The Gibson ES-335

Chuck Berry played plenty of rock and roll on an ES-350 early in his career and it sounded awfully good. He later switched to a 355 and other semis but back at the beginning of rock, full hollow guitars were de rigueur. That’s what Michael Fox should have been playing rather than a non existent 345 in Back to the Future.

Super 400’s, L-5’s, ES-5’s, ES-350’s and 175’s and many other vintage Gibsons fit the description. Arch Tops were the Rolls Royce of guitars during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Their popularity waned in the 60’s as rock and roll took center stage but there were still plenty of jazz players and even big bands and orchestras with a guitar player who usually played an archtop. A 335 could be described as an archtop but semi hollow archtops are another class of guitars altogether.

In the early days of rock and roll, archtops were still largely the guitar of choice. Scotty Moore played an ES-295, Gene Vincent played a Gretsch archtop, Chuck Berry played an ES-350 and so on. 335’s didn’t exist until 1958 and by then, rock and roll was here to stay. Even though Telecasters and Strats were around at rock’s outset, they weren’t as visible as the archtops with the notable exception of Buddy Holly and perhaps Muddy Waters’ gold top Les Paul. I’m not a rock historian so don’t deluge me with comments telling me who played Fenders. Of course, today, solid body guitars are everywhere-in all genres.

So, what’s different when compared to a 335 which is considered semi hollow? There’s quite a lot of overlap between, say an ES-350 and a 335. Both are capable of biting treble from the bridge pickup although hollow bodies tend to feed back at high volume. Back in the 60’s that was sometimes a plus (I played a 330 back in the psychedelic age) and it would howl and not always when I wanted it to. But it’s the neck pickup where a hollow body can do things a semi hollow or solid doesn’t do as well. Now, I always have a problem describing tone-it’s s little like describing the color red to a blind man. I guess I can call it airy. A full depth hollow body, like an ES-5, can generate a tone that sounds something like a miked acoustic. I would imagine the jazz guys love that tone which may be why they are attracted to arch tops.

There are a lot of knobs to choose from on an ES-5. It took me a minute to figure out which one did what. It’s a bit different than a 335 and, in some ways, makes more sense (the bottom ones are the bridge pickup). I had a lot of fun playing this one.

I sat down with a 1960 ES-5 (Switchmaster) that I took in trade with the intention of scavenging the PAFs and replacing them with boutique pickups like Throbaks. But I couldn’t do it. I sat down intending to play for maybe 15 minutes. Two hours later, I’m still banging away on it. I rarely play for two hours any more due to my old and worn out joints-especially my arthritic thumbs. It sounded so good and notably different to what I’m used to. I play acoustics (I have a J-200 and a Breedlove 12 string), a solid body with P90’s (Epiphone Wilshire) and, of course a 59 335. I so rarely have an arch top in stock that I simply have little experience with them. I don’t think I’ll end up keeping the ES-5 but I intend to enjoy it until somebody else wants it. It’s a shame they aren’t more practical for rock and blues-the access to the upper frets is limited and they do tend to feed back at high volume. These were the high end of the Gibson line and enjoyed a great deal of popularity until an upstart named Leo turned guitar making on it’s ear. The decline started there and never stopped.

With apologies to Mel Brooks (whose line I “borrowed” for this post, this has nothing to do with Star Wars, Space Balls or any other movie). This post is about Gerhard Schwarz and his line of repro parts branded St. Helens. Repro parts have had a heavy presence in my posts because it’s a really vital part of the vintage experience (and not always a good one). The biggest problem I have, as a dealer, is the “all original” guitar that is not. Often, the seller is just repeating what the seller before him said. That seller is sometimes a dealer but more often, an individual. Most sellers are honest but most sellers can’t tell certain repro parts from a correct vintage part. And, with the prices of vintage parts going through the roof, a single wrong part can change the value by thousands of dollars. I’m not just talking about PAFs here. The cost of a real vintage pickguard for a 58-60 ($1500) a tailpiece ($2500 or more) or a bridge ($1800 or more) will ruin your day. Enter St. Helen’s guitar parts made by Gerhard Schwarz of Germany. Gerhard has been around for awhile but this line of parts is relatively new. Do we need more repro parts?

Answer: Yes we do. There are some really accurate repro parts on the market but many of them share a common feature:they aren’t branded making identification somewhere between difficult and nearly impossible. I really like the Montreux stop tail. It has a fairly accurate short seam that is much smoother than the originals which makes them easy to recognize. Not as effective as putting the name of the maker on the part but better than nothing. The Gibson made Historic no wire ABR-1 is nearly dead on. On the older ones, you could tell it was a repro by the missing manufacturers brand mark. Gibson later added it making it nearly identical to the originals. There were still two ways to identify the repro: The letters on the underside weren’t as sharp as the originals but if you don’t have an original to compare it to, then it will be hard to know. The other way is foolproof. Look under either “E” string saddle. If there is a circular tooling mark, it’s a repro. If there isn’t, it’s real. But why am I going through all this when this post is supposed to be about St. Helens parts?

Gerhard’s parts come in this cute little “lunchbox” that has all kinds of uses beyond holding your stash, I mean your lunch. Thanks to Jim Weyandt..I borrowed this photo from his Facebook page. Note the branding on the stop tail.

