The Gibson ES-335

I was eleven. Eleven and a half, to be precise. The rule in my parents house was no TV in the living room, so the big old black and white Zenith was in the basement playroom (remember basement playrooms?). We didn’t get a color TV until a few years later and most of the programming was in black and white anyway. As I recall on February 9, 1964, there were four of us sitting in front of the TV to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. My brothers Bob, Frank and Brian and me. My oldest brother, Ben, was a classical music snob and wanted no part of the “noise” made by these British interlopers (Oddly, he was a big Elvis fan 5 years earlier when he was 11). My parents were not interested although my father generally watched the Ed Sullivan Show and made a short appearance in the basement to offer his opinion. “You call that music?” and he stomped off up the stairs (he did a lot of stomping off). I was enthralled.

It’s easy to look back and try to analyze what goes through the mind of an eleven year old boy. While you would think eleven was a little young to want young girls screaming for you, I can assure you that at age eleven, I was well aware of the attraction of the opposite sex. We knew the music already. It had been on the radio since the Fall of 63 and the four brothers were already, to varying degrees, fans. I loved the music and, as most of you know, I still do. I can play 95% of the catalog with relative competence. I know every word to every song and can sing the harmonies to them. I can recite the American album songs in order from memory (and I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning). I remember sitting a foot from the screen, trying to read the brand name on the headstock of Lennon’s little guitar and it sure looked like Rickenbacker to me, although I’d never heard of the company but then that’s no surprise because at the age of eleven, I hadn’t taken up the guitar. Not yet, anyway. That’s where the life changing moment comes in.

I knew, at the moment the first notes of “All My Loving” left Paul’s lips, that I was going to be a guitar player. Not a bass player, not a drummer, maybe not even a rock star, but I was going to play guitar. It was, in part, the screaming young girls or to expand, the adulation from nearly all sides or, more simply, the sheer attraction of being noticed and appreciated. It’s worth noting that when you grow up as a middle child in a family of nine (yeah, nine) brothers, a little recognition and a small bit of praise goes a long way. There was precious little of that. Of course, I loved the music but the visceral desire to play that instrument was so much more than that. It was more like a calling and I planned to do something about it.

I was eleven. I had no income. My father didn’t believe in the “allowance” so saving money was next to impossible. The only money earning options were a paper route (I tried that and failed miserably-too early in the morning), raking leaves for my parents-they paid 10 cents an hour (seriously) and shoveling snow (it was February in upstate New York so there was plenty of that). I’d walk around the neighborhood with a snow shovel over my shoulder ringing doorbells. For a buck, you’d get your walk shoveled. That didn’t exactly pay off either, so I took the next most promising approach. I started bugging my father to buy me a guitar. And, to my surprise, he came home one day in March or April with a Kay flat top that cost him $15 at Woolworths (remember Woolworths?). “Learn how to play this and I’ll get you a better one…and you have to take the garbage cans out to the curb for the rest of your life.” Deal. By the way, a family of 9 kids generates a lot of garbage. I was on my way to something..stardom? adoring fans? a musical career? OK, none of the above but my life would have been very different without the guitar. Very different and not nearly as good.

So, it started with the words “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you…” It ends the day I stop breathing. The guitar takes a back seat only to my wife, my son and his wife, my brothers and my dog. And it fits very nicely in the back seat, so I’m happy with that arrangement.

I’ve always said, surround yourself with blondes and life will be good. If it’s already good, it will be better. These beauties cost as much as your first house cost and while your house has a back door, you can’t play “Back Door Man” on it.

OK, now that I have your attention, the blondes I’m talking about are not the ones you were thinking about (or are they?). I keep a pretty close watch on the 335 market and, since I have a good sized piece of it, I have to reflect real world prices and trends. Over all, the 335 market has been really strong for anything from 59 but 58’s and 60’s have been pretty flat this year. Unless, of course, they happen to be the model designated as the TDN. Yep, the blondes. The ones that drop your jaw when you see them and drop it even further when you see the prices.

The big problem is that there are so few of them. They only shipped 211 335 blondes in 58, 59 and 60. Only 50 345’s in 59 and 60. There are a couple of known block necks-one from 63 and another (a lefty) from 64 but that’s all I know of until 68 when a few more show up. They have always commanded a premium-the price guides always suggested they are worth double what the typical sunburst of the same year sells for. Well, that ship has sailed. When I last looked, there were only five on the market. A stop tail 59 in New York at $130,000-now gone and a stop tail 60 in LA at $100,000. The rest are Bigsby’s and range in price from $40K (cracked headstock ’60 and other issues-a consignment that I have) to a Bigsby 60 in Nashville that just moved that was listed for $50K to a Bigsby 60 in Chi with 345 inlays for $77,500. It’s clear to me that all the “rules” are out the window. A Bigsby used to be a 15-25% discount. Now it’s closer to 40% on a blonde 335. I know of two blondes that have sold well in excess of $100K recently on the private market – both 59’s, both stop tail, both collector grade. With a good sunburst 59 in the $40K range and an exceptional one at maybe $45K, the “double the sunburst” rule is out as well.

I knew the market was going to get really thin. Every big collector I know has at least one blonde 335 and with only 71 59’s ever shipped (and a lot of them Bigsby’s), it was only a matter of a very short time that they would all be spoken for. Collectors sell off guitars now and then, so the market will still be somewhat active but I don’t expect to see more than one or two stop tails a year and maybe 3 or 4 Bigsby’s. When you consider the number of bursts out there (I know-it isn’t apples and apples), you wonder how high the blonde market can go. The burst market (with, what 1600 or so examples shipped?) is pretty healthy. Imagine if there were only one eighth as many made. When folks talk about the most collectible electric guitars on the planet, the five that come up most often are the ‘burst, the gold top, the Explorer, the blackguard Tele and the blonde 335. I’d throw in the Flying V as well. The rarest is the Explorer and next is the blonde 335. There are so few Explorers (32 made?) and Flying V’s (100 or so) that it’s almost impossible to put a value on them. I keep hearing $750K for a well documented no issue 58 Explorer. You all know where ‘bursts are these days. It seems to me that a blonde stop tail 335 has a lot of room for appreciation. A 60 can still be had for well under $100K. A 58 will probably run you $100K for a bound one and a 59 has passed the $125K mark. I think they have plenty of room to appreciate. After all who doesn’t appreciate a blonde?

By request-the only 63 blonde I know of. There a lefty blonde 64 owned by a gentleman who lives 35 miles from me. How weird is that?