The Gibson ES-335

Before: neck shaved and broken in two places, two big ol’ holes in the top, wrong pickups and electronics, wrong guard. But original finish and that’s why I bought it.

Every once in a while, I get an intriguing guitar offered to me that isn’t a one owner mint 62 or an ultra rare blonde 355 or an oh so desirable black 59 first rack 345. It’s a beater. Played to death and worth next to nothing unless someone comes to its rescue. I’ve had a few of these guitars and have put up the money to bring them back to the hands of appreciative players. It’s also very rewarding to bring a guitar back from the dead.

Taking a true beater (busted or twisted neck, holes in the body from added mini switches, all changed parts and any number of other indignities) and bringing it back to life is not an inexpensive proposition and, to be honest, generally won’t make sense with any 335 other than a dot neck or maybe a blonde 345 or a stop tail 355. Why not bring back a 64? Well, it’s a really expensive proposition and the finished reclamation guitar generally isn’t worth even half what a no issue one would be. So, if you don’t get the beater for really cheap, don’t waste your money. A luthier built new neck is going to cost you $3000-$4000 to get it done right using the original board, inlays and truss rod. Gibson will re-neck a guitar for you but they won’t use the original usable elements (and it’ll still cost you $3-$4K).  The good news is you can take a busted 61 that had a little teeny blade neck and put whatever size neck you want on it. I did that with a late 61 335 and also with a 60 335 and both came out great. But, say you get a beater 64 for $7000. By the time you’ve re-necked and put on correct hardware, you could be into it for $13,000.  I’ve bought no issue 64’s for that price, so it’s not good economics in that case. But, say you find a broken 61 for 9K with some original parts and you spend $4500 to resurrect it. Then you’ve got a dot neck with the neck you want for $13500. You won’t be able to sell it for much more but you could have a great guitar at a great price (considering a no issue 61 will cost you around $24K and have a neck you might not like).

So, meet my latest beater turned great player. I don’t suggest you go quite as nuts as I did on this one. This true beater 59 factory blonde ES-345 had nothing going for it except for an original finish nd a great top. The neck was shaved and then broken twice. The PAFs were gone. The bridge was original and studs were correct as were the tuners. It had two big fat holes in the front as well. So, it needed the two big holes filled and it needed a new neck. There are many good luthiers who can do the work but Gord Barry of 12th Fret in Toronto has done a few for me and he gets it. The CITES nightmare has made getting repairs done in Canada a real pain but we managed to get it done. Here’s what was done: New neck carved to my 59/64 spec-that’s around .86″ at the first and 1″ at the 12th. A little smaller than a 59. A little bigger at the first fret than a 64. He used the original headstock inlays, original fingerboard and the original truss rod. Only the mahogany was new. He filled the holes with cross grain maple dowels and did as little finish work as possible. New stock frets and new neck bindings which were thinned and rolled were done.

Hardware-wise, it’s getting double white PAF and a zebra, a new harness (335 not stereo 345) a no wire ABR-1 and a correct stop, original studs and tuners. The only repro part will be the guard until I can source a long guard with the holes in the right place (they vary a lot). What’s it worth when its done? Well the hardware, plastic and pickups alone are worth around $15K but it’s a bit over indulgent to put $10000 worth of pickups into a resurrected beater. But even with a set of double black long magnet PAFs, you’re looking at an original finish all correct blonde 59 ES-345 with a new neck and some filled holes. A no issue blonde 59 345 is a $55000 guitar. Is this worth half? I think so. I’d rather have this than a red or sunburst one that was refinished in blonde. The cool factor alone is off the charts on this one. It’ll be done in a day or two. It’s strung up now with no pickups and sounds great acoustically. I have very high hopes for this born again beater. UPDATE: It’s a monster and I’m keeping it for myself for now.