Gerhard’s parts (the ones I’ve seen anyway) are very accurate and accurate beyond the cosmetics. He has duplicated the materials as well for a level of accuracy often missing but invisible. But he did something I appreciate even more than that. He branded his parts. The lightweight stop tail has a near perfect short seam correctly roughed up and it would be ready to fool the best trained eye except for one thing. There, in small but bold letters, is the name St. Helens. I’m told the early versions didn’t have the brand mark which would have made the problem worse, not better. Beyond branding his parts, he is also producing some very hard to find parts like the low profile ABR-1 found only on 1958 ES-335s . They almost always collapsed under the pressure of 12 gauge strings (those were the lightest you could get in 1958). The replacement was almost always a shaved full height ABR-1. Now, with much lighter gauge strings, the low pro ABR-1 should stand up to hard use. But most of them collapsed decades ago. As far as I know, there is only one other parts producer making this part and that’s Pigtail. Good for both of them. I bought a few of them.

I’m really happy that St. Helens and Pigtail put their names on their parts. It keeps the dishonest folks honest (or at least a little more honest) and they are providing a hard to find part for 58 ES-335’s

Gerhard also makes a compensated wraptail to replace the “lightning” wrap tail as well as one to replace the standard wrap tail that had no compensation at all (other than an angled installation and adjustable ends). The compensation is subtle so they appear, from a distance of about a foot, to be the original uncompensated type. There is also a low profile wrap tail that you can wrap over on a 52/53 Les Paul, another useful part although they have been around for awhile from other manufacturers. He makes a compensated and uncompensated version of the low profile one.

So, welcome to the rather crowded field of vintage parts makers. It’s nice to see more accurate parts and more makers. The branding is important to me so that everybody knows it’s a repro. There will still be sellers who try to pass off repro parts as the real thing but every repro part ever made has some “flaw”. The trick is to find it.

Their prices are too high. They don’t know any more than I do. They are all trying to rip you off. They are lying about their guitars. These are the typical reasons why folks don’t like to buy from dealers. Yes, there are dealers who ask high prices. There are dealers who probably know even less than you do. I’m sure there are dealers who are hoping to rip you off and there are liars. But to tar all dealers with the same brush is going to end up costing you money.

Every once in a while, I go through the listings on Reverb to see how many of them (from individual sellers) are inaccurate. There are repro parts described as vintage. This is the most common way to cheat the buyer. Parts can be some serious money. A PAF can cost $5000 or more so you would be wise to make sure the PAF is the real thing. Many, if not most of them being sold by individual or hobby sellers are either fake, rewound or repaired. Not long ago I bought a PAF from an individual seller. he, of course, insisted it was authentic but had some work done (nothing major-a changed lead wire and a coupole of changed screws. I always black light the tape and the sticker. They should glow a smooth and solid green. I noted that the tape and the label glowed a somewhat mottled blue. Closer inspection showed that the sticker and the tape had been sprayed with clear phosphorescent paint. This has become common. It isn’t an oversight. It’s a clear attempt to cheat you. The seller insisted that he didn’t do it-that he was ripped off as well. Maybe yes. Maybe no. I’ve never seen this done by a dealer.

Repro bridges being passed off as vintage is also common. I’m sure some folks can’t tell the difference but I’m going to share some information that might save you some heartache (and some money). Gibson repro bridges are very accurate. There are two ways to tell the real thing from a repro. The raised letters on the bottom are a little fuzzy on the repros but unless you have a real ABR-1 in hand to compare it with, it’s going to be difficult to know for sure. So, I’m going to give you a 100% foolproof method to tell a repro ABR-1 from a real one. Take off one of the E string saddles (either one) Under the saddle on the bridge unit itself will be a round tooling mark. Real ones don’t have it. Repros do (on both E strings). And yes, dealers get them wrong sometimes too. Caveat Emptor.

Any idea what a legit short seam tailpiece goes for these days? It’s $2500 to $3000. I’ve seen one as high as $5000. Most of the repros are really good and will sound every bit as good as a real one. Most of them don’t bother trying to imitate the short seam which makes it easy to tell them apart from a real one. But Montreux, who makes an extremely accurate repro short seam, has found a way to imitate the short seam. The seam, on the originals is a remnant for the tailpiece being broken off from the die. The Montreux simply molds the seam into the tailpiece so it is flat-not ragged like the originals. If an unscrupulous dealer or individual carefully masks the tailpiece and take a Dremel with a grinding wheel to it, it can be made to look as ragged as the real thing. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of one with this “work” having been done but I can show you a correct original and a stock Montreux. You’ll see how easy it would be to rough up the Montreux. I don’t know if dealers are doing this but get yourself a jewelers loup so you can magnify the seam. Magnified, it’s pretty easy to tell if it’s been roughed up. I don’t know of any dealers doing this but I’ve seen more than a few of them on some very expensive guitars.

What about entire guitars? Fortunately, making a fake ES-335 is way too much work and requires a high level of skill compared to other models. There are some excellent non Gibson 335 type guitars but none of them try to pass themselves off as a Gibson. I suppose someone could take one of those excellent repros and take off the headstock overlay and put on an accurate Gibson overlay. If that’s the case, you’ll have to look at other parts or construction techniques to see acts of trying to pass off a non Gibson guitar.

Finally, in this very strange market, individual sellers are asking more than dealers in many cases. A lot of individual sellers seem to think that the Covid runup is still going on. Wake up people. Covid has been mostly over for close to four years now. The rise in prices is over. The market has actually corrected by 10 to 15% but the sellers can’t bear to lose any money on an old guitar when they’ve been rising for the past 17 tears or so. But it’s over. The high end stuff is still pretty strong. The player grade stuff isn’t selling because it’s so overpriced. Compare some dealers with individual sellers. I would be surprised if the dealers are higher for the most part. You can look at my prices if you like. I price most of my guitars well below the highest priced similar guitars. Sure, I have some expensive guitars but I don’t think any of them are way out of line. I would suggest that you establish a good relationship with at least two dealers and use them to help you compare guitars and parts. I help out buyers all the time-even if they aren’t buying from me. That’s simply a smart business practice.

