The Gibson ES-335

Zoubi rocks out for Halloween. She doesn’t always remember the lyrics and not having opposable thumbs makes it hard for a dog to be a lead player but she manages to hold up her end. The set list includes “Walkin’ the Dog”, “Hound Dog”, “The Boxer”, “Nashville Cats” and “Stay”.

Guitar players are tinkerers. I’m always surprised when I get a 60 year old guitar that hasn’t been messed with in any way. I’m pretty sure I modded every guitar I owned from the time I was 12 until I started appreciating vintage in the early 90’s. Some mods are pretty benign-especially when they are reversible but some are simply scary (you getting a theme here?)

Changing the tone knob on a 345 is simply sacrilege. OK, just kidding, it’s the Varitone switch that is so scary. No, it isn’t, it’s the Kahler (is that a Kahler?). Now that’s scary.

There are a lot of mods that I can deal with but I think the absolute worst one is the rear access panel. I don’t know why it bothers me so much. Maybe because it is born of laziness. “Oh, it’s just too hard to install a harness in a 335. I’ll just cut a big fat hole on the back and put it in that way. Nobody will ever notice.” That mod is the dealbreaker of all dealbreakers for me. In fact, any hole cut into a 335 put there to make harness installation easier simply drives me over the edge.

There are plenty of mods you can do that aren’t scary. If you have to make your guitar “better”, do something that doesn’t require drilling any holes or cutting any wood. That way, when it gets sold to me, I can put it back to the way it was when it left the factory. Go, ahead, put on knobs that look like dice or a truss rod cover with your name on it or even swap out the pickups. Just don’t cut a big access hole in the back of the guitar because you can’t get the harness back in. Call your luthier and have him do it. Call me and have me do it. Consider this-and this will scare you plenty-every extra little hole will knock up to $1000 off the value of your vintage guitar. And, while I’ve never bought a 335 with an access panel cut into it, I did buy a ’60 335 with a big notch cut out of the f-hole (under the guard) because they couldn’t get the harness back in. It was competently repaired and it wasn’t visible with the guard on but it also knocked around $7000 off the value. What was a $29000 guitar became a $22,000 guitar. You could have had your local luthier reinstall that harness for $100. Let’s see…that’s a savings of $6,900.

This is actually an ES-333 which has a factory access panel but you get the idea. Don’t do this to your 335. Or 345. Or 355.

Early block neck 335’s (62-63) with the cut center block seem to be the lightest of the ES models (unless you count the full hollow 330). The lightest of them are just over 7 lbs. Thin top 58’s and 59’s can get pretty close to 7 lbs as well. By 64 and later, the body got thicker by a fraction of an inch and these guitars tend to hover around 8 to 8.5 pounds. There are always exceptions because the moisture content of the wood is a big factor and it varies wildly.

What’s the most frequent question I get about a guitar that I’m selling? Not just ES guitars but just about every guitar. Is it “How does it sound?” How does it play?” “Is the neck straight and does the truss rod work?” Nope. These are all very important questions but they aren’t the questions I get first. Maybe it’s because so many of my buyers are over 50. Maybe it’s because the Les Paul guys are so obsessed with it. It’s “How much does it weigh?” Seem odd to you? It sure seems odd to me. Yes, if your playing 4 hour gigs and you have a bad back or shoulder, a lighter guitar is going to make a difference. The question is one of balance. Not just the balance of the guitar (“does it dive?”) but of the qualities that make a guitar the right guitar for you.

I would argue that the weight of the guitar has very little to do with the tone with most guitars. After all, most electrics are a solid slab of wood with a neck attached. Some wood is more resonant than other wood but it isn’t directly tied to weight. I could argue that moisture content and weight are related and that moisture content and resonance are related but we’re talking ounces here. Most folks don’t care off the guitar is 8 lbs 2 ounces or 8 lbs 12 ounces. They care if it’s over 8 lbs or under 8 lbs. Or over 9 lbs or under 9 lbs. The round numbers seem to be the important ones with most buyers (especially the Les Paul guys). But, seeing as I’m not a Les Paul blog, I’m going to leave the Les Paul guys alone.

ES-335’s fall into a fairly narrow range as far as weight goes. We’ll leave the stereo guitars (345’s and some 355’s) out of the mix-the Varitone circuit weighs about 10 ounces. We’ll leave out Bigsby’s for the moment as well-they weigh around 13 ounces. A stop tail 335 will average around 7 lbs 12 ounces. Early ones tend to be a bit lighter and later ones bit heavier. There are variations in the specs that have an effect on this and those variations actually do affect the tone but it’s the design elements that make the difference and not the actual weight. Let me explain.