After: New neck using original fingerboard, headstock inlays, truss rod. A double white and a zebra PAF and some vintage plastic and it’s ready to rock. Converted to 335 spec. Tailpiece is a later 60’s one but I’m on the hunt for a worn short seam stop tail. Guard is a repro. Everything else is correct vintage. Killer player too.

Very early 60 red dot neck. Nice, right? It’s got all the 59 features including the transitional neck but the factory order number is a little odd. Factory Order Number? What’s a factory order number?

Red dot necks are not rare. They made 448 of them. OK, that’s rare when you compare it to Stratocasters and other Fenders but for 335’s it’s not that rare. 1958 red dot necks are super rare. There’s one or at least one that is known. 1959’s are stupid rare, there are perhaps 6 (I’ve had two). 1960’s are less rare with 21 shipped but 60’s have to be looked at a little differently because changes were afoot during 1960 and they didn’t all happen on January 1. In fact, none of them did. They mostly happened around mid year. We’ll get to those after I totally confuse you with the concept of Factory Order Numbers (which I keep a database of).

For those of you who aren’t complete geeks like I am, there is a number inside the body of a 58-61 ES-335 that isn’t the serial number. It goes on (supposedly), the day the assembly of the guitar begins. Assembly-not manufacture. The tops, necks and backs would have been made earlier than the FON indicates but when the folks at Gibson gathered the components together for a “rack” of guitars to be assembled, they stamped a number in there with a letter prefix to indicate what year they were built and what number the guitar is in the rack (usually 35 guitars, usually but not always of the same model). I’m only going to include 335 FON’s because the others make even less sense. The numbers are sequential-they start at 100 (although I’ve never seen one lower than 600) and they go to 9999 and then start over. “T” means 58, “S” means 59 and “R”means 60 and “Q” means 61 until they stopped using them at some point in 61.

So, pay attention. This gets kind of convoluted. At the end of the years, there is some weird overlap. Theoretically, say the last FON of 58 was T7303 (which is the latest I’ve seen). So, the first rack of 59 should have been S7304 (which it isn’t). I had a 335 with the FON S7303 which is odd since 7303 is a T rack. Maybe someone forgot to change the year like they did on some Fender amps in 66. To make matters worse, there is a rack designated S6525 which shouldn’t exist as an S rack unless they went all the way through 9999 and back to 6525 which they didn’t. Unfortunately, it gets worse, not better.

At the end of 59, the last 335 rack looks like S1765. It’s lower than the first S rack of the year because the numbers went through 9999 and started over in 59. But hold on, rack number 1762 is an R-the first R I’ve found. So is rack 1765 earlier or later than rack 1762? It should be earlier since the numbers are supposed to be sequential but it’s not an S (59) rack. Who cares, you ask? Well, me for one and here’s why. I recently bought one of those 21 red 335 dot necks from 1960 with all of the 59 features. Lucky me. I was ready to bet that it was a 59 FON and a 60 serial-it’s a very early 60 and I’ve had another 60 like this one with a fairly close serial number to this one with a much earlier 59 FON. 60 335’s with 59 FONs are essentially 59’s that got shipped in 60-that’s why I care. This one isn’t quite that even though the guitar is totally identical. As I mentioned, the changes didn’t start on January 1, 1960. I’ve had a few other 60 red dots with later 60 FONs well into 1960, all with at least some 60 features like double ring tuners, smaller neck, reflector knobs and at least one with a short guard in late 60.

So, I’m going to ignore the features and odd FON and call the guitar a 60 rather than what I usually designate as a 59/60. But make no mistake, if I put this guitar next to any 59 made after September or so, it’s identical. The last serial of 1959 is supposedly A32285. This 60 is A329xx. The last 60 red I had was A328xx and had a 3rd quarter 1959 FON. No wonder I’m confused.

Here’s a later 60 FON. The letter is the year T for 58, S for 59, R for 60 and Q for 61 and then they stop. The number that follows is a three or four digit number and that designated the “rack”-usually 35 guitars. The last number is the “rank” or the guitars number within the rack. Confused?