Contour brace stock and maple centerblock stock. I weigh each for  comparison.

Ken’s logo on one of his wonderful guitars.

Built the old school way by Ken McKay in Traverse City Michigan. Neck by Chris Wargo in Somerset, NJ and the finish and pickup rewinding was done by Dan Neafsey (DGN Guitars) in Fairfield CT. I put it together.

When you talk to vintage players and collectors, many will sing the praises of old wood. Many will sing the praises of classic old electronics. And old wood. Many will wax rhapsodic about great craftsmanship. And old wood. And you can count me in on all of the above but I’m having some second thoughts. About the old wood part. Perhaps we should be talking about good wood rather than old wood.

Is it possible that wood is good just because it’s old? There are plenty of theories out there regarding old wood and most seem to make a lot of sense. The trees weren’t farmed or fertilized or even planted by humans. They were simply there. They grew at the speed at which nature intended and they grew under conditions that generally weren’t under the control of humans. Old growth predates the guitar business by eons. Then there’s the processing part. Some  of the tonal qualities of wood come from moisture content or the lack thereof. Generally, wood was dried before it was turned into a guitar. In the ways of old school guitar building, the wood was dried over a long period of time-years even until someone who knew about these things said it was ready to use. I’m no expert and would welcome any details as to how this worked. Today, the process is speeded up by managed growth and enhanced methods. The time to season the wood has been replaced by heat and dehumidifiers and I would expect that might make a difference. Again, not an expert, just using some logic.

So, let’s say a builder sources some high quality (but not old) wood and lets it season the old school way and even makes his own plywood, again the old school way. We are talking about ES’s here and they are, of course,  plywood. The maple center block contributes to the tone as well, so the builder seasons that the old school way as well. Then he builds the guitar using the same methods that the folks at Gibson used in 1959. He shapes the plywood using a form and methodology that is the same. He hand carves a neck from a piece of seasoned Honduran mahogany and attaches the components together with hide glue. He scavenges some Brazilian rosewood from a secret source and builds a 335. Next, it gets finished using nitrocellulose lacquer-the old kind that you can’t get in the US anymore-maybe he goes to Canada-maybe he has squirreled away a few cans.

Of course, the question will be “does this guitar sound as good as the real thing?’ Does the fact that the old fashioned way of building and the use of old wood when possible and new wood treated the old way make a difference in tone in an ES style plywood bodied guitar. One way to find out. Let’s drop in a set of old pickups and use some other older parts (although I don’t think we have to). I had a double white re-wound  PAF on hand that measured well into the 8K range, so that went into the bridge position. For the neck, I used a Tim Shaw husk that had been re-wound using enamel .042 wire like a PAF and was wound to the low 8K range. I used a newer harness because it simply was easier and I’m a big believer in the concept that proper electronic values will sound the same no matter what age the components are. I defy anyone to actually hear a difference between same value tone caps. You might sense a difference in how the tone changes when you crank the tone knob and you might like having a bumblebee better than a 25 cent disc cap but the tone will be largely the same. Feel free to disagree.

So, this guitar actually exists and I’ve been playing it a lot lately. It’s my Ken McKay “tribute”. I can feel the “newness” for sure. The neck bindings need to roll off a bit but that will come from years of playing not a number 12 bastard file (whatever that is). I can still smell the lacquer and that’s most un-vintage like but that will go away soon, I think. The frets are a little high and angular  but an hour or two a day of playing ought to fix that. I really like the feel of the guitar probably because the neck was made with me in the room. Play a little, sand a little, play little, sand a little more until it feels exactly right. That’s a real luxury. The neck on the guitar is kind of 64ish at the first fret-maybe .85 with a little more shoulder than the usual 64. Then, by the twelfth fret, it’s a full tilt 59 at 1″. The fingerboard was made very slightly wider than usual as well at 1 23/32″. You don’t think you can feel an extra 1/32″? I promise, you can.

Last, we plug it in. I’ve got a 59 Bassman here that wants to be played loud. Old wood? We don’t need no stinkin’ old wood. This is mostly new wood treated like old wood. The only old wood here was the Brazilian and that wasn’t more than 25 years old. I’d been saving  a few pieces for projects since 1990 or so. This is mostly new wood with old pickups with new windings. It took four years to complete.  And this thing plays and sounds as good as any 335 on the “A” rack here at OK Guitars and that currently includes 2 59’s, 2 60’s, a 62 and a 64. Another sacred cow, shot dead? I think so.

