1996 Orville ES-335
8 March 2014
Apparently a lot of people want to relive their glorious pasts when they get to middle age. It happened to me too.
I'd had a 1968 Gibson 335 in the '80s but I didn't want to spend several grand on one just to relive my glorious past. Then I read an ad on ebay for these fantastic Japanese made exact replicas, that were licensed by Gibson from the late '80s to late '90s.
I bought this one for about AU$1500 from a guy in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney Australia in July 2006. It was a fantastic guitar but I really had no practical use for it at the time because I wasn't in a band then and didn't have an amp. I hardly played it (I looked at it a lot though), so I sold it again in October 2007 to someone in Brisbane.
Some folks believe that the 'Orville by Gibson' branded ones are far better than the 'Orville' ones, and in fact when I advertised it I was contacted by some idiot who told me that if I "had an Orville by Gibson I'd have a decent guitar". Don't you love the way some people feel they have a right to respond to your ad just to tell you it's a shit item?
Regardless, to the best of my knowledge the ONLY difference is that the former have USA-made Gibson pickups and the word 'Gibson' on the headstocks. In all other respects I believe they are identical and are even made in the same factories. If putting the word 'Gibson' on a guitar makes it better then maybe it's true that red cars go faster?
By 2009 I had started playing in bands again, so in late 2010 I splurged on a genuine Gibson 335 made in 1966.
Very detailed information about Orville guitars is at the links below.
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