The Gibson ES-335

Check out the gold Varitone knob. It's factory and pretty unusual. This is a very late 60 ES-345

I love  the really little stuff. The details that other 335 aficionados either ignore or don’t know about. Over the past few years, I’ve seen a couple of ES-345s that had an unusual Varitone switch. The chickenhead knob, which is usually black, is painted gold. When I saw the first one, I figured it wasn’t factory-it was just someones aesthetic choice. Then I saw two or three  more and realized that this is, in fact, a factory feature.

When's the last time you saw the pull ribbon on the case pocket of a 52 year old guitar look like this?

The guitar in the photo is one of the last 345s to leave the factory in 1960. It’s only about 100 numbers from the end of the year, so I figure its from the last week or second to last week in December. It has a number of features that are more common in 61-most notably the sideways trem which really only shows up on 345s for 2 years-61 and 62. It also has a white switch tip which is more commonly associated with 61. The long guard says 60 though, loud and clear.  But what about the gold chicken head? Gibson was always trying to eliminate steps in the manufacturing process. The thinking was, fewer steps means less production time which means lower costs and higher profits. There were dozens of cost cutting measures put into effect during the era, not all to the good of the instrument. That’s another post. But why add the step of spray painting the knob? Seems kind of dumb, doesn’t it? Granted, it was probably less than an hours work to do a years worth of them but still, the corporate culture was dictating otherwise. One other thing to note. You can see in the photo that the trem arm is in the way of the Varitone switch. Bad design? Well, partially. The ES-355’s that got the sideways often got a round knob rather than the chickenhead but there’s more to it than that. Back in 1960, nobody even made the ultralight gauge strings we’re all used to today. The average set of strings were .12’s and were probably flats. That causes a lot more tension on the trem and would cause the arm to sit closer to the housing, perhaps making enough room for the chicken head to actually turn. Or not. There isn’t much more to say about the switch but there’s plenty to say about the guitar. I’m pretty careful with my guitars but, even so, I still manage to whack the closet door with the guitar every now and then if I leave it open. Or, I smack the headstock into the wall in the laundry room where I do my repairs and setups. It just happens a couple of times a year. So how in the world does a guitar exist for 52 years and stay mint. It boggles my mind. This particular 60 defies logic, it’s so clean. It has one ding on the entire guitar at the very top of the headstock. That’s all. No wear, no checking. A little pitting on the gold on the trem and the shrunken tuner buttons are the only things that tell you this isn’t a reissue. I got it from the second owner who never played it (drummers, go figure). The original owner had it for more than 40 years, so I assume he played it once in a while. The thing that just blows me away is thecondition of the inside of the case. The ribbon on the case pocket always gets trashed first. This one looks brand new-like no one ever opened the pocket. There’s a reason these time capsule examples command a premium. How many are you going to come across? In the past two years since I’ve gotten serious about the vintage thing, I’ve seen 2. Both, coincidentally, red 60 ES-345s. Maybe they’re just too pretty to play or else it has something to do with the gold chicken head.

Here it is on my repair guy's bench. What's wrong with this picture? What's wrong is the guitar needs nothing, so why is it even on the bench?

Thursday, April 12th, 2012 at 5:19 pm • ES 345 • RSS 2.0 feed • leave a response or trackback