NGD - '64 Historic ES345 w/bigsby Olive Drab (pics Pg2)

[zhivago]

32 natural in ‘59, 18 in ‘60. So ... rare.

Incidentally they only made 102 sunburst in 1962, of which mine is one. Crazy when you see production numbers like that!

Indeed! It is hard to perceive sometimes how rare these old Gibsons were! Golden Era stuff!

Even with Les Pauls in the 50s...after the first three "big years" of production, the numbers for the Standard and Custom models were not high at all

[shadowplay]

^^^

Yeah sunbursts and especially natural for me, though I'm not sure they appeal so much on new guitars so Kevin probably had the right idea.

There's something supernaturally special about old natural Gibsons, they have lovely wood but not in a brash and showy (and vile to me) tiger flame maple sort of way but more little whorls of figuring here and there like distant galaxies or sometimes like heat haze shimmer.

I've an acquaintance with an old staple pickup Byrdland and the wood (spruce top) and the sort of glowing sunrise lacquer tone is just beautiful. Sounds beautiful too.

D

[zhivago]

^^^

Yeah sunbursts and especially natural for me, though I'm not sure they appeal so much on new guitars so Kevin probably had the right idea.

There's something supernaturally special about old natural Gibsons, they have lovely wood but not in a brash and showy (and vile to me) tiger flame maple sort of way but more little whorls of figuring here and there like distant galaxies or sometimes like heat haze shimmer.

I've an acquaintance with an old staple pickup Byrdland and the wood (spruce top) and the sort of glowing sunrise lacquer tone is just beautiful. Sounds beautiful too.

D

Totally! I have a J50 acoustic and the patina looks awesome against the wood grain.

Timeless look!

[Despot]

There's something supernaturally special about old natural Gibsons, they have lovely wood but not in a brash and showy (and vile to me) tiger flame maple sort of way but more little whorls of figuring here and there like distant galaxies or sometimes like heat haze shimmer.

I've never liked flamed tops on ES guitars. Never. And I've seldom seen a vintage one with that sort of top.

In fact ... on the rare occasions that I've seen any sort of wood pattern it's been on the back - I've seen birdseye swirls and quilting on the back of two old ES guitars in sunburst - as if Gibson saw this as a flaw that they moved to the back rather than showcase on the top.

My own '62 has a little bit of birdseye in one spot ... and a sort of 3D shimmer band in another point ... but mostly it's a very plain top, just as it should be.

In other news I suspect that the '62 will be staying - not because of any fall off in interest in the green 345 (I still love that guitar and play it to the exclusion of all others at the moment), but because the market for the vintage ES345 isn't great right now. There's a fairly mint '63 for sale in the UK at the moment for a very good price ... and that's sort of depressing the value of mine (which is pretty worn as anyone who has seen the photos will know). I think the Tele is going to go instead and I'll hold onto the '62 for a few years to see how things go.

Interestingly there's a black ES355 for sale at the moment in the store that ordered in my 345 - it's an artist model (I forget the name of the artist) - effectively it's an all black '50s spec ES355 but with diamond F holes as you'd get on a Trini Lopez and a dark rosewood rather than ebony board - with varitone and bigsby like my ES345. As rare as ES345s and ES355s should really be ... they do tend to turn up on the market here a lot more often than you'd think (that black ES355 is the fourth one to be for sale in that store in the last two years). Anyway ... it's a cool ES355. I still prefer mine though.

[Despot]

Last night Lady Despot dragged me along to see A Star Is Born. First thing's first - he uses one of these as his main electric guitar in the movie (with some really ropey relic work too if you ask me - I've seldom seen old ES guitars that looked like someone went at them with sandpaper!).

Secondly ... I actually kind of liked the movie. I hadn't expected to enjoy it ... but I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would.

.... still think they should have left the guitar without the dodgy relic job though.


Also ... I went through a phase where I was trying to decide whether or not to hold on to this guitar as part of the general sale of my gear to fund Despot Towers. Having let the old ES345 go I'm actually a lot happier with this guitar than I was before - it's almost as if having that old ES345 skewed my perception of this one. Since it's been gone I've found myself playing this guitar a lot more - it's the one that I reach for when I'm at home on the couch in the evening.