Guitar hardware is something most folks don’t give much thought to. Most folks accept whatever hardware is on the guitar and don’t take it any further. Yeah, every once in a while, you come across a 345 or a 355 that had its gold hardware swapped out for nickel but, in most cases folks just leave it alone. Guitar players love to mess with their gear-especially electronics-but hardware is kind of a who cares. There will always be those who will swap out hardware as soon as the slightest bit of wear shows. These are the same folks who wipe down their guitar after every set and won’t let you even pick their guitar up to check it out. You know who you are.

I really like nickel hardware. It’s elegant yet subtle. It’s not showy like gold and not gaudy like chrome. Really? Chrome is gaudy? Most folks can’t tell the difference between untarnished nickel and chrome. I think it’s time you learned the difference if only if it stops you from replacing the worn parts on your 64 ES-335 with (gasp) chrome. I’ve seen it way too often. Gibson used nickel plated hardware on the first ES-335’s rather than chrome. I don’t know what their reasoning was but I’m guessing that nickel was either cheaper at the time or the cost of the plating process was cheaper or both. The new 1958 335’s looked great. Newly plated nickel parts are very attractive and quite durable. But nickel, especially when exposed to sweat, skin oils and cleaners, will tarnish. Apparently folks didn’t like their hardware to look dull or discolored so they employed a very American consumer convention…they complained. They complained from 1958 until 1965 when Gibson threw in the towel and switched to chrome plated parts.

This is a 66 ES-335 in factory black. Chrome parts look pretty good next to a black guitar but I think nickel would look even better

It can be a little tricky to tell nickel from chrome if you don’t have examples of both in front of you, especially when the nickel is new. The simple way to tell nickel from chrome is to look at it. Nickel reflects light in the green spectrum. Chrome reflects blue. It’s not glaring. It’s fairly subtle, particularly when you’re looking at very small guitar parts like a tailpiece. Or you can determine whether the reflection is warm or cold. Chrome is a very cold look-cold like a hospital OR. Is it tarnished? A yes means it’s nickel. Chrome doesn’t tarnish. It can corrode but corrosion rarely occurs on guitar parts unless there has been some chemical reaction (like off gassing of celluloid).

I was shopping with my wife for a bathroom renovation and I was struck by how obvious the difference between chrome and nickel is on larger items. So, I took a photo. It should be glaringly obvious which faucet set is nickel and which is chrome. If you still can’t tell, ask your doctor to do a color blind test. It was a no brainer…we (she) chose the nickel.

I like nickel hardware on my guitars. Maybe that’s part of why I find Gibson guitars more attractive than some others. Fender has always used chrome and while it looks just fine, I think it might look better in nickel. There isn’t a lot of plated hardware on a Strat or a Tele but a Jaguar or Jazz Bass has quite a lot. The pickup covers on a bass (if you don’t remove them) get a lot of contact with skin and that means sweat and oil which will eventually dull out your nickel parts. So, from a practical standpoint, maybe Fender got it right. But if you value aesthetics over practicality (like I do) then nickel is your choice.

Of course, there are other choices. The very first PAF pickup covers were brushed stainless steel. They looked quite good but for some reason they didn’t make it out of 1957. Again, probably cost. There are lots of guitars with gold plated parts. I think many people find gold to be classy. I find it kind of ostentatious. If I walk into someone’s guest bathroom and it has gold fixtures (not brass), I instantly form an opinion about the taste of the homeowner. The problem with gold parts is that gold is crazy expensive these days and the thickness of the gold plating has become so thin that you can rub it off in a couple of minutes with your thumb. The vintage Gibsons have a much thicker gold plating but the gold still wears off fairly quickly. I’ve had a number of guitars that would qualify for the “dead mint” designation if not for worn (not tarnished-gold doesn’t tarnish) hardware.

A guitar with nickel plated parts won’t sound any different than one with gold or chrome plated parts. I’ve actually heard arguments that revolve around the effect of certain metals on the magnetic field of a pickup. But guitar players are, by nature, an argumentative bunch. Read any guitar forum. Put ten guitar players in a room with one guitar and you will get ten different opinions about what is wrong with the guitar (especially when there is nothing wrong). You gotta love that.

George playing his beloved “Lucy”. Just a refinished 57 Goldtop and one of the most famous guitars on Earth.

I’ll move away from 335’s for a bit because I just got in a whole load of Les Paul conversions. Two of them are unusual in that they were converted to look like George Harrison’s well known Les Paul, nicknamed “Lucy”. I’ll get to that in a minute but first some history. At the height of Beatlemania, John, Paul, George and Ringo could afford any gear they wanted and, being Beatles, every instrument maker was clamoring for them to use their products-free of charge, of course. It is interesting that the guitars they first used were not particularly popular here in the USA (until the Beatles used them). Gretsch was well known but not at the level of Fender and Gibson. Once we all saw George playing his Country Gentleman on Ed Sullivan, sales went through the roof. Stratocasters were later acquired by John and George as were three Epiphone Casinos. Sales of those also went way up although Stratocasters were already wildly popular thanks to Buddy Holly and a zillion other players in the late 50’s and early 60’s. The Gibson Les Paul simply wasn’t a popular guitar at this time. A few British players discovered them as did John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful. The first time I ever saw a Les Paul was in 1966 in the hands of John Sebastian on “Shindig” on ABC or maybe it was “Hullabaloo” on NBC. The fact that no Beatle played one until 1968 isn’t that surprising. They simply weren’t very popular. Lucy was the first Les Paul owned by a Beatle. Paul still owns one (a lefty, of course).