This beauty of a 62 sold for what I consider to be top dollar in today’s block neck market. That would be $20,000. It was about as mint as they get.

I sell a lot of ES guitars. I’m on track to sell close to 100 this year-nearly all from 1958 to 1965. I sold around 75 of them last year and about the same number the year before. That’s a lot of 335’s, 345’s and 355’s. This gives me an unusual level of insight into the marketplace for these guitars. Clearly, there is a range for any guitar from any year. Aspects like configuration (stop tail/Bigsby/Custom Made), originality and condition are the big factors but there is something else. That something else could be described as overreaching, greed or,perhaps, ignorance. You’ve all seen guitars listed for ridiculously high prices. You probably scoff and say “that’s a ridiculously high price.” And you should. But these prices cause something of a ripple effect in what should be a relatively predictable and stable marketplace.

Go to Ebay and see what the asking prices are for an early (62-64) block neck. Wait, I’ll save you the effort—the bottom is $12000 for a 64 with a few changed parts and Bigsby holes to $100,000 for, well, I’m sure you know which one that is. $12K is not an unreasonable price for  64 with original paint, no repairs and original electronics. $100K? You decide. What’s really interesting to me and what caused me to write this post is the number of stop tail block necks that are in excellent condition that are priced higher than I’ve ever gotten for that model and year.  And it’s not just a few There’s a 63 for $38K, a 64 for $25K, a 63 for $24,900, a 62 for $24,500, a 64 for $24K, a 63 for $22,900, and a 64 for $21,900. There are dealers and individual sellers in there and most of these guitars have been listed week after week.

Here’s the buried lead (lede?). The MOST I’ve ever gotten for a block neck 335 with a stop tail is $20,000 (post 2008). That covers all 62-64 blocks except the blonde 63 I sold last year.   That’s at least 100 guitars. The range has been $7000 for a 64 with a not very good headstock repair to $20,000 for a dead mint 62 with PAFs. Truthfully, if I can’t get $21,900 to $38K for a block neck 335, then, in all likelihood,  neither can you unless you get really lucky. Are the sellers waiting for a billionaire who doesn’t really care about what things cost? I’ve sold guitars to billionaires and they negotiate harder than your average starving musician. Perhaps this is how they became billionaires or how they stay that way. Are they waiting for the sucker who doesn’t do his due diligence? Maybe. Are they simply kidding themselves? Some clearly are. I understand that you can put your guitar out there for any price you want. It isn’t really any of my business except when it is.

When another dealer or an individual asks thousands more than the current market rate, he potentially affects all buyers. Here’s how. Grandpa dies and his 62 ES-335 has been in the closet since 1975. The family wants to sell it quickly and for a reasonable and fair price. They do some research-they check Ebay and maybe Gbase to see what the asking prices look like and they see these. Then they call a dealer or two and are told that the value is perhaps half to 2/3’s of those big asking prices. They often feel like the dealers are trying to cheat them and they simply perpetuate the problem by putting Grandpa’s pride and joy up on Ebay for a stupid high price. I tell Grandpa’s family to check the completed listings on Ebay as part of their research. That’s a good start except that some sellers have taken to showing their guitar as “sold” at a very high price and then it turns up for sale again (often at a slightly lower price) a few weeks later. That messes up the research but not as much as the “ambitious” prices asked by so many sellers.

The other side of the equation is that these prices make my prices look pretty compelling. The problem is that I can’t keep my prices reasonable and fair if I can’t buy the guitars at true (and fair) market prices. I understand that a rising market can be good for me and good for owners but the market isn’t rising that much-in fact, it’s pretty stable. It’s getting back to being a standoff where the buyers won’t buy and the sellers won’t sell. And that hurts everybody. There’s nothing wrong with asking top dollar for your near mint beauty. But there is something wrong with asking 20% to 500% more than top dollar.

This 64, which was a terrific player had, if I’m recalling correctly, 29 (nicely) filled holes in the body. I believe there were 12 on the back from a back pad, at least six on the headstock from different tuners. A few on the bass bout from an armrest and a few more under the bridge from it being repositioned. I sometimes figure on $1000 per hole off the top dollar price but, clearly, that doesn’t always work. I would have had to pay you to take this one. I don’t remember what it sold for.