A Rare "Blond" -- One of Only 195 ES-330TN's

This very early 1960 guitar has that wonderfully thick '59 neck profile and a nice, fat nut width of 1 11/16 inches. This incredibly light guitar weighs just 5.60 lbs. and has a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Laminated maple top, back, and sides, one-piece mahogany neck and a rosewood fretboard with 22 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Inlaid pearl "Gibson" headstock logo. Individual Kluson Deluxe tuners with white plastic oval buttons. One black P-90 pickup with a huge output of 8.40k. Five-layer (black/white/black/white/black) plastic pickguard. Two controls (one volume, one tone) with black plastic bell-shaped knobs with metal tops. ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge and trapeze tailpiece with raised diamond on cross-bar. Apart from three small marks on the back of the neck and a small ding on the edge of the headstock by the "D" tuner key, this is a spectacular example and a wonderful player. Housed in its original Gibson brown hardshell case with purple plush lining (8.50).

Known affectionately as the "poor man's dot neck guitar," the ES-330 was numerically speaking, the biggest seller of the double cutaway series in the late fifties and early sixties, even if it was not a real semi-solid guitar! Built with the same body shape as the ES-335, but not the same solid construction, the ES-330T/TD were originally introduced in 1959 as a replacement for the single cutaway ES-225T/TD. The main differences from the more expensive ($282.50) ES-335 were the absence of the solid center block and the use of a trapeze tailpiece as opposed to the 335's stop tailpiece.

The "dot-neck" ES-330TN was introduced in 1959, and a total of 165 guitars were made until the model was discontinued in 1960. This fine example is one of 83 made in 1960.