NOTE: Due to COVID-19, my lessons, tours, and gigs have been cancelled.  This is why I dropped it to this price.    This is the most special guitar I have ever owned, played by Tal Farlow himself at four separate occasions.  I purchased this guitar from Tal’s guitar student in New Jersey.   I am afraid to gig with it so it sits unplayed, in its case, as it has for ten years now.  I want to get this guitar to the right player. I need the capital to invest in maintenance work on my other instruments that I work with everyday.  
        With this guitar, I will provide handwritten letters from Tal, newspaper clippings, as well as transcriptions in Tal’s own handwriting for songs like “Yesterday” by The Beatles, “All The Things You Are” and lesson notes.   It comes with a signed letter from Tal’s Student, verifying and denoting the interactions the guitar experienced, and the kind of music that Tal put into it.  It comes with the Original Gibson Gold Warranty and original case.   I added a mahogany bridge to it, but I have included the original bridge as well.  I am also including the book about his style (in picture). I was lucky enough to use this book as a curriculum guide when I studied jazz at University of Oregon.  

The Tal Farlow model, first released in 1962, has a body that is outwardly reminiscent of the popular ES-5 in its basic dimensions, but from there it departs in its own unique model form as dictated by this gifted guitarist. It's trademark faux-scroll rounded cutaway (Farlow's own design), upside-down J-200 fingerboard inlays, double-crown headstock inlays, and Tal Farlow trapeze tailpiece with inlaid rosewood block set it apart from any other archtop Gibson had ever created. This unusual signature model has always been a rare bird, and only 215 examples were produced between 1962-'69.

History

Gibson has always recognized the value of working with leading artists of the day, and Tal Farlow has been both a first-call sideman and a popular solo artist of the 1950s and '60s. His performance credits read like a who's who of the jazz world: he joined Margarie Hyams' band in 1948, was a member of the Red Norvo Trio (originally with Charles Mingus) from 1949-'53, when he joined Artie Shaw's Gramercy Five for a spell, before forming his own notable trio.

Body and Neck

Gibson's Custom Shop makes the Tal Farlow today in the exact image of the original, down to the enlarged five-point pickguard and the Farlow scroll cutaway, created-now as then-by curling the binding into the body at the cutaway to create the impression of a mandolin-like scroll. It's a full-sized archtop at 17" wide and, more comfortable than other models of its day, 3" deep. As preferred by many professional jazz guitarists, including Farlow, the ES rounded neck profile is made to a 25-1/2" scale length, with a 1-11/16" nut width. The model also features multi-ply binding on the body's top and back, single-ply white binding on the fingerboard, headstock, and f-holes, and is available in vintage sunburst and viceroy brown.

Hardware

Fully acoustic, it is also a fully electric model, with two set-in humbucking pickups with individual volume and tone controls, and a three-way selector switch. Its floating rosewood bridge base carries an ABR-1 tune-o-matic bridge for full adjustment of individual string intonation and excellent sustain. Outfitted with L-5 Electric .012 strings, the Tal Farlow model comes with the standard Gibson Custom case and certificate of authenticity.

Features

• Laminated Maple body
• Maple neck
• 25.5" scale length
• "Scroll" purfling inlay at the cutaway
• Multi binding
• Rosewood tailpiece inlay inlayed itself with Mother of Pearl "Tal Farlow"
• Upside down Mother of Pearl SJ200 fingerboard inlays and unique "Double Crown" headstock inlay
• Bound F-Holes and Pick Guard
• Gibson 57 Classic Humbucker pickups
• Gibson hardshell case
• PLEK setup

See and hear why this guitar deserves such high praise. Reserve yours today.