Nah, I don't really like sunburst all that much! I have actually picked sunburst only one time, on my Firebird, and I regretted it quickly (but mildly) and wished I had gotten the black or white. Fact is, I'm just cheap, and if I want a model of guitar and the lowest cost version is in a color I don't really love, I'll still buy it. I don't care a lot about what color they are. Sometimes more than others.mbene085 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 26, 2021 4:17 pmWhoah, I stand corrected. I should have known better than to presume my Fender and Gretsch knowledge. Pull be extrapolated into Gibson land. Thanks for the info!Gavanti wrote: ↑Mon Jul 26, 2021 1:43 pmI believe it's an Anchor Stud Bigsby model, meant to look like some of the early ones where they plugged the holes left from a Bigsby conversion. I really like black archtops for some reason. I don't mind the sunburst, but the pelham blue ones of this model look pretty stunning. What's a little odd though is the Grovers, which are not standard, but the seller said were factory. I wondered if either he was able to order them custom either because this is something you can just do(is it?) or because he's a pro. There was a very similar model the same year with a stopbar and Grovers. Maybe somewhere in the bankruptcy some parts got mixed together?
Also, mine also has Grovers. Is that not the standard tuner on these? The last owner put on locking Grovers but included what he said were original tuners, which are non-locking Grovers, and there are no covered-up extras screw holes or anything so I believe him.
And I know you love your sunbursts. I'm quite the opposite. I find 2- and 3-tone sunburst terribly boring for reasons I can't quite articulate. Something about the traditional teardrop shape seems especially weird. It's like the binding is defining this classic ES shape and the sunburst is like "I wanted to be a mandolin."
I think that burst is very nice on yours, though... but it is very old school. Classic look, well done, very 60's in that kind of louche way that I enjoy.
I can't answer to the Bilt or Starcasters, but I did have a Rickenbacker 330 that I miss, and it was pretty similarly acoustic and fun. And of course the ES-330 is also.
Which brings me to the ES-339. I had one in my possession for a month or so, from my man who I bought the brown (now there's a color I don't like) Stratocaster. Same deal, he needed to put some money together, and it would have been a good deal for me, easy payments, he probably ended up dumping it at a huge loss which he tends to do.
I hated it. I remember flipping it over and seeing "Custom Shop" on the back there, which at the time I believed it to be, it was a new model. Turns out that Gibson was just slapping "Custom Shop" on non-custom ES instruments (my ES-330 has it) for no clear reason, regardless I was marveling at how such a piece of shit could be a custom instrument.
I was pretty anti-Gibson in those days, and unskilled at setting guitars up, I might get along with it more now. But at the time I found it to be a heavy, uninspiring, overwrought piece of junk that I didn't want at any price. I hadn't learned how to reconcile with PAF pickups, regardless I hated the way it sounded, played, and felt. I do not remember it having a pleasing acoustic sound to it. I don't remember it having anything good about it.
I hope your experience is different and it very well might be.
Frankly it set me back from Gibson for a few more years. I didn't get the Gibson thing until I got my Firebird, and that ES-339 and my previous uninspiring Les Paul Studio were so lame I might have never reconciled with Gibson if they didn't make the Firebird, which I always loved the looks of and just had to have. Turns out they are wonderful, but I bought that based on my eyes falling in love. I had never played one.
And like you, when I played my ES-335 for the first time, which was immediately before the 2020 election, I thought that it played in a way that I hadn't quite found before. I think that Gibsons as a rule play great, somehow the ES-335 was a grade higher. It makes me feel like some chording is a little more possible- I also got that from the ES-330.
And I also wondered why it had taken me so long to get there... I mean, the guitar is legendary, it's one of the very few Gibsons that they have never quit making for a reason (the other is the SG). Sometimes you just gotta go along with what everybody else says, you know?