1966 Gibson ES-335
I bought this in Sydney Australia in November 2010. It was in near perfect condition for its age and the only major ding was on the upper edge of the headstock. There were virtually no marks at all on the body apart from minor finish checking that could only be seen from very close up and in the right light. I had a 1968 one in the 1980s but it was in nowhere near as good conditon as this one, even 20-odd years ago.
I've always preferred the block necks to the dot necks, i.e. the mother of pearl position markers are rectangular rather than circular. My old Orville 335 was a dot neck, and generally the most valuable 335s are late '50s Gibson dot necks.
This one has some quite nice figuring in the mahogany neck, which you can only just make out in the photo above. It also has some beautiful birdseye figuring mainly in the maple back, but it doesn't show up well in photos.
Serial numbers of Gibsons from 1966 and 1969 are duplicated so it's tricky telling which are which. The guy who sold this one to me claimed that the pots are dated 1965 and 1966. He also claimed that the dot above the letter "i" in the logo on the headstock was missing on 1969 guitars, but I've had a hard time confirming that. Most sites don't mention it at all, but there is a discussion about it on a Les Paul forum. And then I found the picture below, from an ebay ad for a 1969 ES-335, with no dot above the "i".
1969 headstock with no dot above the "i"
In any event, the specifications on the Vintage Guitars Info web site say that:
- The volute was introduced in 1970. This one does not have a volute so is definitely pre '70s.
- The orange "Union Made" labels were used from 1964-69. This is one of those.
- The tuners also fit the 1964-69 description - double ring buttons with a greenish colour, and the words "Kluson Deluxe" in 2 rows.
- The 1965 to 1967 neck width is 1 9/16" or 1 5/8", whereas from 1968 onwards the nut width increased back to 1 11/16". This one is 1 9/16".
Based on this, I believe this is definitely a 1966 model.
It didn't have the original case, and I was told that the knobs and the pickup covers were not original, but everything else was.
Closeup of the back showing finish checking
Assuming that the pickups are original, this has T-top pickups. I had never heard of T-top pickups until recently, but according to The Vintage Guitar Info Guy:
After PAF pickups were gone, the patent# pickups were next and used from 1962 to 1965. Then from 1965 to 1975 (note overlap) the next Gibson humbucker is known as the "T bucker" or "T top". They are called this because of a "T" that is part of the molding on the front of the two pickup bobbins. These also had the decal with "Patent No 2,737,842" (still the patent number of Les Paul's trapeze tailpiece). The only way to see the "T" is to remove the pickup cover.
Unfortunately I had to sell it only a few months later because of a change in financial circumstances and I lost quite a bit of money on it. I never even had the chance to play it at a gig. However when finances improved I did buy another one in 2016 - a 1963 reissue made in 2005.
