Here’s a fine example of a short lived incarnation of the Gibson ES-330 in beautiful, largely unfaded, deep cherry red and one of two 1961 ES-330's we currently have in stock with consecutive serial numbers!
This version must be one of the last few Gibson made in 1962 before they changed over to block fingerboard markers and then slightly later, nickel covers.
It is in good condition with only a few dings and some sections of wear. There is a portion of lacquer worn through to the wood near the bridge and the back is worn in places (see pictures) but the body still retains that lush gloss finish. The lacquer has worn comfortably on the neck too.
Medium neck profile and not super skinny like they were in ‘61, the guitar has been refretted recently, an excellent job carried out by Jamie Swannell of Swannell Guitars. This has improved the playability of the guitar by quite a bit and was a most superb re-fret job.
Both original P-90’s have original windings and sound classic, strong and pretty evenly balanced. The pots are modern CTS replacements, and the original Sprague black beauty capacitors, selector switch and jack socket were still present. We rewired the whole harness using the correct two conductor shielding, tidied it up greatly and now the result is a classic sounding ‘62 ES-330 with smooth pots that work flawlessly and sounds real nice, like it should do!
The all original finish has no touch ups or overspray and of course there are no cracks or repairs anywhere, structural or otherwise. Even the headstock, usually the first thing to get a bit dog eared, is in amazingly fine condition with clean and sharp lines. The tuners, as you can see are all correct, the tips having been changed, the guitar having thankfully escaped and tuner changes over the years.
The hardware is in very nice, largely corrosion free condition and still has a lot of gleam to them.
It also happens to be one of the nicest we have had here from a playing perspective, all across and up and down the fingerboard it is a very easy instrument to play in any style.
Without a doubt, a very fine example of a stunning looking guitar that surely is a must have in any guitar collection…