According to Wikipedia, the Lucy guitar, in its goldtop finish, was previously owned by Skip Boone, brother of Steve Boone of the Lovin’ Spoonful. It is my understanding that it was also owned by John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful. Still a goldtop, it was sold to Rick Derringer of the 60’s pop group, The McCoys who had a few hits and Derringer went on to have a long solo career as both a player and a producer. The 57 Gibson Les Paul goldtop (SN 7-8789) was getting kind of beat up and he was convinced to have it refinished. It was sent to Gibson to have the top refinished in the translucent red that was popular at the time. When he got it back, he didn’t like it so much any more although no one knows exactly why.

Derringer traded it in at Dan Armstrong’s shop In Greenwich Village and, shortly after Armstrong acquired it, it was bought by Eric Clapton. Nobody cared much about refinishes back then. It was simply, a used guitar. Clapton never bonded with it and he gifted it in 1968 to his good friend, George Harrison. George, who didn’t seem the type to name his guitars, named this one “Lucy”. It was red, after all, and the world’s most famous redhead was one Lucille Ball. George had started to move away from the Gretsch’s he famously played in the early days. He and John had acquired Stratocasters in 65 and he painted his in psychedelic day glo colors and called it Rocky (maybe he was the type to name his guitars). Rocky saw a lot of hours in the studio. George acquired a Gibson SG around the time Paperback Writer was recorded and he was likely taken with the sound of Gibson’s humbucking pickups. His good friend Eric Clapton was certainly aware of this…he played an SG (“The Fool”) during much of the Cream era and also had a 60 Les Paul and a 64 ES-335 during that period. All humbucker equipped Gibsons.

When Clapton was invited to play on George’s “While my Guitar Gently Weeps”, he arrived at EMI without a guitar. George handed him “Lucy” and you know the rest. The story doesn’t end there, however. Lucy was one of George’s favorite guitars and it was stolen from his home in Los Angeles in 1973. By this time, George could certainly afford any guitar he wanted but he was set on getting Lucy back. It had been sold to a Mexican musician named Miguel Ochoa. After a lot of back and forth haggling, Ochoa agreed to take a 58 Les Paul burst and a Fender P-bass in trade for Lucy. Think about that-a real burst and a new P-Bass in trade for a refinished goldtop. George must have really liked that red guitar. George owned “Lucy” until his death in 2001. I believe the family still owns it.

George played Lucy for most of the white album and much of Abbey Road including the iconic “guitar duel” in Abbey Road’s “The End”-one of my favorite moments on any Beatles LP. Gibson reissued a copy of Lucy in 2007 and again in 2013. The range of prices for these reissues is insane. As much as $90,000 (2013-one of 100) and as little as $15,000 (2007 VOS finish). If you want a vintage version, there have been a few conversions made from 50’s goldtops like the original. As I mentioned, I have two of them. No fan worth his Beatle boots should be without one.

This is a converted 1952 center seam with a pair of double white PAFs. Conversion by Jim Weyandt

This one, also a center seam 52, looks a lot like the original Lucy. This one has double white PAFs as well. George’s Lucy did not. Jim Weyandt did this one as well.

There are conversions of all kinds-not just Les Pauls. This Ferrari Daytona makes the point more clearly than a guitar. They only made 122 convertibles but they made 1400 Berlinettas (coupes). So, some smart guy decided it made sense to cut the roof off of a $500,000 car and turn it into an $850,000 car. An original convertible? Two million and change. So, a conversion is less than half the price of the original. Sound familiar?

Conversions are nothing new. There is the religious kind and the football kind (a big deal here in Ohio). There is also a 335 conversion done by turning an EB-2 bass into a 335 (Ken McKay does those). But this post goes off topic a bit and talks about (gasp) Les Paul conversions. Yes, I’m being a bit self serving because, somehow, I have four of them in my inventory.

A great example that isn’t a guitar but makes the point rather well is the Ferrari Daytona. They made coupes (or Berlinettas) and they made convertibles (Spyders). Most of the 1400 or so that were built (oddly, a very similar number as Les Paul bursts) were Berlinettas and they got crazy expensive in the years between 1969 when they started building them and now. But the convertible was not only crazy expensive but crazy rare. There were only 122 of them made. Got an extra $2,000,000 or so? That’ll buy you one. Or you can buy a conversion (a Berlinetta with the top cut off and some body stiffening) for $850,000 or so. A 69-74 Berlinetta will cost around $500,000. So, a Spyder conversion is less than half the price of a real one. Sort of like a Les Paul conversion.

Most Les Paul conversions start as a goldtop. What’s under the gold is always something of a crapshoot. How many pieces is the top? Any figure/flame or birdseye? You can sometimes see a little figure in the control cavity but that doesn’t tell you much. The closer to a center seam, the better. rarely, there will be a one piece top but don’t hold your breath-it’s crazy rare. This 56/59 conversion done by Jim Weyandt has a one piece birdseye top. It is in my inventory and is for sale.

The problem with LP conversions is that they are not all created equal. Some are made by taking a LP Special or Jr and topping it with a maple cap and loading it up with repro hardware. These are relatively inexpensive but that type is more cosmetic than authentic. Or, you can take a 57 or 58 Goldtop with humbuckers and refinish it and sell it for well over $100,000 depending on the top. In between, the most common conversion is the 52-56 P90 Goldtop, stripped of its finish and rerouted for humbuckers. In so doing, you need to hope for an interesting top that isn’t made of too many pieces of maple. A center seam flamed top would be nice but that’s not common in GTs. There are one piece tops and there are three piece tops. The more pieces, the less desirable. There are plain tops and flame tops and birdseye tops. Some, like the 56’s don’t require too much work-just fill the P90 routs (they are slightly longer than humbucker routs and need to be filled) and rerout for humbuckers. A 52-53 conversion, which is one of the most common, requires a neck reset. A late 53/54/early 55 requires the wraptail holes to be filled and the top re-drilled for an ABR-1 and stop tail. Again, it’s a crapshoot when it comes to the very important top. You might see some flame on the backside of the top through the control rout but that doesn’t guarantee much. It could still be a multi piece top with seams in the wrong places. Another thing worth looking at when you are considering one is the conversion of the pickup routs. Some just enlarge the P90 rout leaving a small area unfilled (a P90 is wider than a humbucker. The really skilled guys will fill that tiny opening with a matching slice of maple. I look for that anytime I’m considering a conversion.

