The Solid Body Version of the Hollow 6120

This compact 13 1/4-inch-wide guitar weighs in at 7.70 lbs. and has a very comfortable nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches and a scale length of 24 1/2 inches. Chambered mahogany body, mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 22 frets and inlaid pearloid plastic hump-top block position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl Gretsch "T-roof" logo and pearloid horseshoe inlay. Individual Grover StaTite open-back tuners with oval metal buttons. Two single-coil DeArmond (Gretsch Dynasonic) pickups, each with an output of 16.00k. Gold Lucite pickguard with pantograph-engraved Gretsch "T-roof" logo and "Chet Atkins" signature framed in a signpost (the signpost and signature highlighted in black). Four controls (two individual volume controls and master tone control in a triangular configuration on lower treble bout and master volume control on upper treble bout) plus three-way selector switch on upper bass bout. "Arrow-through-G" knobs with cross-hatch pattern on sides. Space Control roller bridge on rosewood base and unplated aluminum Bigsby B-3 vibrato tailpiece with pivoting arm. Gold-plated hardware. This guitar has its original brass nut. Apart from some minimal belt-buckle wear, this is an exceptional and totally original guitar. Housed in its original tweed fabric-covered hardshell case with red velvet lining. This guitar, produced in June of 1957, is one of the first to have a Space Control bridge. "Introduced in 1958, the space control bridge with laterally adjustable brass rollers ('transversing string wheels') replaced the Melita...Earliest models of the so-called spacer had large, domed knobs at the ends of the bridge saddle" (Jay Scott, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, p. 73).

"The solid companion to the Chet Atkins Hollow Body debuted in 1954. The only differences between it and the Round-Up are standard Chet Atkins model features: Bigsby vibrato, non adjustable bridge, signature pickguard, and...metal nut" (George Gruhn and Walter Carter, Electric Guitars and Basses: A Photographic History, p. 175). Despite the name, the Chet Atkins Solid Body had Gretsch's customary semi-solid construction.