At some point in 1961, they started cutting a section out of the center block to make the installation of the harness easier. They did it on some guitars but not all of them. I’ve never figured out why. Most 61’s don’t have the cutout. Most 64’s do. Nearly all 65’s do. Maybe a third of the 62’s have the cut block. All 345’s have it to accommodate the VT choke. It knocks a few ounces off the weight but it also makes the guitar slightly more resonant. Whether that translates to better tone is questionable. The body depth is another factor. A 64 335 averages about 1.78″ deep. A 58 averages 1.6″ or so. A .2 difference will again be ounces but it does add up. The top on a 58 and some 59’s is thinner by 25% or so. That is a few ounces more. The body depth has very little effect on tone, if any. The thin top has quite a lot. My favorite 335’s have the thin top (and they also have the uncut center block).

The range, as I said earlier, is pretty narrow. The lightest 335 I’ve had weighed 7 lbs 1 ounce. I believe it was a 62 with a cut center block. The heaviest was just a hair under 9 lbs but that’s a bit of an outlier. The vast majority weigh between 7.5 lbs and 8 lbs. Nobody complains about the weight of a 335 if it falls at 8 lbs or below.

At the other end of the scale would be a Bigsby equipped ES-345 with its stereo Varitone circuit intact. Those two items add well over a pound to the overall weight. They still generally come in under 9 lbs but by the mid 60’s, a 9 lb plus 345 is certainly possible. You can always lighten the load by removing the Bigsby – usually around 13 ounces and the Varitone -around 10 ounces. Add back the weight of the stop tail and studs and you’re still saving nearly a pound and a quarter.

My shop (OK Guitars) is located in Kent, Connecticut; a little tourist centric town 85 miles from New York City. So, I get a lot of tourists who come in with no knowledge or interest in guitars. The most often asked question from this crowd? “Were any of these owned by somebody famous?” The answer is usually “no.” There has been a whole lot of interest in celebrity guitars lately. It must be the one percenters because the prices have been, frankly, insane. The Gilmour auction was a real good example. I get the allure of an instrument played by somebody famous, especially somebody you admire. Would I love to have one of George’s guitars (I’ll take the 345 if anybody knows where it is)? You bet I would but I’m pretty sure I won’t be paying a million (or $4 million) for it. It’s out of my league for sure and I think it’s a little excessive.

When Clapton’s ’64 335 sold for $800K and change, we were all a bit surprised that provenance alone could thrust a $14,000 guitar (at the time) to that lofty figure. I thought, “oh, it’s the Guitar Center guys-they’re going to replicate it and sell copies…” which they did (and they were great by the way). Then, I attended the next Clapton auction and saw crappy little $200 Fender practice amps-that he may or may not have actually used-sell for thousands of dollars. It became clear to me that this was a market that had some real potential. But it’s not my market.

My market is players and player/collectors. Most are amateur players, many are well heeled professional people-doctors and lawyers and Wall Street types and a few rock stars and more than a few lesser known pro players. One thing it isn’t is billionaire fans. My wealthier clients are not buying million dollar guitars. I don’t think a lot of rock stars are buying them either. That $3.975 million black Strat is probably not going to get played much (if at all). It’s simply a different crowd of buyers.

I would wager that someone who can easily afford to spend a million or four million bucks on a guitar probably doesn’t much care about the potential investment value. He simply wants to own it and its attached bragging rights. (I’d love to put Lennon’s J160-E in a big ol’ glass case in my shop but I didn’t have $1.2M on hand that day). I would also wager that it isn’t an investment at all. I’m going to take some heat for this but in 20 years, who, in the next generation of billionaires, is going to care that much about Pink Floyd (and I like Pink Floyd). Most kids don’t know who David Gilmour is. They know who the Beatles are and kids a dozen generations from now will know who the Beatles were but Pink Floyd? Maybe not so much.

So, what’s my point here? Go back and look at the title of the post. I deal in instruments, not memorabilia. I deal in nostalgia for sure but not in hero worship (unless you’re a Beatle). If you can afford the price of admission, knock yourself out. Buy cool stuff that was owned by famous people. I recently bid on Don Everly’s black ’63 Gibson J-180 “Everly Brothers” guitar. I bailed out at $25K because, much as I like Phil and Don, I don’t like them that much. I think it sold for around $26K, so it was me and one other bidder. I wish I had gotten it but it didn’t break my heart either. I’m bidding on a couple of Walter Becker’s guitars this week. I like Steely Dan a lot but I won’t be spending $4 million. I don’t have $4 million and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to clone a rock star from the DNA left on the frets. But if I could, I’d trade you two David Gilmours for a Walter Becker.

Phil and Don with their signature guitars. I’m not sure why this one (or one like it) is worth $26K while the Gilmour black Strat is worth $4M. I’d rather have Don’s guitar.