G. L. Stiles Solid Body Electric Guitar w/Bigsby Tailpiece and Original Case

 A very nice early production G. L. Stiles Solid Body Electric Guitar w/Bigsby Tailpiece and Original Case offered for sale here.  G.L. Stiles is a mythical name among the small number of craftsmen who built custom solid body electric guitars in the early days. Gilbert Lee Stiles was constructing these guitars one at a time out of his Florida shop in the 60s, as well as repairing instruments for some of the greats, including Tom Petty. He had a unique aesthetic vision and manufactured most of the components himself, including the pickups-which sound phenomenal and have a nice open acoustic characteristic. There’s a special personal quality to his guitars, hand sanded, hand cut and lacquered for each customer, which really stand the test of time.
 This  G.L. Stiles 2 pickup Solid Body Electric Guitar is in overall very good condition as seen in the photos (the flash from the digital camera sometimes brings out marks that are not visible to the naked eye). The guitar body has a good deal of edge wear, there's quite a bit of buckle rash on the back, and there is  finish checking over the front and back of the body as seen in a number of the photos. This was a guitar that was well loved and obviously gigged with a lot and the wear and tear add to the mojo and vibe of this beautiful guitar. The neck is slim and fast, very comfortable to play. I believe this is an early production model as there are no intricate wooden inlays on the fretboard. As seen in the photos there is some wear on the fretboard, and the frets are in excellent shape, there is plenty of life left in them, I assume it may have had a refret at one time. The Kluson Deluxe Tuners work well and hold tuning well. The string height is 1/8 at the low E string 12th fret and 3/32 inches at the high E String 12th fret. The guitar has a 25 and 1/2 inch scale. The Bigsby tailpiece works well and as seen in the photos the finish on it is faded. The hand wound DeArmond Style Stiles Pickups both work well and have strong output, and the volume and tone pots work well. The three way selector switch works but it may need a cleaning or tweaking, I'll leave that up to the buyer as electronics are not my forte...
 I'll post a You Tube video in a day or two.
 The original hard shell guitar case is in overall very good condition.
  The pictures pretty much tell the story, if you have any questions pertaining to the guitar and case, feel free to ask them.  I have described this guitar and its condition accurately and am selling it as is with no returns due to its age and vintage condition. 

  A short history of G. L. Stiles Guitars from an article in Vintage Guitar Magazine.....

 "Gilbert Lee Stiles, who went by the name Lee, was born in Independence, West Virginia in 1914 where he spent the early part of his life working in various wood and timber related industries. Sometime in the late 1950s he moved to Miami, Florida. One day in 1960, on a whim, he decided to make his own guitar, which was a sort of Fender-ish solidbody very similar to this one. (One of our readers perfectly described it as a “Strat holding its fists up and flexing its muscles.”) A few of his friends asked him to build guitars for him, and his new career as a luthier was launched. G.L. Stiles never issued a catalog and instead made every guitar to order. At the time, there were essentially no sources for parts so Stiles had to pretty much fabricate everything himself, including the pickups. There is no accurate record of how many guitars Stiles built over the years, but it looks like he probably made over 1000 instruments including electric and acoustic guitars, banjos, mandolins, basses and steel guitars. Stiles started tapering off his building in the 1990s and focused instead on repairs and teaching lutherie. Although he was prolific for a solo builder, not many famous players used his guitars. , one of the original members of NRBQ, played one, and Tom Petty used to have Stiles work on his instruments when he lived in Florida."

    US sales only. Shipping costs have unfortunately gone up. The $125.00 is for the West Coast, contact me with your address and Zip Code before committing to buy and I will send you an exact  shipping quote with insurance, shipping to the East Coast and middle US locations will be somewhat less . Thank you.