See that tiny piece of maple at the upper corner of the pickup rout? That’s how a P90 rout gets turned into a humbucker rout the right way. If you don’t have the skills to do that level of work, then don’t do your own conversion. This was done by Jim Weyandt (Jam City Guitars)

Next, what are the components like? PAFs are always a plus (and they are pricey). Plastic parts are crazy expensive so you rarely see a conversion with correct vintage pickup rings. You’ll often get an original pickguard cut to accommodate the wider humbuckers and maybe a proper vintage truss cover. Most goldtops had speed knobs so you’ll see plenty fo conversions with them. A set of burst knobs is expensive but I think your burst conversion should have them (or at least good repros). Now I’m going to make a point I’ve made a lot. Repro parts are often extremely accurate and most parts don’t make a lick of difference in the tone or playability of the guitar. A repro tailpiece or bridge will sound the same as the real thing. Plastic? Same deal. No effect on tone. It’s nice to get a conversion with all the correct burst parts but it’s gonna cost you. A short seam stop tail can run $3000. A set of back plates can cost the same. A set of pickup rings, if you can find them, might go for $20K. Crazy, right? Spend the money on the pickups and maybe the harness but save your money on the other parts if you are budget conscious.

Pay attention to who did the conversion. There are lots of luthiers who do them but the ones that seem to get the most attention are from Cris Mirabella, Terry Mueller, Jim Weyandt and Brian Monty. There are plenty of others who do quality work. Do your homework before buying based on looks alone. Personally, I would stick to converted gold tops if you’re looking to get the feel of a real burst. the Specials and Jrs can look right but to me, it’s still a Special or Jr. A maple top glued onto a Jr body is something but is it a Standard? I dunno. Doesn’t do it for me. A quality GT conversion with PAFs is going to cost you from perhaps $30,000 to maybe $125,000 depending on the donor guitar, the parts and the builder. Old wood is old wood and that’s the biggest reason to do a conversion (or buy one). A 58-60 burst is going to cost you $400,000 or more. Most of us don’t have anywhere near that to spend on a single guitar or, if we do, our wives or significant others would probably throw us out. It really depends what your goal is. If it’s an investment, buy a burst. Conversions don’t tend to appreciate like an original vintage guitar (although the parts certainly have).

Sometimes, you can get really lucky and get a center seam flame top (or very, very close to it) like this 52. They definitely exist but they are rare. This conversion was done by Cris Mirabella. This one is also in the OK inventory.

Finally, there are a lot of folks who believe it’s sacrilege to take a vintage guitar and convert it. Not me. Most of the conversions begin with a trashed donor guitar. Lots of guitars have already been refinished and there is no reason not to do a conversion in that case. The same goes for a guitar with a major repair-the vintage value is already diminished by close to half anyway so why not convert it? I think the burst market is insane (and yet I still buy and sell one or two a year). I also think a burst is a really excellent guitar (not my favorite but I like them). The conversion can get you very close to an original. So can an R9 but if you believe that old wood makes a difference (and I do), then a conversion might be the ticket. One more point…you could argue that a 25 year old R9 is old wood. That’s plenty of time for it to dry out and open up. But old wood is more than just old. Old wood is old growth as well. Twenty five year old wood is not. But that’s another post.

“Lucy, I’m home…” OK, you aren’t old enough to remember that reference. This conversion copies the Eric Clapton/George Harrison guitar that was converted from a 57 goldtop. This one is a 52. The advantage of a 52/early 53 is that there are no holes in the top to be filled (like a 54-55). A “Lucy” is a cool alternative when you have a plain top donor guitar. This was also done by Jim Weyandt (and is also in the OK inventory).

Old wood will always be old wood. You can age the crap out of new wood and it will still be new wood. You can roast the new wood and it might approach the tonal qualities of old wood but maybe not. If you can’t afford the vintage guitar you want, you can build one slowly. This 60 husk sold for about a third of what the entire guitar would have cost.

Not everyone can afford to play in the vintage sandbox. I get that. When I started buying vintage guitars, they were a lot less expensive but I had a lot less money. My limit back in the mid 90’s when I started doing this was around $1000. The first vintage guitar I ever bought was a 62 Epiphone Crestwood. It was refinished and had a lot of changed parts and it cost me $600. It sounded great. Within a year or so, I was spending up to $6000 which was enough to score a 1960 ES-345 with PAFs (and a Bigsby). It was all original and there was a lesson in that…it is easier to sell a no issues guitar than it is to sell one with issues like changed parts, repairs or a refinish. By the early 2000’s, prices started taking off and I felt like I was chasing the market up and I was spending as much as $15,000 for guitars. I still wasn’t a dealer-it was just a hobby so when the market tanked in ’08, I only had five or six guitars and I got beat up pretty good but not as badly as many dealers. That lesson stuck with me. It is still easier to sell a no issue guitar than to sell one with issues.

That lesson is of no use at all if you don’t have the budget to buy a no issue vintage guitar that you will want to play. So, given a limited budget, what do you do to protect your investment and still get a guitar you want to play? Do you buy a guitar that’s refinished or repaired? Do you buy one with lots of changed parts? Do you buy a husk and build from there? Lots of good questions but there are lots of good answers.

