gringopig's guitars
2024 Gibson custom shop
1958 ES-335 Limited Edition
To celebrate Gibson's 130th year, they have chosen the ES-335 as the model to release in limited quantities of 130 for each of the finishes of: Tri-burst, Tobacco Sunburst and Blonde.
This one is a Tobacco Sunburst and is one of the 2 with heavy aging, the other being the Blonde. These will soon all sell out I'm sure.
The ES range was Gibson's Electric Spanish guitar and various models were made at different price points. Models like the ES-125, ES-225, ES-175 and so on reflected the price at which they were sold.
The ES-335 was a brand new model in 1958 and . like the Les Paul of 1952, it initially had an unbound fretboard on a mahogany neck. The binding appeared later in the year and from then on it was a main feature so to see a re-issue of this iconic model with an early feature is rare. I don't think Gibson have ever released an early version of the thinline 335 before.
I saw the Blonde ones sell out fast, so jumped on a Tobacco Sunburst as it was for sale in GuitarGuitar Glasgow so took the train through from Edinburgh on a lovely sunny Saturday. Going through Linlithgow and Falkirk by train allowed me to only get even more worked up about this and plugging in to a Bad Cat amp in the shop, I could hardly stop playing and decided to buy it. I mean, look at it!
Limited Edition never before released 1958 with a big chunky neck and unpotted Custombucker PAFs.
I was never going to walk away from it
Click on gallery for larger version
I have a Norlin era 1974 ES-335 and that one follows the model features since 1965 of trapeze tailpiece, block inlays and smaller horns but with a few differences for the Norlin era. It has an incomplete block through the body. It finishes after the neck pickup and only starts again after the bridge pickup. There is a strip of wood all the way but the block that connects top to back is missing in these later ones. Of course, the design then went back to the dot neck and stop tailpiece in 1980 with the first re-issues and Gibson have been making them ever since and the Custom Shop and now the Murphy Lab have been doing historic recreations as well.
So this one is a Murphy Lab custom shop limited edition for 2024 of the original 1958 unbound fingerboard ES-335 and I have done a video demo of it plus a guest appearance from my well loved 1974 original which I purchased in the early 1980's from Sound Control in Edinburgh when I was still at school. Watch in 1080p for the best result.
