Up for sale is a 1967 (according to the serial number) Gibson Melody Maker, in Pelham Blue. This guitar is not all original, and it has a good bit of finish checking—but the yellowed varnish still gives it that tell-tale “green” look over the original factory blue paint (little bits of which can still be seen in the small amount of buckle rash present on the back). But there are no breaks/cracks in the neck/heel area, or the headstock area, or anywhere on the neck or body, and no signs at all of any repairs to the original neck and body.

The bent up, very cheap tuning gears that originally came with it weren’t sufficient and were replaced with some nice Sperzel locking tuners; the Maestro Vibrola that it originally came with left the scars of that component’s antiquated design when it was removed, but the guitar now has a nice, solid one-piece bridge and tailpiece (complete with brass saddles).

The guitar originally had a lone single coil pick-up, but by the time I bought it (which was sometime back in the ‘90s) someone had added a second single coil in the neck position—although they didn’t bother to add any additional electronics for the new pick-up; they just had both pick-ups operating through the same “one tone and one volume” set-up that it originally came with. I replaced the pick-ups that were in it (one may have been the original, but they both sounded awful) with the pair of Fender-style pick-ups—I forget what brand they are—that are currently in it (and that sound much better), and I also had the second tone and volume pots added, as well as the toggle switch (it went where the original output jack was, and the output jack was moved to the side of the body). The pearloid pickguard was custom cut for the guitar.

I used the guitar for several years as my primary instrument, during the last half or so of the ‘90s. It’s always been reliable, but for the past couple of decades it has mostly just sat in my studio unused. As it gets older, a few more little paint chips have flaked off, and it started to develop a little bit of a bow in the neck that truss rod adjustments haven’t been able to address (not sure if there is a problem with the truss rod itself, or the truss rod nut, or what); as a result, I’ve really only been using it for slide playing the few times I’ve played it at all over the past several years. At this point I think it’s time to let it move on to someone else that wants to get more use out of it.

No case is included, but I have a gig bag that will fit it; if you pay the original asking price, I’m happy to include that as well (or we can discuss adding it for a small charge).

$75.00 shipping is for the continental U.S. ONLY, via UPS; please contact me for a quote for Alaska or Hawaii or for a different carrier.  Avoid a shipping cost altogether if you pick it up from me in Marietta, GA (PLEASE NOTE that if you elect to pick this guitar up from me, you can fully test it out here and so it will be a no-returns, as-is purchase).

Thanks for looking!