I have strong opinions on the subject and you can listen to me or dismiss me. They are, after all, opinions. Two factors spring to the forefront…tone and playability. We can add investment potential to that as well. It’s a little like the real estate rule of location, location, location. Just as you can’t easily change the location of the house you buy, you can’t undo many of the issues that keep guitar prices down to affordable levels. You can’t undo a repair. You can’t undo a refinish. You can’t make new wood into old wood except by waiting a very long time. You can change parts though and that is key here.

One solution is to buy an old guitar that is all there but not currently all that valuable. 70’s guitars have not run up in value all that much but a lot of 70’s guitars are crap. 80’s guitars are generally better quality and are often very affordable. So, if you’re willing to wait for your investment to mature over the next twenty years or more, then buy an early 80’s 335 or maybe a 76 Explorer. Or even a BC Rich. A general rule is to buy the best guitar of a given era. But what about getting into vintage cheap without having to take a chance on whether your 70’s or 80’s guitar is going to go up in value? Buy old wood. I’ll say it again…old wood is the location, location, location equivalent.

Husks (body and neck) are not easy to find. If you are lucky enough to find one, it’s the perfect way to “build” your investment guitar. Can’t find a husk? Buy an old guitar with lots of changed parts. That way, you can, over time, replace the repro or incorrect parts with correct ones. Make sure the neck is in good shape. Fixing a backbow or a twist can be expensive and the results aren’t always good. Try to find a guitar that has a properly functioning truss rod that isn’t all the way loose (very common). If the guitar you find is playable and sounds OK with repro or changed parts, then it will only improve as you swap in the correct parts. parts like tuners, tailpieces, bridges and plastic don’t affect tone all that much so maybe start with the electronics. PAFs are crazy expensive right now but there is no substitute (other than early patents which are the same). Plenty of boutique PAFs sound as good as the real thing but if you’re building a vintage guitar, you need vintage parts. Parts should hold their value even through bad times. In 2008, the price of parts was barely affected.

You can get a great deal with a refinished or repaired vintage guitar and it can adequately fill the bill for playability and tone. The problem is the investment angle. Refins and repaired guitars are usually poor investments. Don’t care about the investment value? Buy a well repaired or properly refinished vintage guitar and have fun. When it’s time to sell, don’t expect big profits or an easy sale. But if you bought an old husk and slowly built it out, you will reap the same benefits as you would if you had bought that guitar you couldn’t afford five years ago. Correct parts aren’t the equivalent of original parts but many buyers don’t care as long as the parts are correct. The exception to this is mint or near mint guitars. But if you’re buying a husk or a guitar with lots of changed parts, it’s pretty unlikely that it will be in that kind of condition anyway.

I recently sold a 60 ES-335 husk for $18000. An average condition no issue 1960 is a $60,000 guitar. Buying all of the parts to make it 100% correct will cost you somewhat more than one that is original but you will have the luxury of doing it slowly. I would make it playable right away with inexpensive repro parts and play it while I build it out. When you’re done, you might just have the guitar of your dreams. If you don’t, you’ll be able to sell it without having to make a lot of excuses. I think that beats buying a guitar from the 70’s or 80’s and hoping the market “discovers” how great guitars were in the 70’s and 80’s. The problem is that guitars from the 70’s and 80’s weren’t great. They might be old but they don’t quite fit the somewhat fuzzy description of “vintage”.

February 9, 1964. Ed Sullivan Show

Think back, readers. Back to the moment you knew, YOU KNEW that you were going to be a guitar player. It could have been a concert your parents took you to (or you went to without telling them). It could have been seeing your friend getting all that attention from the girls on the cheerleading squad because he could play a little guitar (and you were way better looking than he was). My generation has a shared moment that probably launched hundreds of thousands of players-good, bad and awful. That moment was February 9, 1964. That’s the night I knew I was going to play guitar. The “guitar boom” lasted from ’64 into ’68 and then started fading. Guitar makers largely limped through the ’70’s and those of us still playing by then were doing the rounds of the bars and small clubs and a few of us were making records. Many, defeated by the “F” chord, put their Silvertones and Harmonys under the bed and forgot about them. I was heading into my 20’s by the mid ’70’s and I stopped gigging and got a real job and started building a career. I didn’t pick up a guitar from 1975 until 1987. But something happened during that period that lit the fuse all over again. I wasn’t aware that a whole ‘nother generation had their touchstone moment in 1985 with the release of the film “Back to the Future”.

Michael Fox as Marty McFly plays an early ’61 ES-345 in “Back to the Future” in 1985.

I saw the movie when it came out and liked it but was completely unaware that the “Enchantment Under the Sea” prom scene was doing for GenX what The Beatles did for us boomers. Twenty one years after my touchstone moment, the next generation had theirs and Michael J. Fox and “Johnny B. Goode” opened the floodgates just like John, Paul, George and Ringo. It doesn’t matter if your motivation to play was the greatest band in the history of civilization or a very successful little piece of Hollywood pop culture. That moment, for a player, is indelible. It’s been forty years since the film was released in theaters and the folks at Gibson aren’t letting it go by without a promotion. You see, the red ES-345 that Marty McFly plays in the film has been missing since the movie wrapped. Now, Gibson has produced a documentary about the guitar and the filmmaker reached out to me to see if I had any insight.

