The Gibson ES-335

Once upon a time, folks who wanted an ES-335 chose between two varieties. You wanted an old one or a new one. Then, some time later, folks got more specific. Folks wanted “vintage”-a term most of us still can’t define with any consistency. Then it was a vintage dot neck or a vintage block neck. It doesn’t end there though. Predictably, specific years were requested by buyers and that’s where it stayed for a long time. Most folks getting into “vintage” were happy with their choice of year and, added to that, the finish-sunburst, red or blonde. Buyers knew that a 58 and a 59 had a big neck and PAFs, a 60 and 61 had a slim neck and PAFs and 62 and later had a block neck and either PAFs or patent numbers. That’s pretty much all they knew and it was enough. What happens next is partially my doing.

Folks learned about bobbin color, DCR, FON’s, thin tops, neck and break angles, low profile ABR-1’s, “shoulders” and truss rod cracks, among other things. When I started writing about 335’s in 2010, there was very little accurate information available. The guitarhq site-which has been a wonderful reference for all these years has a lot of information but it doesn’t get down to the minutia of 335’s. Nobody did. That’s why I started writing about them. The more guitars I bought (and sold), the more I learned (and I’m still learning). Now, in 2025, I get roughly the same amount of correspondence as I did when I started as a dealer in 2005. But it’s different. It’s still phone calls and texts and emails but the criteria for the buyers is different. It used to be “Find me a sunburst 59” and I go find a sunburst 59. Now, it’s “find me a sunburst 59 with double whites or zebras, a thin top, a good neck angle and full height ABR-1 and the early big neck. Oh, and PAFs over 8K”. I’m not complaining. It’s a good thing. The more folks know about the guitar they are buying, the more likely they are to be happy with it. The problem is that once we start getting so specific about features, it limits the number of guitars out there to choose from making it harder for me to source exactly what you want.

There are red 59’s but they were all special orders and they are nearly impossible to find. Gibson says they made 15. I know of 9 of which I’ve owned (and sold) 8 of them. This one had a thin top and double whites. This would be my personal holy grail if I could afford it.

There are a lot of different 59 varieties. Most popular is sunburst and with good reason-they made 521 of them. red wasn’t offered as a standard color but could be special ordered. I know of 9 of them but according to the folks at Gibson, 15 were shipped. There were 71 blondes shipped in 59. The next big feature is the neck profile. There are, essentially, two of them. The big early profile-(.87 to .94″ at the first fret and .97″ to 1.05″ at the twelfth) or the “transitional” profile (.83″ to .86″ at the first and .93″ to .97″ at the twelfth). The big neck goes from A28881 to somewhere around A31150 (September). There is overlap so you might find a big neck with a later serial number. The next most popular feature that is requested is the thin top. Fifteen years ago, I didn’t know there was a thin top version (and you probably didn’t either). I noticed that the 58’s I was getting frequently had cracks around the jack whereas most 59’s didn’t. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the tops were thinner. I also noticed that late 58’s often sounded better than 59’s. Then I noticed that some 59’s had thin tops and nearly all of those 59’s had a 58 Factory Order Number. Many folks didn’t know what that was either. So now, I get requests for a 59 with a thin top. Don’t ask for a thin top and a transitional neck-they exist but I’ve only seen two of them. It goes on from there. Folks frequently ask for double white PAFs (even though they’ll never see them, it’s nice to know they are there). Those who might have enough knowledge to be dangerous might ask for a 60 with a thin top. I’ve seen three of them, so it’s not impossible. Double whites in 60 are common on gold hardware guitars but rare in nickel (although zebras are fairly common). SO, don’t get the idea that only 59’s have all the variations. Every year has some-62’s are a good example but that’s for another post.

So, what 59 should you look for now that you’ve decided that you want a 59 and nothing else will do. While some are more valuable, more rare, more resonant and maybe even louder, personal preference is the main factor. Don’t buy a big neck because they are easier to sell-buy one because that’s what you want to play. If you want to know what the best investment 59 would be, I would have to go by what is requested most often and what sells the fastest. Survey says…Sunburst, thin top, double white, big neck, full height (not shaved) ABR-1. I think blondes or reds would be more popular if they weren’t so incredibly rare and expensive. Again, and I can’t emphasize this enough, get the configuration you want to play unless it’s a pure investment play. All 59’s are good. I’ve had around 150 of them and there wasn’t a bad player in the bunch. Some are definitely better than others but none were bad. It’s worth noting that there are problems specific to nearly every year. 59’s have only one common problem-the tuner tips turn to dust. We’ll look at the specific problems with other years in later posts. In the meantime, you want a trouble free 335? 59 is THE year.

Saturday, April 26th, 2025 at 9:49 am • Uncategorized • RSS 2.0 feed • leave a response or trackback