🎸 Overview

The “1955” ES-345 Collector’s Edition from Gibson Custom Shop is a master-built, ultra-limited semi-hollow electric guitar — a lovingly crafted tribute to the instrument made famous in the film Back to the Future. Although the on-screen guitar appears in a 1955 setting, Gibson uses 1959-era ES-345 specs to recreate the tone, feel, and aesthetics of a vintage classic.

Only 88 instruments worldwide are produced — a direct nod to the “88 miles per hour” time-travel speed from the movie.

🧰 Construction & Materials

• Body: Thinline semi-hollow body built from a 3-ply maple/poplar/maple laminate, with a solid maple centerblock for enhanced sustain and controlled feedback — ideal for stage use and Bigsby vibrato.
• Finish: Hand-stained Cherry Red, aged by Gibson’s Murphy Lab to achieve the “Light Aged” look — giving it that played-in, vintage character.
• Neck: Mahogany neck with long-tenon set-neck joint, glued with hide glue for period-accurate resonance. The neck profile is 1961 Authentic Thin D-Shape — a comfortable and historically faithful vintage feel.
• Fingerboard: Bound rosewood fingerboard, 22 medium jumbo frets, with celluloid split-parallelogram inlays — and in a very rare detail, a single (solid) parallelogram inlay at the 12th fret, just like the film guitar.
• Hardware: Aged-gold hardware throughout, including a Bigsby ’59 B7 vibrato tailpiece (painted black, period-correct), ABR-1 no-wire bridge, Kluson tuners, black top-hat knobs — all contributing to a cohesive vintage aesthetic.

🎛 Electronics & Tone

• Pickups: Dual Custombucker humbuckers with Alnico III magnets, wound to replicate late-’50s PAF-style tone. These pickups are unpotted to preserve openness, warmth and dynamic response.
• Controls: Standard 2-volume / 2-tone control layout, with CTS 500K audio-taper potentiometers and paper-in-oil tone capacitors for vintage-accurate response.
• Varitone: A 6-position mono Varitone switch gives a broad tonal palette — from bright, clear cuts to warmer, jazzier or R&B-friendly tones.The semi-hollow body + centerblock + Custombuckers + vintage wiring combine to deliver a rich, versatile tone suitable for rock, blues, rockabilly, jazz — very faithful to what you’d expect from a classic late-’50s semi-hollow Gibson.

🎁 Collector Features & Presentation

• This model is built by hand in Nashville at Gibson Custom Shop. MusicRadar+1
• Limited to 88 units worldwide — exclusivity makes it a true collector’s piece.
• Each guitar ships with a Lifton hardshell case featuring Marvin Berry & The Starlighters graphics — a nod to the film’s fictional band — plus additional “case candy” (collectible items) that evoke the movie’s spirit.

🎬 Legacy & Story

The “1955” designation is a playful nod to the time-travel premise of Back to the Future — in the film, the guitar is used in a 1955 high school dance, even though the real model (ES-345) was not released until 1959.

With this Collector’s Edition, Gibson Custom Shop celebrates not only the film’s 40th anniversary, but also an iconic cinematic moment that fused rock ’n’ roll spirit with pop-culture mythology. The result is an instrument that doesn’t just play like a classic — it also tells a story.