Having spent 45 years in the film and TV industry, I have plenty of experience around film sets. Props disappear all the time. And it’s not necessarily the props crew that takes them. Actors are notorious for taking props that appeal to them. Then there are all the other crew folks-wardrobe, hair and makeup, gaffers, grips, publicists, camera crew, video assist and lots more. So, my thought was that someone from the film took the guitar home. In the course of my second interview with the film’s director, I was told that Norm Harris of Norman’s Rare Guitars in Southern California believes that the guitar came back to him (it was rented for the film) and was later sold-possibly to a Japanese collector. Records are nowhere to be found, apparently. So, Gibson has launched a worldwide search for the guitar and has asked me to check my archives to see if it passed through my hands at OK Guitars. It has not, although Michael J. Fox and his family came into my shop in Connecticut one Thanksgiving Eve around 2017 or 18 and we had a very pleasant conversation about guitars.

I think the best thing I can do is describe the guitar in detail. It has some very distinctive features. It’s an ES-345 finished in red. The year is somewhat questionable but I believe it’s either a very late ’60 or an early ’61; more likely an early 61. Nearly all 60’s have a long guard. The Back to the Future 345 has a short guard. I went through the scene frame by frame to try to see a serial number on the back of the headstock and there is a brief shot where Michael Fox swings the guitar around and you get a very clear shot of the back of the headstock. No serial number visible which means (assuming the neck is original) that the guitar can’t be later than early 61 when they started embossing the serial number into the back of the headstock. The chicken head knob on the Varitone has remnants of gold paint on it. The knob was painted gold on some ’61’s but I’ve never seen it on a ’60. So, I’ve dated it as an early “A” serial ’61. But there are lots of those so that doesn’t help us much. But there is a very distinctive feature that will almost certainly identify the guitar. Take a look at the inlay at the twelfth fret. Instead of the expected “split parallelogram”, there is a solid parallelogram. I’m not sure why that is…could be that the original fell out and the luthier who repaired it wasn’t able to source the proper inlay or it could have been custom ordered with the name of the owner at the twelfth fret (not a common occurrence but not unheard of). It doesn’t really matter why it’s there-only that it is the clearest identifier. It has a Bigsby B7 that appears to have been added quite a bit later than 1961-looks like ’70’s to me. They didn’t paint the top plate black in ’61. The stop tail studs are still in the guitar rather than the usual “Custom Made” plate that was used to cover the bushings from late ’60 until early 1965. These features will almost certainly authenticate the guitar as the one used in the film.

Take a good look at the inlay at the twelfth fret. It’s one piece and it should be two. That will likely be the feature that authenticates the guitar as the real thing.

Could someone fake the guitar using another early ’61? Sure-I could do it myself but there is one other factor that will make that impossible. The red finish on a Gibson is transparent and wood grain is as distinctive as a fingerprint so if you’re thinking about a big payday for some criminal effort…don’t. It won’t pass. It will likely be very valuable. Some billionaire who has that “Johnny B. Goode” moment etched into his brain as their touchstone will want it and the value will soar. To me, the guitar itself isn’t the point. The point is the scene itself. He could have been playing a Stratocaster or a Danelectro or any number of other period guitars. Worth noting-the scene takes place in 1955. The 345 wasn’t released until 1959. A Stratocaster probably would have made more sense but the director apparently wanted something a little flashier and a red 345 is pretty flashy. Look under Dad’s bed. Look in Uncle Bob’s closet. Ask Grandma whatever happened to that red guitar that Grandpa trotted out every Christmas to play a cringeworthy “Jingle Bell Rock”. It has to be out there somewhere. If you have a credible lead or you know where it is, leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll make sure the folks at Gibson are notified.

Why is it that nobody is looking for the tweed Bassman (wrong handle, added metal corners, no logo) that MJF is plugged into? I guess nobody gets inspired by an amplifier.

This 59 blonde walks into a guitar dealer and it looks pretty awful. It’s sticky and it smells like feet. Do you sell it as is? No? I didn’t think so.

Aging new guitars was an interesting new concept a few decades ago and it seemed a little silly at the time to those of us who were already into vintage instruments. It was the mid 1980’s and what are now considered vintage guitars were simply considered old. The aging concept caught on and is big business today. The idea of paying extra to have someone beat up your guitar seemed ridiculous but I have been proven wrong and, frankly, it’s nearly an art form here in 2025. They scrape them, scratch them, add dings and checking and buckle rash. They tarnish the hardware and warp the plastic and even add fake headstock breaks on certain “artist” models. What they don’t do is add dirt and all that toxic crud that builds up on a vintage piece after decades in smoky bars (remember smoky bars?). Nobody wants their guitar to rub off on their arms or clothing. The crud that accumulates from sweat, smoke and spilled beer is not something you want to be touching at your regular gigs. It is probably dangerous. I suppose the “VOS” concept which is simply fake oxidation, is as close as anyone gets.

So, that leads me to my topic for today’s post. I buy a lot of very old guitars and usually they are relatively dirt free and don’t require any cleaning at all-maybe under the guard but not much else. I rarely touch the finish but when I do, it’s with a product that isn’t abrasive (I use Virtuoso Cleaner). But sometimes I get a guitar that is so covered with something brown and sticky and smelly that I have to do something. Usually the Virtuoso Cleaner will remove it. It’s made to dissolve organic matter and much of what accumulates is, in fact, organic. Tar from cigarette smoke is probably organic too but it doesn’t come off easily and will usually require some serious elbow grease and maybe an abrasive polish. Fortunately, most of the polishes available for musical instruments aren’t terribly abrasive so you aren’t removing much, if any, finish. But when it’s been twenty or thirty years of buildup, a turn on the buffing wheel might be the only way to get it off. Buffing a guitar is a tricky maneuver. I don’t do it-I don’t even have a buffing wheel. I might do some serious hand buffing with StewMac fine compound but I’d be afraid of buffing right through the finish with a wheel, so I leave that to others more skilled than me.

