Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes 1960
This beauty is identical to a late 59 and will cost you 30% less. This one is probably from March of 60. It has all the 59 features-bonnet knobs, long guard, amber switch tip, single ring tuners and a pretty big neck. I’d buy this guitar in a heartbeat if it was for sale again. I sold it a couple of years ago and it was a great one.
It’s January 4th 1960. It’s Monday. Gibson gave the workers New Years Day off last Friday and you’re back in the factory in Kalamazoo. Your hangover has, mercifully, gone away and you are ready to start a new year at the Gibson factory. You roll over a rack of 335’s to your work area and start doing whatever it is you do. This rack of 335’s (there are usually 35 to a rack) were all built last week and stamped with a factory order number beginning with the letter “S” which stands for 1959. These guitars will get their serial number once they are completed and ready to ship and that serial number will tell us that these guitars are from 1960. OK, why should I care about that, especially nearly 60 years later. Well, I’ll tell you why.
A 1959 ES-335 is worth, in todays market, 30-40% more than a 1960. You could argue that the factory order number is more significant since it signifies the year the guitar was built which is more important than when it was shipped but your buyer is going to look up the serial number and argue that it’s a 60 and your buyer would be right. But they are the same, aren’t they? Yes. They are the same at least for a few months. There were no changes at all made in early 1960. The significant changes occurred in the Fall of 1959-the slimmer neck, the steeper neck angle. An early 60 is the same as a later 59. The 1960 changes really don’t get under way until the late Spring or early Summer and, as usual, the changes occur over a period of time
The most significant change is in the neck profile. By around May or June, the profile of the neck (front to back-the width stayed the same) started to slim down from an average of .83″ at the first fret down to a very slim .79″ or so. The 12th fret measurement goes from the .94″ range down to .87″ and even less. That’s pretty slim. I won’t get into the discussion about neck girth and tone. It’s a slippery slope. But other changes were soon to follow.
I’m not totally clear on the timeline for the tuners-they get changed by their owners so frequently that it’s hard to pin down the period of change. They were still Klusons but the tips went from single ring to double ring and the oil hole went from big to small. They still shrink and fall apart. The knobs go from bonnet (burst type) to reflectors around the same time-again mid year or so. The capacitors, up to the Spring of 1960 were bumblebee Spragues but changed to Black Beauty which are pretty much the same as a later bumblebee.
Very late in the year-probably in December, another round of changes occurred. The very desirable long guards ran out and the economics probably dictated that a shorter pick guard would save a few cents on every guitar. That change is perhaps more significant than most-not because it made much functional difference but because the long guard 335’s are revered nearly as much as the big neck ones. You can’t tell a big neck 335 from a foot away but you can tell a long guard from across the room. At around the same time, the switch tip went from catalin material which turned amber to white plastic which stayed white (and usually cracked). Finally and sadly, it was the end of the line for the blonde finish. They made 88 of them making 1960 the most common of the blondes. But it also marked the beginning of the long tradition of red 335’s. There are a few 59’s (perhaps a half dozen) but red was not offered as a catalog option until 1960. What surprises most folks is how a rare a red 60 is. They made only 21 of them. A long guard red 335, to me, is the most desirable 335 ever made. It’s also worth noting that the red finish itself changed in 1960-probably in the 3rd quarter. It seems the early red dye was very reactive to sunlight and faded to that watermelon color that everybody wants. Yes, it’s the same red that disappears from a Les Paul burst.
In many ways, an early 60 ES-335 is one of the great deals in vintage. It is the same as a late 59 but minus the nearly irrational desirability of that year. 59’s are wonderful guitars-I play one myself (OK, it’s a 345 but its still a 59) but a 60 will cost you a whole lot less do everything that 59 does.
Long guard red 60. Rare and then some. There are plenty of red 61’s but the red is different and the guard is the short version. This, I guess, explains why a red 61 will cost you $20K and a red 60 will cost you more than twice that.
Great post! “Irrational” it is! Why is “1959” such a magical year that the ship date offsets all other qualitative measures? You mentioned in the prior post that the desirable features also emerged slowly during the course of 1959. Is a 1959 will less desirable 1958 features actually worth more than an early 1960 with all ’59 attributes?
Any Golden Era ES is great! Like asking if a vintage Cabernet is better than a vintage Pinot…They’re just different!
The answer is yes. A late 58 is worth more than an early 60. There is no logic to any of it. On the other hand, late 58’s are often better than early 59’s but keep that under your hat (everybody will want one).
Under the hat, it is! BTW, I have a theory that the early guards were long because Gibson was using the same standard template for most of its arch tops of about the same scale length – where the higher cutaway puts the top of the pickguard around the 18-19th fret. (I think the height and profile of an ES-335 long guard matches that used on an ES-175 or L7.) The deeper ES-335 cutaway dropped the top edge of the standard guard to fret 21, pushing the bottom beyond the bridge (all other models have the guard ending above or at the bridge). If that’s right, the short guard would have been an effort to custom tailor a fit for the ES-3X5 line. Your thoughts?
Wow, insightful! I LOVE THIS BLOG!
Nelson,Agreed! 100%. Logical thinkin’ goin’ on here.I’ll add that they went with a new template for the short guard when they started getting complaints about the toggle switch access.
Very interesting stuff… but a little general detail about plywood: All 335’s are in fact three ply bodies – but some of these are build with four layers. The explanation is, that one ply can consist of two layers if the grains are glued in parallel, which is the case in many 335’s (and 3345, 355 etc) from the 60’s where the blind ply is made of two parallel glued layers making it one layer.
And: It could be interesting with a discussion of asymetric 335’s… there’s a lot of them around. But why did they make it to the music stores and what failed during production. Regards Troels Schmidt
I’m not a wood expert. I look at the edges of the top in the f-holes and I see four pieces of wood or three pieces of wood (on a 58). I can’t tell which way the grain goes. How they went from the thin top to the thicker top is something I couldn’t explain. Call them layers or plies-there’s three in a 58 and four in a later 335. Thanks for the education.