The photo at the top is a 1959 ES-335 blonde that spent way too much time in bars. The buildup appears dense, sticky and truly unsightly so it made sense to clean it up. I wouldn’t buy, let alone sell a guitar that was covered in human and non human debris. But I’m not the one who buffed that one. I bought it after the buffing was done. The previous dealer who had it doesn’t remember if it was done by hand or on a wheel but it’s done and no harm came of it. In fact, it looks great and has taken on a deeper blonde color. The larger question is whether buffing out a guitar damages the value and I’m kind of on the fence about that. In fifty years when the “relics” made today are considered vintage, will the man made artificial relic work be considered a negative? Is “unrelic’ing a vintage guitar by buffing it something to be avoided? It’s not an easy question. On the plus side, nothing has been added like it would be if it was oversprayed or refinished. The finish is still the factory finish. Some may have been removed by buffing but playing a guitar for fifty years also removes finish and that doesn’t bother anybody. Plenty of guitars out there with arm wear on the lower bass bout and lots of wear on the back of the neck.

Conclusion? I would rather have a guitar that wasn’t buffed but if it’s covered with toxic crud, I’d rather somebody got rid of it. I don’t think buffing should harm the value but I think it should be disclosed so that you can form your own opinion. But until Tom Murphy and company start adding “genuine human sweat, cigarette smoke and stale beer” as an extra cost aging option, I’ll stick with clean, non toxic guitars-buffed if necessary.

This is the same guitar after being buffed out. The crud is gone and it looks and smells very nice. Plays pretty well too. I’m sure someone will tell me that it sounded better before it was buffed.

The dreaded and hated Gibson volute from the 70’s. Lots of folks removed it but one guy actually added one.

I’ve seen some oddball mods over the years but this one kind of takes it. First, a little history. In 1969 at around the time Gibson was bought by the Norlin Corp (beer, cement), somebody, probably a suit, decided that too many guitars were coming back for headstock repairs. So, they did something about it. The thinking at the time was to strengthen the neck at the wrist with a carved bump that would supposedly reinforce that very vulnerable part of the neck. This bump/reinforcement is called a volute. Not to be confused with a veloute´which is roux based soup and won’t help your guitar’s neck at all but will almost certainly taste pretty good. Now, as it turns out, almost everybody hated the volute and to make matters worse, it really didn’t work all that well because the necks kept breaking only now they broke below (or above) the volute. But I already did a post about volutes years ago and I don’t do repeats. This is about a guitar that actually had a volute added to it.

Picture that it’s 1972 or so and new guitars from Gibson are what everybody wants. Strats have gone down the tubes and everybody knows it but Gibsons still are the one to own. Les Paul Deluxes were really popular among the folks I hung with back then (I was 20 in 72). The volute was, largely, considered an improvement for Gibson because neck breaks were something most players were really aware of and many had experienced them. So, what does the owner of this particular guitar (a T FON 60 ES-335 with a pair of monster double whites and a big fat neck) do to “upgrade” his 12 year old guitar? Dumbest thing I’ve seen yet with the possible exception of the “turnbuckle” neck repair. He had a luthier very competently install, you guessed it, a volute. Nicely done too-using a matching block of mahogany carved into the correct volutey shape, it was spliced, using a scarf joint at the lower end and a straight joint at the top partway up the headstock. It must have been a thing of beauty. Voila-a modern 1972 Gibson. Imagine the pride he must have felt. Poor guy.

Now the good news. At some point, someone realized just how freakin’ stupid this gambit was and removed the offensive bump from the back of the headstock. But, because it was attached using tried and true lutherie wood joinery, the scarf joint and straight joint were still visible. They simply sanded off the volute part and left the rest of the new wood, as they should have, as part of the neck. A little lacquer touchup and the guitar is as good as new. Sort of.

This is the work done to add the volute before the finish was redone to hide it.

Well, I own this guitar now and I was kind of hesitant to buy it. I’m positive the neck joint will never give anyone a moments trouble and it is totally stable and the neck was never cracked or broken but, hey, there’s a well executed scarf joint where one doesn’t belong. Other than that, it’s a very clean rare as rare gets 58 factory order 1960 serial ES-335. This is the fourth one of these odd 335’s I’ve had. I can understand the FON and the serial being a few months apart but over a year? That probably means the body/neck was put aside to be used when Gibson got behind on orders. The 58 bodies were prone to cracking around the jack and Gibson got more complaints than they were happy with, so bye bye thin top. You see them sprinkled throughout 1959 and, as I mentioned, rarely in 1960.

Once clearer heads prevailed, the volute was removed by simply cutting and sanding. A few folks have suggested it was done to repair a crack. If that is true then the crack must have been very shallow as there is no sign of any damage to the wood and the added wood is quite thin.

This guitar has what might well be the best sounding bridge pickup I’ve ever encountered on a 335. The guitar cracks the top twenty for sure and possibly the top ten. It’s that good. The top ten is full of guitars with the same description…58 FON with a good neck angle. Late 58, 59 or 60 serial. Thin top. Usually double whites or zebras. Big neck. Out of the top ten, seven fit this description. No, double whites don’t sound better because they are white. But they tend to be somewhat overwound and that makes a difference.

This is the headstock as it looks today. Volute removed and finish touch up. I know. You can’t see it.

So, what would you pay for a 60 ES-335 with a thin top, a pair of killer double white PAFs, a big fat 58 neck and a scarf joint? I know what I paid-probably too much-but it’s such a great player with astonishing tone that I had to say yes. If the joint ever gives up, I’ll give you back your money as long as I’m still alive. Guaranteed or my name isn’t Orville Gibson.

Here is the guitar. It is a monster player with a pair of double white PAFs. Big neck and thin top. What’s the discount for a well executed scarf joint? I guess I’ll find out.